Every week you probably go to the shopping center and shop your way through your valuable spare time. We are taught by society and traditional politics that the more we buy, the more we consume, the happier and more successful we will be. This concept is outdated and needs to be reviewed.

Let me give you a great example. I often like to buy myself a new pair of Nike running shoes. I never really need them but somehow end up buying more pairs than I can wear. I thought about this subconscious decision that I consistently made and realised that the feeling of new shoes only lasted a few days.

After a couple of days, the good feeling the shoes gave me no longer existed. When you think about this scenario carefully I am sure you will come to the same conclusion; buying new things all the time only makes us happy for a short time but not in the long run.

For years, I went out every weekend and brought things that society told me would make me appear successful. I had the flashy car, new suit, expensive watch, nice deodorant, and yet I couldn’t have been more miserable.

Long-term success occurs when we are fulfilled and are achieving our life’s work not when we are shopping.

Below are seven reasons why I believe shopping is killing your success:

1. It’s distracting you from your purpose

Whatever your purpose is in life shopping is distracting you from achieving it. Shopping takes up space in your mind that needs to be reserved for important things like how you are going to change the world with your vision.

Shopping causes little impulses in the brain to continuously fire off and take you away from what you should be doing. Your to do list becomes out of control because shopping can take over what your mind perceives to be important. You start thinking to yourself, “I can’t go out tonight, I have worn this shirt before and I need a new pair of shoes.”

You don’t need anything new at all.

“You need to forget about what others think of your possessions and start thinking about the small amount of time you have on this planet to do something that you will be remembered for, long after you are not around anymore to shop like the other zombies”

2. It’s taking up your time

Your success is exterminated when you allow time to slip away. Success requires lots of time to achieve the goals necessary to make you fulfilled. From the outside, shopping seems like it doesn’t take a long time, but it does.

Time can be wasted trying items out (like clothes), returning items that are faulty, parking the car in the shopping centres endless car parks, and by eating food at the shopping centre. You’re probably wondering why I brought up food at the shopping centre in relation to time.

The reason is that not only do the bright lights and nice smells at the shopping centre make you shop, they also make you hungry too. This usually results in you eating on of the many junk food options available at the shopping centre which can suck more of your time.

The real time is wasted though until you return home and have no energy left because of all the sugar you consumed while shopping. Typically, you then say to yourself “I’ll have a sleep and then do my to-do list tomorrow.

The problem with this is that tomorrow never comes, and you get distracted with some other useless exercise that won’t help you on your journey of success.

3. It’s wasting your precious money supply

The one resource you have that can buy back some of your time is money. Money can allow you to work less and spend more time on your dream. Shopping interrupts this harmony though because it sucks what money you have into useless items you don’t need.

Have you ever walked into a shopping centre to buy one thing and then come out with a whole bunch of stuff you don’t need? It’s happened to all of us. The reason it happens is because the shopping centres are laid out in such a way that they play havoc on your impulses and urges.

If you allow shopping to control you, then your money will go flying out your wallet without you even realising it. This money is what you can use to buy things that help you with your dream like a website or some training in a particular field.

4. Addictive traps compound the problem further

Not only does shopping waste your time but the problem is compounded further through addictive traps such as: perceived sales and discounts, and loyalty cards. The first thing to understand is that 90% of the time nothing is on sale and the price has just been marked up to retail, and then discounted back again to the true selling price.

I see some items in the supermarket that are on sales every week. How can that be? Simple, the supermarket has hit their next volume tier in pricing for that particular item, and rather than permanently decreasing the price, they make you feel weekly that it’s on special – it’s not.

Loyalty cards are another doozy. The purpose of a loyalty card is to collect your information and then analyse your spending patterns. Once the shop knows what you are buying, they can increase prices of what consumers buy the most of, and then offer two for one type specials to make you spend more.

You’re smarter than this. Don’t let your brain be manipulated by these very simple, psychological tricks.

5. It’s clogging up your house

Without realising it, shopping is clogging up your house with lots of extra stuff you don’t need. Most of the things you buy, statistically speaking, will hardly ever be used. This means that most of the junk in your house is psychologically making you feel stressed, and your mind cluttered.

6. It’s creating more housework

As well as clogging up your house, shopping is making your house messier. The more things you buy, the less space you will have in your home. Your mind will do its best and want you to clean constantly to free up space, but most likely, if you let shopping take over, you will never have the space you need to feel relaxed.

Then, the more items you have in the home, the harder and more time it takes to clean your house. Shopping creates a pattern of failure that you have to avoid at all costs. Go shopping once in a while but reframe from doing it weekly (other than the basic food supplies).

7. It’s making you unhappy and ungrateful

As success is sucked away from your life through society’s burden on you with this whole shopping lie, at the same time, you will become unhappier and more ungrateful. When you act from a place of gratitude you feel like you already have everything you need.

You feel like you are lucky to even have a car, which stops you from going and changing your car every five years like most people. The less shopping you do the happier you will start to feel. With shopping, there is no end; you will never have everything you need, or the greatest or latest of every item. That’s the whole game my friends and that’s why you need to avoid the addiction of shopping.

What are your thoughts on shopping? How does what I’ve said make you feel? Let me know in the comments section below or on my website timdenning.net or my Facebook.

Image courtesy of Twenty20.com