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How the Sedona Method Helps You in Challenging Financial Times

Impulse Buying No More: How Not to Waste Your Money on Stuff You Don’t Need
by www.sedona.com

“We are all programmed to be consumers as opposed to simply being ourselves,” says Hale Dwoskin, CEO and director of training of Sedona Training Associates. “This programming makes us feel like we are not enough, we do not have enough and we need more to be happy and complete. If you stop and notice how you feel now about the things you thought you must have right now, even recently, you will find that they did not bring you the happiness that you were looking for and you feel no more complete.”

This doesn’t stop us from grabbing a new DVD as we stroll through the mall, splurging on a pair of jeans that fit “perfectly” or leaving the grocery store with a cart packed to the brim with items not on our grocery list.

We’re living in a culture where impulse buying is not only the norm, it’s encouraged. Marketers are paid big bucks to get you to part with your money, and often their subtle yet oh-so-tempting displays work.

This is coupled with the emotional factors driving us to spend in the first place. We buy things to distract us, to make us feel better, to stave off boredom http://www.sedona.com/bored.aspx, even to make ourselves happy or less lonely. And a lot of it has to do with pure impulsivity.

What’s Wrong With a Little Impulsivity?

Is splurging on a new pair of shoes or an upgraded digital camera really such a bad thing? Before you make your mind up, consider the Stanford Marshmallow Study.

In the 1960s, a Stanford University psychology researcher Michael Mischel conducted an innovative study. He offered a group of 4-year-olds a marshmallow … but said they could have two marshmallows if they waited for him to return from an errand. Those children who were able to control impulse and show some self-control clearly made out better in the end, but it turns out they got a lot more than just an extra marshmallow.

Moving ahead about 14 years, Mischel caught up with the children after they graduated high school and here’s what he found: the children who waited were more:

• Positive
  
• Self-motivating
  
• Persistent in overcoming difficulties
  
• Able to delay gratification so they could achieve goals

The children who did NOT wait, however, were more:

• Troubled
  
• Stubborn
  
• Indecisive
  
• Insecure
  
• Mistrustful
  
• Unable to delay gratification

Not surprisingly, this latter set of traits also suggests unsuccessful marriages, low job satisfaction, low income and more frustration with life in general. So when you look at impulse buying, and its ability to sabotage your financial health, in this light, it becomes less glamorous, to say the least.

Getting to the Bottom of Impulse Buying

Being able to delay gratification becomes a lot easier when you address the emotional roots that drive us to make most purchases. In short, we buy things because we think they’ll make us happy.

“The best way to break the impulse-buying pattern is to challenge it right when it occurs by asking yourself, ‘Do I truly need this in order to be happy and complete?’ In most cases you will see that you don’t and you will immediately feel more in control of your impulse to buy something that you will later regret,” Dwoskin says.

“If you feel like you do need it to be complete or happy simply release this feeling as best you can using The Sedona Method and then ask again until you no longer feel like you need the item right now,” he continues.

Even after releasing, you may still buy the item. Other times you will refrain. But the most important thing to remember, Dwoskin points out, is that either way the more you release the more you will feel better and notice the tendency toward excess dropping away.

Sources

Parent’s Choice

WebMD.com