One of the best parts of Project 333 is that you are released from your shopping addiction or casual shopping habit for 3 whole months. Once you define your capsule wardrobe and decide what you’ll be wearing, you don’t have to think about …
- your favorite sales
- buy one, get one deals
- special offers
- email discounts and advertising from shopping sites
- corporate newsletters
- rewards cards
- coveting the sunglasses your friend is wearing
- window shopping
- climbing credit card debt
- buyer’s remorse
Now all of that energy you directed towards shopping and buying new stuff can be redirected to what really matters in your life. Now that shopping is out, anything you really want is in.
- Write a book.
- Start a blog.
- Move across the country.
- Read a book.
- Connect with a long-lost friend.
- Start a savings account.
- Insert what you want here.
So what do you want?
That’s the big question. What do you really want? Pre-Project 333, I didn’t shop for clothes because I needed more clothes. Believe me, I had plenty. Instead I shopped because I wanted to feel a certain way.
I bought jeans that made me feel skinny, dresses that made me feel flirty, and heels that made me feel powerful. Advertisers convinced me that I’d feel everything I wanted to feel if I came home with something new. And I did feel that way, for about five minutes. And then I felt crappy for spending money on another black dress or pair of shoes.
I didn’t see my shopping motivations this clearly until I stopped shopping. I knew I shopped to feel better when things went wrong, or to treat myself because I deserved something new for working so hard, but I didn’t know that I was trying to buy something that is not for sale.
How to figure out what you really want
Project 333 and dressing with less helped me curb my shopping habits. Getting rid of the clutter, excess, and all the things that were distracting me, made room to figure out what I wanted. I wanted freedom. Freedom from the things that weighed me down, and freedom to want what I wanted and time to do what it took to get it, and enjoy and appreciate it.
At the end of last year I spent a day with Danielle LaPorte’s Desire Map. I used it to define what I really want and how I want to feel. Now I do things that genuinely contribute to those feelings. I am guided by what I want to feel, not what I’m supposed to feel and definitely not what advertisers tell me to feel.
The Desire Map will help you determine how you want to feel. Through a series of exercises, you’ll discover and identify your core desired feelings.
Reading The Desire Map shook my soul, lifted me up, and revealed that I wanted so much more than I’ve been willing to ask for. I resonated with so much of this book, but three thoughts stuck with me. I wrote them in my 2014 planner and think of them daily.
- Be anchored to the desired feeling, and open to the form in which it manifests.
- You can feel light when someone else is heavy. You can feel confident when things go sideways.
- If you have to step outside of yourself, away from your values and soul to get your needs met, then you’re not really going to get your needs met.
When you are connected to your core desired feelings instead of external triggers, you don’t have to prove your worth, prove your love, prove your work, or prove one more thing to one more person. When you stop proving, you can stop waiting for someone else to tell you that you are good enough. You can stop worrying about what other people think about what you do, what you want and who you are.
Today, I still occasionally buy clothes, but I shop for gaps in my wardrobe and not for a feeling or because I think I deserve it. Now I think I deserve so much more, like feeling the way I want to feel.
Let the Desire Map help you determine what you want, take a break from clothes shopping and remember that you’ll never find something to wear that makes you feel beautiful, smart, or loved if you don’t believe that you already are.
