How much do you really need?

I find that a lot of my client’s problems are a result of their inability to balance their sense of “what they need” with “what they want”. It’s hard to distinguish between those two things, especially if you are susceptible to the regular drip-feed of marketing and advertising that we are exposed to throughout our waking hours.

Just walking through your part of town, you’ll come across billboards next to the roads and at bus stops, enticing images in every shop window and on flyers. TV and radio shows are regularly interrupted by advertisements that have nothing whatsoever to do with the content of the show, you’ll be exposed to constant popups and hidden advertorials on your social media.

It has become more and more difficult to distinguish what’s social media content and what is trying to grab your attention and make you buy stuff… besides that, there are other elements at play here, like shopping addiction, peer pressure, and dare I say boredom?

Of course, this leaves many of us wanting MORE, especially if your possessions define who you are to a large degree. There is nothing wrong with wearing nice clothes and having interesting things, don’t get me wrong! The problem lies not so much in the fact that you own something, but that you own too much of it.

Let’s play with this for a moment! If you look at your wardrobe, how many of the clothes have you not worn for a long time? How many items do you keep because ‘you’ll wear them again one day’? How many have you only worn a handful of times?

My thoughts on this subject may sound radical: I’d rather have fewer items I wear regularly than a plethora of shirts that I’ll end up not wearing enough because my size changes, because they are out of style or because I don’t like them as much as others. Let’s face it: some items were bad buying choices, some don’t fit, some we want to keep for when we drop by 5 kilos again, etc.

Speaking for myself: my wardrobe is so small that I sometimes here people ask me how I can stick with so little? I’d argue that there is such a thing as a capsule wardrobe for both women AND men: choose some basic hardworking items and fluff them up with highlights like a single bright piece of clothing. Add a choice of jewellery, scarves, etc. and you can make those few standard pieces shine and look different each time. It’s easier and less space-hugging to have a change of highlight pieces than to have a large number of different outfits that stand on their own and are only used occasionally.

The classic example for this specific outlook is Steve Jobs. He wore the same outfit pretty much all the time – that’s not to say he wore the same trousers all the time, but that he had several of the same kind! And he didn’t even need to use highlight items beyond the occasional slideshow on the wall behind him…

It’s true that men in work tend to wear the same stuff anyway due to convention, but then there are exceptions to the rule. Women seem to feel that it’s necessary and expected to show up with a new item each time they make their way out of the house and this makes me wonder just how much of this idea is societal pressure and how much is really something women actively feel they want to do. There’s that distinction between “need to” and “want to” again…

If you have enjoyed reading this, you may find these other articles interesting:

• Limiting space
• Two of each is one too many
• Shopping spree