Pro Tip for a guilt-free Black Friday Shopping Spree

Yesterday Americans were celebrating Thanksgiving and since - according to Buzzsprout my podcast host - 56% of my listeners are located in America I felt I wanted to release a special episode to say thank you  

But even if you are not located in America but maybe are part of the 19% in Canada or the 17% in Europe, or the 2% in Asia or Australia 

A heartfelt Thank You! for listening to my podcast, it means a lot to me. I also want to thank again all the guests I had on this year, I made some pretty amazing connections and learned from each and every one of them. 

And because this is a special weekend in a special year, I too have something special that I want to tell you about, kind of a Black Friday deal, but you bet it's a different kind of Black Friday deal - so please stay tuned to the end. 

Because first I'd like to talk about the discount frenzy that is going on right now.  For a lot of people, business owners and consumers alike, the most important days are happening after Thanksgiving … from Black Friday to Cyber Monday. As you might know, I am also in finance and I know there are businesses that rely on these last 3-4 weeks of a year to reach their revenue goals - how stressful that must be. This year, due to the pandemic, I noticed a lot of the sale frenzy started already beginning of the month of November and even more moved into the online space. 

It almost looks like consumers expect an awesome Black Friday and Cyber Monday deal from any business owners, and we ourselves could get caught up in the belief that we have to be part of the discount race otherwise we don’t serve our customers well.

But not everyone is participating, I actually always loved the message from Thrive Themes a company that sells Conversion Focused WordPress Themes & Plugins. Ever since I found them for the first time in November 2018, and as far as I can tell to this day, they are still sticking to their policy of not doing any seasonal sales for their products and services, not even on Black Friday or Cyber Monday. 

Shane Melaugh, the co-founder of Thrive Themes explains this decision with fairness to his existing clients so they don’t feel betrayed and have buyer’s remorse. I love that and agree with him. 

I do find it very unfair when new customers get awesome deals while existing loyal clients are explicitly excluded (often seen for phone and internet plans).

Also, I wouldn't be Conny your favourite clutter clearing muse if I wouldn't address here what often happens when we fall for big discounts and marketing tactics any time of the year but especially during the Black Friday & Cyber Monday frenzy

Often what happens is, that what we buy on sale, out of impulse, to feel we are part of it too, or to cover up emotions, those items often contribute to the clutter that we already have. Those items we often don't need, they were not intentionally purchased, we fell for the loud marketing, and trust me, I'm not perfect this had happened to me too in the past. 

This is how cluttered homes happen and have become more and more a problem. 

Statistics show that the average size of the North American home has almost tripled in size over the past 50 years. But that’s not all because 1 out of every 10 people also rent additional offsite storage just to store their stuff that they don't love anymore and don't use anymore. 

The average person owns 300,000 items and we are connected mentally and energetically to everything we own. It takes energy to have all this stuff and to clean and take care of all this stuff. 

Now I am not going to be the party-pooper here. If you go out and intentionally buy something, maybe you waited specifically for these Black Friday deals to take advantage of a generous discount, and of course assuming that you have the money available without putting yourself into debt, or not paying essentials on time, then by all means, go for it. 

And I want to offer you my special free-of-charge, 100% discount, Black Friday and Cyber Monday tip for a guilt-free shopping spree, and it goes like this: 

oh and before I say my tip, it's actually a recycled tip, I mentioned this one before on the podcast, it's one of my favourite and most painless decluttering tips I have in my repertoire LOL

Ok so here we go: 

For every item that you buy this weekend, and this holiday season, well let's just say from now on, you let go of one item that you haven’t used in a long time or that you don’t love anymore. 

Again, I talked about this tip in other episodes, this is really the most painless decluttering tactic and tip there is. It's one thing out to get one thing in. 

If you wanted to go one step further, especially if you have a little more clutter at home than you'd like, you can do a bit more ‘painless’ clutter clearing by adapt this tip to the following maxim:

When something new comes in, two or three old things go out. 

This is quickly done, in just a few minutes, and in episode 4 called My 3 key principles for successful decluttering I have a fun 5-minute decluttering session included, 

You could play that episode for entertainment while deciding which 2 or 3 items you are going to let go off, or alternatively you can play any of my other podcast episodes for that matter. 

Don't overdo it, I would stick to 3 items max or 5 minutes of decluttering, you want it to be a painless and positive experience. 

And ideally I suggest you declutter before you go out and buy something new: make space first and then bring new things home. 

It still works even if you do the letting go after you bought something new, as long as you really do it. 

And this is the perfect moment to tell you about that something special I have for you that I mentioned at the beginning. Yes, it's kind of my version of a Black Friday / Cyber Monday Deal. I am a business owner after all. 

For a while already I wanted to do something like this since 2020 is my year of being 'courageous' I decided to take the advice of my guest from episode 35 to heart. 

That episode was with Jessica Coulthard and called Take a leap. So O do that, I take the leap, put my perfectionist tendencies to the side and just act on my idea and see what happens. Here it goes. 

I am starting the From Chaos to Peace Accountability Program for people who want to make space in their life and business, who know what they want and need to do, but often find themselves just not doing it. They find themselves procrastinating, just like I do sometimes. 

What I offer you with this is simply Accountability, because research shows, that even with the smallest amount of accountability to someone else, we are more likely to do what we actually want to do. 

Accountability

• gives you more clarity because you tell someone about it, better still you will be writing it down, which some scientific studies show increases the likelihood that you will achieve it
• It increases our commitment to ourselves and to what we want to do. 
• An accountability partner is a sounding board and sees things differently, you profit from their perspective
• And you have a cheerleader that will celebrate with you when you reach your goals

So this is what I came up with, a simple, email only, accountability program, 

The Form Chaos to Peace Accountability Program

click here for details