Man

Image by Schäferle from Pixabay

This is part of my series on Decluttering Mental Models.

In ninth grade, I enrolled in first-year Spanish. I dreamt of flawlessly conversing with native speakers in their home country. So I went to Barnes & Noble, found the foreign language section, and browsed through the options. There were study guides and grammar books and phrasebooks. In my excitement, I bought one of each. I imagined that I was well on my way to becoming fluent.

But I wasn’t.

After two years of Spanish, I signed up for Japanese. And nothing changed. I bought a grammar book and a kanji guide to help me become fluent. I imagined myself becoming proficient and even learning to like fish.

But I didn’t.

In both cases, I created an aspirational identity. I’d be a multilingual globetrotter who taught others about language acquisition. Buying books felt like movement toward that goal. (Serious language learners always buy books!) But material reality was another matter: I wasn’t ready to invest hundreds of personal study hours, especially while taking AP classes and preparing for the ACT. So my pile of books collected dust. Two decades later, I finally see that my purchases were just fuel for a fantasy. Nothing more.

I have a hard time learning from history (especially my own!), and so the same thing repeated itself in college. I had a roommate who spoke Italian and a friend from Quebec, so naturally, I bought a textbook on first-year Italian and a book on French grammar. I was nowhere near fluent in Spanish or Japanese, but this time would be different! I’d master French and Italian (at the same time!) because, in my mind, there were no obstacles. No limits on what I could do. (Cue the motivational poster with a soaring eagle and a caption that says, “You can do anything!”) But reality didn’t match my fantasy world. I had no time to learn two languages while taking a full course load. Nor did I have the discipline to stick with a self-directed goal for more than ten minutes.

I created an aspirational identity—a language polyglot!—and fed it with vocabulary books and study guides and CD courses.

Aspirational identities pop up in numerous other places, too. Whenever I watch a Jason Bourne movie, I want to learn Krav Maga and Google local dojos. Anytime I watch spy movies, I think about how cool it would be to be a covert agent, and I add spy gadgets to my Amazon wish list.

In “Building a StoryBrand,” Donald Miller discusses how Gerber uses aspirational identity to sell expensive knives. In a Gerber video ad, men do outdoorsy things with a voiceover, “Hello trouble. It’s been a while since we last met. But I know you’re still out there. And I have a feeling you’re looking for me.” This ad does a fantastic job selling knives to men who frankly don’t need them.

So be mindful of your aspirations and your purchases. Do you really need a $150 camping knife that cuts fish and carves wood? Do you really need a stack of Spanish textbooks? Will these move you closer to a goal? Or are you just fueling one of your many aspirational identities?

More Decluttering Mental Models:

Top 10 Favorites

  1. How I answer the question: “What if I need this later?”
  2. “The Container strategy” will simplify your decluttering
  3. Selling clothes is for suckers (unless you earn $15/hour)
  4. Wait 48 hours before buying stuff
  5. 21 questions to ask before you buy
  6. The radical way to measure wealth, part 1 and part 2
  7. We’re trained to be dissatisfied with what we have (and how to fix this)
  8. Clear clutter by zoning your home
  9. How screen time kills your motivation to declutter
  10. Dear car dealers: I don't want a "free" T-shirt with your logo

Get started

  1. Clear clutter by zoning your home
  2. How I answer the question: “What if I need this later?”
  3. “The Container strategy” will simplify your decluttering
  4. Hold each item and ask, “Does this spark joy?”
  5. When the “Does this Spark Joy?” fails you, ask these 6 questions
  6. Create your “Discard by Feb. 2022” box
  7. Decluttering yearbooks? Ask these 8 questions first

Shopping

  1. 21 questions to ask before you buy
  2. Wait 48 hours before buying stuff - version 1 and version 2
  3. How a grocery shopping list saves me time, money, and pounds

Manage your clothes

  1. Selling clothes is for suckers (unless you can earn $15/hour)
  2. Dear Dude with too many T-shirts: no one wants to buy them—just recycle/trash them
  3. Don't be like my friend Giorgio with his 400 Hawaiian shirts
  4. None of my clothes "spark joy"—so what do i get rid of?

Happiness & satisfaction

  1. Limit pleasurable things so they don’t lose their novelty
  2. We’re trained to be dissatisfied with what we have (and how to fix this)
  3. Craving never stops and my potato chip addiction
  4. Reminder: happiness levels stay consistent

Get motivated

  1. Want to boost your motivation to declutter? Immerse yourself in decluttering videos, podcasts, & books!
  2. How screen time kills your motivation to declutter
  3. Imagine your ideal home… Imagine all the clutter is gone…
  4. Feeling unmotivated? Declutter with a 5-minute time box

Manage your money

  1. The radical way to measure wealth, part 1 and part 2
  2. Save money by controlling aspirational identities
  3. I wasted so much money starting projects (and how I fixed it)

Manage consumption spirals

  1. How consumption spirals work
  2. Buying a house led to an enormous consumption spiral
  3. How craving completeness drives my consumption

Shift your Paradigm

  1. Change your environment, change your consumption
  2. 3 thought experiments to adopt a decluttering mindset
  3. Your home is not a storage unit for other people's crap!
  4. Before you buy stuff, do this little mental exercise
  5. Less space, less stuff
  6. That’s right, you and I pay for the privilege of seeing viagra ads
  7. Your home is an expensive container for your stuff. What’s your cost per sqft?

Manage your emotions

  1. Can you tolerate boredom?
  2. Fill the void with a long term goal

Control the Clutter

  1. Dear car dealers: I don't want a "free" T-shirt with your logo