Melissa Browne: What do your online shopping habits say about you?

Last year I googled a few things my search history had not experienced before. They included:

• sequined boots
• cowboy boots
• sequined cowboy boots

and many different versions of the above…

Here’s the thing: I didn’t want sequined cowboy boots. But Taylor Swift was in town for The Eras Tour and after seeing the many Swifties dressing up in them in Melbourne, suddenly I had to have them.

After I attended her Sydney concert, I can safely say I would never wear a pair of sequined cowboy boots ever again. I should also mention that I was on a 30-day financial detox, which I do twice a year and meant I couldn’t buy any clothes, shoes or books for 30 days. Yet, I still googled.

What I experienced in that moment was something called mimetic desire. Mimetic desire means we make many of our choices not because we deeply desire something, but rather according to the desires and choices of others. It’s us learning, through imitation, to want the same things other people want.

Mimetic desire can be seen in everything from the thousands of Swifties buying sequined numbers on fast fashion sites (including a good friend I caught up with recently who was horrified she’d been sucked in and had bought something from Shein for the first time in her life) right through to the car you drive, whether you send your kids to private school, the bag you’re carrying, all the way through to the urge to run a marathon before you turn 40.

Mimetic desire has us unconsciously and consciously looking to others to help us understand what we value and what we think we want. My question to you is: are you being hijacked by mimetic desire? Are you basing purchasing decisions on what the herd are doing, what something on social media has posted, what that item signals to others about you or because it’s something you really value?

If you can’t quite picture who or what that might be, let me ask you some more questions:

• Have you ever followed someone on Instagram who is wearing an incredible outfit and suddenly you had to have it?
• Or maybe you’ve never cared about reality TV but suddenly everyone at your work is talking about it and you have an unnatural pull to watch it too?
• Or you’ve never thought too much about the restaurant down the road but now it has a hat, a Michelin star, or a foodie you follow has raved about it and suddenly it’s attractive to you?
• Or maybe you’re turning 30, 40, 50 or 60 this year and suddenly you realise you’ve always wanted to run a marathon (like your friends or others you know did when they turned a significant age)?

If you’ve answered yes to any of those questions, you’ve experienced mimetic desire. Now, that doesn’t mean it’s wrong. Instead, try questioning whether your purchasing decisions and your goals are being hijacked by what others want.

Just because society, your peers, your parents or your culture think you should want something, it doesn’t mean that it’s right for you. For example, I suspect if my parent’s wants were realised, I would still be married to my first husband with two children, working part-time and living around the corner from them. And I would be absolutely freaking miserable.

Instead, I’m once divorced, twice married and purposefully child-free. I live between a home in the Blue Mountains and an apartment in the city, I write, run my own businesses, give back and am financially independent. Now, that’s not to say I want all those choices for you too.

What I do want is for you to take the time to ask these questions (perhaps for the first time):

• What do you want?
• What possibilities excite you?

A better question might even be:

• What would you want if nobody was looking? It’s a scarier question. It’s a deeper question. It’s one that, if you can answer it honestly, is more exciting and more transformational.

Chances are, the first time you ask yourself these questions, your answer will be what you think you want, and what society, your peers, and your parents want for you. If you’re happy with that, and if that’s truly what you want, then amazing. If not, that’s OK too. Keep going until you get to the point where you start to get a little excited (and even scared) about what you’re daring to want.

Remembering that for too long we’re told, particularly as women, to play small, play safe, play smart. I believe that understanding what you really want and understanding what’s important forms the basis of great finances. That’s because it’s important to you, rather than being something you think you should have and you’ll be more likely to stick with the financial decisions that come next.

Take the time today to figure out what’s important to you. And just maybe, to dream for something that’s different or even more.