Why Smart Women Podcast
Welcome to the Why Smart Women Podcast, hosted by Annie McCubbin. We explore why women sometimes make the wrong choices and offer insightful guidance for better, informed decisions. Through engaging discussions, interviews, and real-life stories, we empower women to harness their intelligence, question their instincts, and navigate life's complexities with confidence. Join us each week to uncover the secrets of smarter decision-making and celebrate the brilliance of women everywhere.
Why Smart Women Podcast
Emma went a year without buying clothes! What is going on here? Pt.2
We explore how quiet, steady change can break the shopping dopamine loop, reduce bias-driven choices, and build a wardrobe that reflects who we really are. Emma Edwards shares tools for metacognition, enoughness, and outfit repeating without fear while keeping values in view.
• recognising present bias, urgency bias and loss aversion in shopping
• exposure therapy for desire and “empty the cart” tactics
• buying possibility versus getting reality
• outfit repeating, the spotlight effect and reframing enoughness
• distinguishing joy from “should” in beauty and fashion
• habits for health without consumer triggers
• sustainability that follows once the dopamine fog lifts
• building a wardrobe for longevity, fit and frequent wear
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You are listening to the Why Smart Women Podcast, the podcast that helps smart women work out why we physically make the wrong decisions and how to make better ones. From relationships, career choices, finances, to photo jackets and tail smoothies. Every moment of every day, we're making decisions. Let's make a good ones. I'm your host, and you're the companion. And as a woman of the turkey, I've made my own chairs really bad decisions. And I wish this podcast has been around to take me from myself. This podcast will give you insights into the working of your own brain, which will blow your mind. Always was, always will be, Aboriginal land. Hello and welcome back to the Why Smart Women podcast. This is part two of my interview with Emma Edwards and her fascinating book, The Wardrobe Project. If you haven't listened to part one, I strongly suggest you do because it provides context for this second episode. Enjoy. So if that's sort of why we do it, how do we how do we stop? How do we overcome the cognitive biases? Because I know we we talked about the fact that of course there's a there's a big financial impact, right, on not constantly shopping. But we do know that um having a sense of you in the future is what you need to do in order to um save, eat properly, look after yourself in whatever context. And yet we also know that when we think about our future selves, the part of the brain that fires off is the part of the brain that lights up when we think about strangers. So your future self, as you try and think about it, is a stranger. And we certainly with me when I think about spending money, um, it's certainly a stranger that I don't think I don't care, I don't care much about. So that the the sense of immediacy of present of the bias around present focus is very much in play. I can feel it in myself when I walk past a shop and I see something I like. So the sense of present bias is very much with me. So how do we counter that?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, the first thing it comes down to for me is recognizing that change is not going to be this big crescendo moment like we see in the movies. We have been sold this idea that, you know, it's in all of the, it's in so many movies where a woman undergoes a makeover or a transformation and there's a big kind of montage. Sure. And then afterwards, when she supposedly has all these feelings of confidence and everything is better, it happens really, really quickly and it's the flip of a switch. Yep. When we actually recognize that change is a bit like I talked about when I realized my body image was was better than it had ever been, it was quiet. Change isn't actually loud, change isn't these big, massive shifts. It's really, really subtle differences in the way that you see yourself.
SPEAKER_01:Listeners are used to the fact that yo-yo often has a bit of a bark. So I hope that that didn't disturb anybody's concentration too much. But do do go on. Yeah, these of course, that the change you're saying is is gradual and quiet.
SPEAKER_00:Change is quiet, and I always thought that change would be loud. I thought I would wake up one day and like myself. I would wake up one day and feel confident, or I would do one thing, or buy one thing, or change one thing about myself, and then I'd feel confident. So recognizing that that was an unhelpful expectation was one thing. The second thing for me was breaking down the difference in what I thought I was buying and what I was actually getting. What do you mean by that? Before I talked about that possibility that is held within every new piece of clothing, every time we strive to be the fantastic self, we strive to get the positive feeling. What I recognized when I started to understand the patterns in my wardrobe and the commonalities in those stories were all of the times I'd been buying something that I actually wasn't getting. That made me realize where, you know, we say we're disconnected from our fantasy selves. That actually, rather than trying to explicitly connect with the with the future self, it actually kind of taught me the ways I was robbing my present self. We think we're choosing our present selves, but the present self isn't really getting anything either in this scenario. We we think, oh, I'm I'm robbing my future self of this money because I'm that person's a stranger to me and I'm gonna be able to do that.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, yeah, but it's a trick anyway. It's a trick, it's a ruse.
SPEAKER_00:Nobody's winning in this situation. Yeah, we're getting a hit of dopamine, but it's not really lasting.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. It's the hedonic adaptation.
SPEAKER_00:It's just it's just it's it's all just hopeless, really, isn't it? So that sort of bridged that middle bit for me of hang on, all of these things that I think I'm doing for myself now, I'm not actually getting.
SPEAKER_01:But you would have had to have actually had that thought while you're stand while you're either about to online shop and say, you know, put it in the basket, or you're standing in the shop with your hand on the coat hanger. So you would have had to have actually intervened, you would have had to use metacognition, which is thinking about your thinking in that moment.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. So I did what I called exposure therapy throughout the year, where I would browse online or go into stores and look at things on the you know, people go, Oh my god, you're a masochist. And no, I get that.
SPEAKER_01:I I actually get that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think that I feel better for when we came through a shop. I do. I do too. And what I was trying to do in the year was change the way that I bought and understand why I was doing this. And you know, you and I were in the we're in the business of examining behavior. So I wanted to go into the store and meet that feeling of wanting to buy something, of wanting to have something. Because we do a lot of this work around spending outside of that feeling of desire, outside of that emotional flooding. Yeah, yeah, of course. And I thought, yeah, it's all very easy to go, yeah, when I see things I want, I'm just not gonna buy them. But I wanted to go in there and sort of get my little imaginary petri dish and put that feeling that comes up when I see something pretty that I want to buy. I wanted to grab onto it and have a little look under a microscope. So I would do this. I would go into stores and I would find things that made me want to buy them. Yeah, yeah. And think, right, what um what is my brain telling me here? What conclusions is my brain jumping to?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Then, because I'm nothing if not a stubborn bitch who was committed to the challenge with my whole heart, I would walk away from the shop and not buy it. And then I would observe what would happen after that. And as time went on, were those stories my brain was telling me true? No. Was all of the weight that I put onto that thing, all of the ways I told myself that this thing was so great, did I still care about it in a week's time? No. All of the ways I would tell myself it's unique, I might not find anything else like it. And that's would I find something else the next day? Yes, I always did.
SPEAKER_01:The urgency bias, of course, and you know, loss aversion, loss aversion is absolutely huge. And of course, they absolutely plug into that with you know, if you the brain is very attuned to the the sense of urgency and the sense of lack. So this is the only time I'm going to be able to buy that particular burgundy skirt that has that nice satin finish on a bias cut because there will never in the whole history of the world be another one like it. And I'll tell you what thinking that goes through my mind is I deal with corporate clients, and I say to myself, I can't turn up in something that's, you know, I've had on before. Oh, right. And also that people are looking at me and evaluating how successful I am, yeah, you know, by the quality of the clothes that I wear. And that's just also a lie, is that post-rationalizing?
SPEAKER_00:It's funny you say about the um the wearing things again. This is a really big thing for people, um, not wanting to be seen to outfit repeat. It's all that, it's all that conditioning from celebrities that were mocked for it in the in the magazines and media that would criticize women for wearing the same thing again. But I have a whole sort of reflection in the book having outfit repeated exclusively for an entire year. I now see But did people notice?
SPEAKER_01:No, because I think that my clients would go, oh my god, what is she wearing? She wore that two Wednesdays ago.
SPEAKER_00:No, I really kind of reframed it for myself. One in that people don't notice as much as we think that they do because we notice ourselves so much more.
SPEAKER_01:That's the spotlight effect.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Right? We're so exquisitely involved in our own reality, we think everybody else must be deeply engaged in what's going on for us. But of course, everybody is incredibly self-centered.
SPEAKER_00:Exactly. They're worrying about whether you can tell what they wore last Wednesday. Yeah, and I can't. I can't. Absolutely, yeah. That's absolutely right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. But the other kind of aspect of it was as I did start to find things that I loved, and as I did have to, you know, I also do workshops, presentations, speaking events, uh, book launches, that kind of thing, I did have to outfit repeat and wear the same thing as I, you know, had less options to wear. And especially even now where I'm building out my wardrobe very mindfully based on who I really am, rather than this fantasy self, because I had this wardrobe of artifacts of everything I wasn't. And I kind of developed this feeling of what a privilege it is to have something I love so much that I'm happy to wear again and again and again. What a privilege it is. It's a really lovely way of thinking of it because now, where previously I would go, oh, I've got an event to go to. That's an excuse to buy a new outfit. Yay! Now I go, I've got an event to go to. I cannot wait to wear that orange dress. And I'm actually outfit repeating at the book launch for the wardrobe project with the dress I wore to the release of my last book because I love that dress so much and what a privilege it is to wear it again. Wow.
SPEAKER_01:It's it's not I have to wear that again, it's I get to wear that again.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Right? And that's a really, really good reframe. And I think you talk about enoughness.
SPEAKER_00:Enoughness is a big theme of the book, and I realize this sort of connection between not feeling like we have enough clothes, being linked to not feeling like we are enough in ourselves. 100%. And I think that feeling of changing my body image during the year came down to the fact that doing the challenge, the very nature of committing to it, was me saying, I have enough. I can get through the year without more.
SPEAKER_01:And I really like I because I've got a really a big button for me is all the palava about self-love. I really don't like it. I think it's unattainable. I don't know what it means. I wouldn't know what that felt like. And I think it's just another thing that we can fail at.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um, you know, I don't have enough self-love and I've got to sit on an ashram and triggering, I don't know what I have to do, drink mink tea or something. So um drives me crazy. So I I I always say, you know, you know, just you know, on some days, just like yourself enough. And maybe that's okay.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Let's not give ourselves yet another unattainable goal of achieving self-love because no one really knows what it is. And life is full of ups and downs and you know, upheavals, and you're going to feel different on any given day, yeah?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and you know, you can't take the fish out of water. The the standards that we're surrounded by are still there. We can't, you know, we're still surrounded by all of these standards, we're still surrounded by women being criticized, we're still surrounded by, you know, the reality that people that are more conventionally attractive earn more and do better in job interviews and are seen to be more trustworthy and more social. All of those human biases are still there. So we still, we can't shame ourselves for having to, you know, play play the game in the arena that that we're in. You know, we we it's one thing to go, oh, just love yourself. You don't have to wear makeup. But if you've got a job interview tomorrow and you think, oh, I should probably put a bit of makeup on, of course you're gonna put a bit of makeup on.
SPEAKER_01:We exist in a world that has, you know, whether or not the expectations are realistic or not, the expectations are there. We live in contexts that are bigger than us. So it is ridiculous to say it doesn't matter what you look like, because yes, it does, because we know that we make blindingly quick decisions on who the person is within about one second of meeting them, which are probably replete with cognitive biases. You know, whether or not you can make a decision on whether or not you trust somebody or like somebody within a couple of seconds after knowing absolutely nothing about them because you're just going through the back blocks of your brain and pulling out similar um qualities, right? So we live in this very biased, quick thinking world. So we have to do the best we can. Absolutely, you know, but within that, we also then layer that up with unrealistic expectations that we have put on ourselves that are actually not connected to the externals. Do you agree?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think that we do. I think that um I mentioned in the book how chasing standards can sometimes become a comfort zone. Obviously, comfort zones are all about familiarity, not necessarily. What do you mean by that? Well, comfort zones are things that are familiar, and I think sometimes feeling like we're not good enough and rolling the dice on the next fix that will make us good enough becomes almost an addiction. Um, I was definitely, definitely in that space with my body, you know, anything that I could do, or with my confidence, really, anything that I could do to fix it, that thrill of the possibility and the potential change almost became something that was more, almost became something that I was more attached to than ever just than just accepting myself and letting go of the standards. What I've done since is, you know, as we say, we do the best we can. It's not about saying just love yourself and don't wear makeup. But something I've been thinking about a lot since the project and and just in my life in general, both with clothes and with beauty and overall presentation, is I try and be really wary of how much of it is really for me and how much of it is purely because I think that I should. Because when I wear makeup, yes, there's a huge standard to that. Or when I put on a nice outfit, there's a big part of it that's me living up to a standard. But at the same time, there's a co-benefit that I do love that dress, or I do love playing with my orange eyeshadows. There's a, there is something in it for me. I do get some joy out of that. Whereas when it comes to, you know, everybody my age is getting Botox at the moment. And I thought, well, I guess I'm gonna have to get Botox then. And then I thought I thought about it and I thought no part of me wants to go and do this. I'm doing it because I feel like I should. And for me, that's the defining line. If I don't get anything out of it for myself, and especially this work I've done on coming home to myself and liking myself, I don't do it.
SPEAKER_01:So you interrogate what you're doing, because so many of these decisions come out of the limbic system, right? And then we just post-rationalise it in the prefrontal cortex. So, what it seems you're doing is when you have some of these thoughts that appear to come out of the emotional part of your brain, you're really interrogating them and putting them through a filter of why am I doing this? Am I doing this because of societal expectations, because I'm caught up in some patriarchal notion of what I should look like, or am I doing it because I want to? You know, I notice you've got really nice nails.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So that makes you happy, right?
SPEAKER_00:I love it because it's my orange colour. However, if I went in there and they said, Oh, we haven't got your orange this week, well, I'm not getting them done. Because I'm not doing it to have nice nails. I'm doing it because I think that I should, it makes me more kept. I'm doing it because I love to have my orange nails.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I I really I I sort of get that. Yeah, it's very interesting. Tell me, did you do just within the whole managing your body um uh expectations, did you do a whole lot of yo-yo dieting?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that back in the day I did, yeah. Yeah, and honestly, I would say up until really the year of the project, only since I did the year have I genuinely not had intentions of losing weight for aesthetic purposes. And I recognized that during the year. In I think September of the year I didn't buy clothes, I went back to the gym because there was a gym near me and they had nice classes and things. And for the first time, I was going because I enjoyed it, and I was going because it was good for my health to go. Yeah. I it was the first time I could genuinely say that I wasn't body checking or hoping that weight would just miraculously fall off. I'd gone for health before and fitness before, but there'd always been that oh imagine if we lose loads of weight. Imagine if I lost 10 kilos. Yeah, or you know, when you get a new medication, you think, oh fuck, imagine if the side effect was weight. Oh, imagine that. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was the first time I hadn't experienced that, and that really has stuck. And I think that's because it was a year. This wasn't a month-long thing, you know. A year is a really long time.
SPEAKER_01:It that that is a long time to apply yourself to something. Yeah, yeah. I was just as soon as you know what, as soon as you mentioned the gym, because I I regularly I go every morning, which is it's an interesting don't praise me. Um, it's it's nothing to do with willpower. Um, I'm in a habit, and as we know, it's it's like you're not shopping, you get into a habit, and also it's the way I manage anxiety. And so if if I I don't go, I'm I'm more anxious, so that's why I do it. But as you were talking, as you were talking, I was going, Oh, gee, you know, I really do need another pair of leggings because um oh, I've done I've got three in the wash. I began going through the whole thing. Now I've got about 6,000 pairs of leggings, right? And bra tops.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:But my brain, um as soon as you mentioned gym, yeah, that's where my brain went straight to what sort of consumerism can I involve myself in. And then I see myself, then I go forward, I go. So when I go to the gym tomorrow and I'm doing this special sort of training thing, and we're in a competition, and then I can go to the mall afterwards when I have my breakfast. And after that, that's how quickly my brain goes, and I think everybody's the same, and then I can just whip downstairs um and and get something from the gym shop. But of course, I don't need that.
SPEAKER_00:No, and it's not all about what you need, like a lot of people go, so do you just never wear anything? And no, I like nice things, I like clothes. It's all about why you're buying it and whether or not you have the option to say no for me. Because, like you said, you might notice that, and you might you you probably have the ability to go, I don't need another pair of things.
SPEAKER_01:I do. Well, yeah, I do. And because we've sort of moved house into an apartment, um, we are now or I am now constrained by room. Yeah. And that's so I simply don't, oh, I could then I just start throwing things out. I I just want to say at this point that I I have never involved myself in one of those, what are they called? A Timu um oh yeah, Timu dump, Timu Timu Hall? Timu hall.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, no, I've never done Timu either.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, because and you know, and then and then we look at the whole ethical thing about clothing as well, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. That was, and that was, you know, the real fabulous collateral benefit of doing the tell me about that. Well, I had to sort of be honest with readers at the beginning of the book that I didn't do this for sustainability. Of course, I knew that it would be a benefit, and that was a big, you know, driver in my decision that it will only be a net positive for the environment if I don't buy anything for a year. Um, but it wasn't a sustainability pursuit. And yet we touch on it in the book because I wanted to let people know that I was coming at this from this behavioral identity perspective. Because I think that these things that we've talked about are one of the biggest things that get in the way of people being able to follow through on their sustainability intentions and upholding their values in that way.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Because we go, oh, we see the videos and we see the human exploitation, we see the impact, and we see how bad the fashion industry is. And yet we still go, I have this urgent feeling of need from this piece of clothing that I've seen because I've got somewhere to go and I have to look good, and I don't feel like I look good. And that's why, you know, I talk in the book about the stats that between the intentions and the actual behaviors of people around sustainability, people intend to do things, but we don't follow through on that for a multitude of reasons. But I think that one of them really is this deep emotional connection we have with clothes that is unfortunately stronger than our desire to do the right to hold our values because our values would mean respecting ourselves, and a lot of what we're doing with our clothing consumption is actually not respecting ourselves.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's just it's isn't it? It's really detangling yourself from that sense of hope for change, isn't it? Hope for difference, hope for a better you that's going to come with that, you know, that cream knit waist dress that you saw.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. But through doing this work and through feeling the way I feel now, I've removed that fog that kept going, oh, just buy this one and then we'll try again next time to be more sustainable.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Now that that layer is gone, I'm able to actually follow through much more on my sustainability intentions of wearing what I have and buying things.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you've taken care of the whole dopamine thing, right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And look, you know, it's like I said, it's still, you've still got to manage it. Um, but now I have that confidence that I'm able to manage it. And sure, I see things, I see pretty things, and I go, oh no, no, no. And you know, occasionally I'll I'll give in to that and then I'll realize and go, actually, no, let's empty the cart. You know, we don't, we don't want to.
SPEAKER_01:Empty the cart, empty the cart. I I have one friend who manages manages the whole process by just she daily, she just fills the cart and then just leaves.
unknown:Yep.
SPEAKER_01:So she's gone through the process of that's gonna be, I really need that handbag, or I really need those shoes, or I really need that dress, and then she just never buys it.
SPEAKER_00:It's uh I think the hardest thing is is I'm almost very good now at not buying. The hardest thing is when I do want or need to buy something, it's really making sure that I'm doing that in the right way, and that it is, excuse me, and that it is something that will last and that I will wear because the most sustainable outfit you can wear is one you already have. So you can either approach that by wearing what you have or buying things that you will want to wear. Yeah. Um, because a lot of us, you know, like I said, I uncovered so many mistakes I'd been making in my wardrobe. And so there was a little bit of a recalibration period where I had all the, I guess, view of myself and all the understanding of wanting to wear what I had, but the clothes that I owned were fundamentally wrong for my body. So I did need to replace it. 100%. Yeah. But now that I've done that, you know, I actually did the year of not buying again this year with the things I'd obviously replaced from the year in between. And it was completely different this year because I love my wardrobe now. So repeating my clothes was so much more fun because I love my stuff more than I love.
SPEAKER_01:What a successful experiment.
SPEAKER_00:Truly.
SPEAKER_01:You know how many of us are thinking, you know, the the next five kilos, or you know, the next thing I buy, or the next crossbody bag, or you know, I've got I've got about 27 bags. I'm like, I don't, and yet I'm I'm looking at crossbody bags. I don't need another crossbody bag. I've got 27 crossbody bags, but it's just the hue. As soon as we can go, the bag, you know, the clothes, the five kilos, I'm never gonna get there. I'm never gonna get to nirvana where I feel confident, like all the women that see that I see around me that I presume are confident and are all struggling with the same things, unless they're a psychopath in which they case don't, in which case they don't feel anything, and who cares anyway, right? So you know, we're all replete with insecurities, and you know, we all suffer from loss of confidence and doubt. It's what makes us human. And um, perhaps, you know, to think we're ever going to get rid of it. We can just get closer to this notion of who we actually are, Emma Edwards. Would you think that's right?
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely agree. It's and again, it's not a loud change and it's not the flip of a switch. No, it's just very, very subtly. It's great. Very subtly shifting the way that you see yourself and seeing that you actually are enough without all of these external things.
SPEAKER_01:Now, where can people um buy your book?
SPEAKER_00:People could buy the book at all major retailers in Australia as of November 26th.
SPEAKER_01:So um people can buy your book at all major retailers. I strongly recommend women to buy this book because it is going to allow you to cognitively unhook from some of this thinking that we are fused with, which is the next thing that I buy is going to fix it. And I'm here to tell you from my grand age that it doesn't work. So I strongly recommend that you read this book. It's highly relatable and extremely well written. I hate you for that. And I don't resile from that, Emma. I do not resile from that. I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_00:You're being too kind. It's uh there are definitely some patchy parts that I'd love to go back and rewrite, but such you don't know.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you'll never do you know what? With writing, you're never gonna get there. It's I I I can rewrite you know a paragraph for two weeks, and at some point I've got to go. You better write the next one because that's never going to be perfect. Exactly. On that note, I thank you so much for coming on. That was so interesting and instructive. And I it's really had a quite a profound effect on me and my appalling shopping habits. I just wish I'd read it earlier, but I didn't. So there you go. Thank you so much for Emma for coming on.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you so much for having me. I really love this chat.
SPEAKER_01:And um, maybe you can come on again. Always, always available. Delightful. So thank you so much, listeners, wherever you are in the world. Um, I wish you well, stay safe, stay well, keep your critical thinking hats on, and see you later. Bye. Bye. Thanks for tuning in to Why Smart Women with me, Annie McCubbin. I hope today's episode has ignited your curiosity and left you feeling inspired by my anti-motivational style. Join me next time as we continue to unravel the fascinating layers of our brains and develop ways to sort out the facts and fiction and the over 6,000 thoughts we have in the course of every day. Remember, intelligence isn't enough. You can be as smart as paint, but it's not just about what you know, it's about how you think. And in order to talk of whether or not you can trust your gut, if you ever feel unsafe, whether it's in a street, work, in a bar, or in your own home, please, please respect that gut feeling. Staying safe needs to be our primary objective. We can build better lives, but we have to stay safe to do that. And don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast, and share it with your fellow smart women and allies. Together we're hopefully reshaping the narrative around women and making better decisions. So until next time, stay started, stay steady, and keep your critical thinking out shiny. This is Annie McCubbin signing off from White Smart Women. See you later. This episode was produced by Harrison Hess. It was executive produced and written by me, Annie McCubbin.
