Your Search For The Ideal Gift: Avoiding the Top 3 Danger Zones

Why is it so difficult to find the perfect gift to give to that unique person in your life? Whether you are looking for anniversary gift ideas, Christmas gifts, or just that special gift for dad or mum, looking for original gift ideas seems to be an vague task. What makes that special gift so hard to find?

 Big question!

This is a difficulty that virtually everyone experiences. Finding a suitable gift  is already a unpleasant task in itself, but some people just make the chore more difficult and more thorny. In this post, we are going to see the top three reasons that make finding the perfect gift difficult, as well as some suggestions on how you can conquer them.

You are under the enchantment of the false impression of perfection. There is no such thing as a perfect gift for anyone. Yes! Each gift is unique to each recipient's specific personality and life condition. If you still believe in the idea of a perfect gift for a particular type of person or stereotype, that same idea on itself can be a limiting factor. It can well pigeonhole your hunt for a laser-targeted gift for your recipient. I think an illustration is appropriate at this point to give you a clearer understanding of what I’m trying to say.

Say, you are searching for a gift for your companion, who, incidentally, is also a health buff. So, your most likely starting point for your gift hunt would be the idea of gifts for gym vermin. At this point, you are by now almost certainly madly searching on Google for gift ideas for gym lovers. You and I knows that Google doesn't fail you. In fact, it will over deliver and give you hundreds, if not thousands, of web pages that claim to sell you the right gift to give to your gym-loving buddy. You spend hours investigating page after page of gift suggestions, and your head starts to whirl. "Which one is perfect for my friend?" you ask exasperatedly.

Now , What’s wrong with that circumstances? Nothing sincerely evil about it, really. However, you have effectively closed your eyes to other possible gift ideas. Your companion may be a gym lover, but she or he could also be a single parent, or a writer, or a struggling musician. These are other aspects of the person's life that may be simply incidental, and to pigeonhole through incidentals could be foolishness in your gift giving.

The gift that you find for your companion's gym-loving side may be of lesser value to his or her life at this point because his or her pressing need may not be related to weight training activities. In fact, your friend's more immediate need could be in his or her home improvement project. And, you missed out big time on that one simply because you got so occupied with the idea of your friend's being a workout freak.

Astonishingly and ironically, the moment you let go of the idea of the "perfect gift," you open yourself up to actually finding it.

Wants Versus Needs

You are paying attention on giving in to a person's wants, instead  of  his or her needs. Once more, there is nothing wrong about that. Your gift will still be cherished and valued  by the recipient. nevertheless, why stick to being a wish-granter for wants when you can be a wish-granter for needs?  Please help me answer this question before you proceed. Do you know that People can live without getting their wants, yet people can't go on living with their needs unfulfilled. In fact, your recipient's life will become easier and less heavy if you do something to help fulfill her or his needs.

If you'd somewhat be more focused and caring in your giving, take the more noble route: be a wish-granter for needs.

Why is wants-based gift giving more difficult than needs-based giving? Simple fact: human wants are ridiculously never-ending, but each person in reality only has few needs. Between infinite wants and definite needs, which road is less difficult and simpler for the gift giver? That's a no-brainer question, huh? Hitherto, the major folly of most people is in satisfying wants first instead of needs. Our needs are repeatedly eclipsed by our wants, and we occasionally have a propensity to confuse one for the other-even in our gift giving.

Let look at this case study of my young friend. Last year Christmas, I wanted to give her a special gift, something that she could use. Should I give a note pad? A new school bag? She wanted a new tight-fitting shirt, to add to her closet-full collection. She wanted new running shoes, too, one that he could wear "on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays" (her actual words). I finally gave her an alarm clock. It wasn't on her wish list at all. I gave it anyway. Why? since she was having trouble waking up early-either for school, for an appointment, or for a cramming session at dawn. Obviously, she needed the alarm clock but just didn't see it as something she needed. Was it hard to find an alarm clock? Definitely not. Did my friend appreciate the gift? You bet she was elated. 

Person Fitting Versus Gift Fitting

You are making the person fit the gift, rather than finding a gift that suits the person's needs. Outcome: you end up shopping for excuses to give this or that gift to the person you have in mind. This is exactly what will most likely happen if you begin your search through gift registry sites. You get a long list of themed gift ideas and for each gift that catches your attention, your mind instantly tries to come up with an excuse to give such gift. Once you find the ideal excuse, you start believing you've found the perfect gift-but have you really? This is what I call hit-or-miss gift shopping and it is an excuse-driven gift giving method.

Contrast the hit-or-miss technique with the needs-based approach. This latter approach needs you to think hard about the person's needs, find one definite need that you'd like to help out in, find a gift item that will fill that specific need, and go shopping for brands or models of that specific gift item (that is, if you are giving a tangible gift). With this approach, right from the start, you already know what gift to give and you perfectly know why. Your remaining job would be to find a brand name, model, or provider that matches various other criteria such as budget, durability, convenience, customer support, etc.

Finding the accurate gift for your loved one constantly requires meticulous effort, particularly if you are obliged to the idea of perfection, if you give gifts to grant want-wishes (instead of need-wishes), or if you fit a person into a gift idea (rather than the other way around). Yet, you can make the search less difficult and less time-consuming for you by avoiding the top three causes of difficulty in finding the perfect gift for any recipient.