The display behind the counter

Look at where they put it. Not in an aisle you have to choose to walk down, but on the wall directly behind the person taking your money, at eye level, lit, while you stand still with your wallet already open and nothing else to look at. That placement cost somebody a great deal of thought. It is designed for the exact three seconds you are most suggestible, when the deciding part of you is busy with a card machine. You are not weak at the counter. You are standing inside a machine built to catch you there.

Which means the decision cannot be made in the line. It has to be made outside, on the way in, before the doors. Decide the checkout move in advance and then just execute it. Card out before you queue. Eyes on the till display or your phone or the person you are with. Say your thank you and go. Three seconds of somewhere else to look is the whole defence, and it works precisely because it is a plan, not a struggle.

And if that shop is genuinely hard, stop going to it for a while. Use the self checkout where the wall is behind you. Buy your milk at the place that sells bread. Send someone else in. This is allowed, and the part of you calling it dramatic is the same part that would like you back at that counter. Nobody hands you a medal for shopping in the difficult place. Spend your resolve on the things that actually require it, of which there will be plenty this week, and let the easy wins be easy.

So plan the next one now, while you are calm and nowhere near a till. Which shop, which queue, where your eyes go, what you say. Then walk in and out like someone who came for bread, because that is who you are. A display can only sell to a person who is still deciding. Ask God for a plain, boring errand and go run it. You have already made this decision. The counter is just where somebody else keeps asking you to make it again.