The 2 sides to Angela’s story
Last time we looked at addressing the key wardrobe components to get a balance shopping diet.
Today I want to talk about fine-tuning your wardrobe. So picture this, Angela is a lovely illustrator and photographer whose business sells drawings and portraits of children. It’s Tuesday afternoon and an email lands in her inbox….’Hi Angela, sorry for the late reply but scheduling has been a nightmare. But yes we’d really love to have you talk about yourself and your business at the event on Monday. We are sold out, so it’s going to be a great day! Apologies again, see you there.’
OMG she screams, this is fantastic news! More exposure for the business, wider reach for the products and a great opportunity to unveil her speaking prowess in front of her target audience. She happily dances about and then suddenly it hits her, wow all those people.
She heads to her wardrobe, her inner voice shouting “What the hell am I going to wear”. Suddenly this sick feeling starts in her stomach, “I’m used to being behind the camera, not in front”…”All those people staring at me…eek!” She flicks frantically through a jumbled up wardrobe, argh “this skirt doesn’t work with this top” …”Ooh but what about that dress..no jacket to match” or “this trouser suit, hmm the legs are too short”………and so the cycle starts.
Never really that bothered about fashion and trends she finds herself panicing. “Everyone’s going to be looking at me, I need to look the part!”.
She asks her partner’s opinion, she asks her friends…..they happily agree with whatever makes her seem less frantic. Telling her to calm down, she looks fabulous in each outfit….but deep inside she isn’t happy.
She flicks through the diary looking at her appointments, when can she squeeze in a quick dash to the shops, nothing like a new dress to fix matters! She finds that perhaps only late Saturday afternoon will do, until then she just surfs online filling up her virtual basket with dresses that look fantastic and will hopefully look great on when she goes to the shops. Saturday arrives, after shooting (not literally) 8 toddlers and a baby since 8am she packs up her equipment and heads to the shops. Arghhhhhhhhhh the crowds what was she thinking on a SATURDAY! Anyway she tries on dress after dress, a few fit ok, some don’t look like they did online and one just about works for her body shape. She’s tired and decides there is no other time and half-heartedly buys the latter because it’s better to have something than nothing, right?
It will do for the day and she thinks “perhaps I’ll wear it again some other time” …..only she doesn’t. It was a one hit wonder.
Whenever our nervous system goes into panic mode our flight/fight senses kick in. Anytime we get stressed in this situation our first response, as women, is often to buy to ‘fix’ the problem. Unlike men who more often than not just make do and fight the urge to buy. What we need to look at is our attitudes to our wardrobe and counteract the idea of lack with abundance….What am I talking about?
Well the flip side to the story is that if Angela had actually really thought about her wardrobe and divided it out accordingly into zones relating to her life – so pleasure/work and occasions for each such as casual, smart/casual or dressy. She would have first of all been able to easily look at what could be suitable for a work & smart/casual occasion such as this.
Secondly by detoxing her wardrobe of all the items that she doesn’t even wear or like and that don’t fit helps her to come to a distinctive ‘in and out’ strategy. The idea is to create harmonious balance between what goes in and what comes out; excess in either direction disrupts the flow and isn’t cute!
Instead she ended up with a wardrobe in the same state as before with just one more dress added to the mix. That dress will probably gather dust only to be joined by another spontaneous ‘friend’ at a later date.
If you fine tune your wardrobe to represent each facet of your life you will know exactly what you have or dont have. Allowing you to shop with purpose and intent (more on this later). This fine-tuning increases your awareness of abundance rather than lack which has you running to the shops.
So back to Angela part 2 – The ‘Email’ arrives….Angela screams with excitement only this time it’s different. She heads to her wardrobe, looks at her ‘work’ side and immediately grabs one of her go-to networking outifts…”I think I’ll wear this” (a purple and green floral number to bring out her eyes). Then she returns to her desk and continues to draw…..chilled out and relaxed (without the credit card bill for that dress)
Which Angela do you want to be?
See you soon for part 3
Kisses
Samantha x
Want a step by step guide to building the right wardrobe that helps (not hinders) you to get visible for your business without the stress?
Grab our DIY Wardrobe Success guide – learn the skills and tools to shop effectively and efficiently on your own. Lay the foundations to make an executive decision on what really suits you, saving you money and time spent returning things that don’t work! Check it out here
