How Does THIS Make You Feel?

I’m a big believer in wearing clothing that makes you feel great.  The ideal scenario is clothing that makes you both look and feel great, but so often we subordinate the feeling great piece to the looking great part (or if you’re the reverse, then it can be an interesting experiment to put looking good higher up the priority pole and tune into the difference in how you feel when you pay more attention to how you look).

So if you’re not sure how certain outfits or items of clothing make you feel, here’s a way to tune into that.

Do an ‘outfit diary’ for the week. 

Perhaps view it as a fun experiment – just for one week, every day.

Dedicate a journal or notebook for this purpose.  Every morning jot down what you’re wearing, or if you want to do this digitally, take a photograph of that day’s outfit.

Choose one or both of the following ways to tune into how this outfit is making you feel:

• Throughout the day, stop and pay attention to how you’re feeling wearing these clothes.  Jot down your reflections in your journal/notebook
• At the end of the day, give yourself a few minutes to do a mental scan of your body, how you’re feeling and what you’re thinking, and how you felt throughout the day wearing this outfit.

Add to these reflections any external feedback you received from others (eg: compliments on how you look or particular outfits/colours, people asking if your domestic appliances had all broken down at once, people asking if you’d lost weight, etc)

Do this every day for the whole week.

When your week is up, review your outfit diary.

• What outfits made you feel terrific?  How can you wear more of either those clothing items, or outfits that create a similar good feeling state?
• What outfits had a neutral effect, where you didn’t feel especially great or not so great in them?  What choices would you like to make about those outfits or items of clothing?  Can some items be better combined to create better-feeling outfits?  Do some items need to be sidelined or put on probation?
• What outfits had a negative effect, where you felt uncomfortable in them?  What particular emotions or thoughts did wearing these outfits evoke for you?  What choices would you like to make about those outfits and items of clothing – sideline, probation, re-combine with better-feeling (and -looking) items, let go completely?

Give this a go – just try it for 7 short days and see for yourself the connection between how you feel and how you look!

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