Susan asked her new client, “What is your feel-good look?” What is the best version of yourself?
The reply: “When I read the question … I had no idea. I feel embarrassed about that. How did I reach this pinnacle in my business career and NOT know what feels good for me?”
Can you relate?
The delightful Susan Jacobs, of Personal Style Consulting my guest on my Little White Lie FB Live show, helps us understand how our self-perception affects the way we show up in the world, and what we can do about it. Awesome stuff!
Susan Jacobs, image and wardrobe consultant, is a leader in the industry who helps her clients increase their confidence, credibility, and profitability through authentic style. We asked her to join the Little White Lie Movement to talk about this question:
“How do you figure out what the best version of yourself looks like?”
#1 Ask yourself the question:
“What is my feel-good look?” Take some time to think about it. Susan says: “If you have no idea, it’s time to do some self-exploration.” And she offers these awesome prompts:
“Do you notice that you get particular compliments when you wear a certain something?
What is it you find that you are drawn to when you are shopping?
Or maybe it’s a color … Are you a person who loves scarves?
Do you have some? Ah, but you don’t know how to tie them … There are many people who have beautiful jewelry but they don’t know how to accessorize with it.”
Often we get stuck on things like colors or accessorizing, when they’re just a piece of the puzzle.
Start instead with what feels good! When you discover this about yourself, you can make some changes or get help from an expert. To inspire your thinking, here are some comments from our beloved Little White Liars about their “feel-good” style:
- “A tunic and leggings, earthy jewelry, something fun and relaxed.”
- “I love wearing chic and easy.”
- “I am not an accessory girl. Instead I like a clothing piece to be the accent.”
- “Feminine and classic.”
- “I’m a jeans classy bo-ho girl. I like bracelets not necklaces.”
#2 Might be time for a reboot!
Susan: “Ladies, if you’re still doing what you did five years ago — even 10 years ago — you have to step back and ask, “What would be the best version of yourself now?”
I really appreciated Susan’s response to this, because in the beginning of my Little White Lie journey, as my white roots started to show I would look at myself in the mirror every day, and it was not resonating with me!
I had this whole mindset that I was no longer sexy, no longer good-looking, there was something wrong.
It took some time, but once I pushed my way through this and shifted my mindset, I realized that I needed to change some of the things I was wearing because my coloring (with my white hair) has changed.
Susan agrees that as we get older, what used to look good on us may not any longer, “but we can still be ‘all that’ and stylish and modern and current and relevant in our age exactly the way we are.”
“There are ways to camouflage all those bits you’re not happy with and to showcase all the beautiful aspects.” And Susan believes, just as we do in the Little White Lie Movement, that it starts inside, because “every single woman has those things she wants to shift around” (and Susan has likely seen them all!) But we want to come to a point where we “just let it go,” embrace who we are and rock what we have, inside and out!
As for me, now that I’m not having to go get my hair colored every three weeks? Truly, I can’t imagine going back!
#3 Look around you to find your style.
Susan: “What do you surround yourself with? Do you have a pond in your yard? How about loving flowers? Do you like clean and shiny and all brand-new? These are indicators of your personal style. If you are someone who is surrounded by all earthy elements but you are decked out every day for work in the corporate structured suit, there’s going to be a dissonance there.
You need to embrace those things that are begging from the inside to come out and say, ‘Wear me!’”
I’m ready to go find my style right now — ‘Bye!
Oh, before I go I invite you, Little White Liar, to tell us how you are figuring out what the best version of you looks like! Share your thoughts with the Little White Lie Movement community, and get in on the conversation that’s happening all over the country and beyond!
Thanks for joining the Little White Lie Movement!