Our personal style is possibly one of the most important things during this time. Why? We need an escape, don’t we?
When you look at yourself, and you see something pretty, it makes you happy.
It’s going to remind you of joy, and it’s going to make you feel motivated and productive.
There are many studies and tests on how clothing makes us feel and what it can do for us, our motivation, and productivity. Let’s dive into why dressing well is essential and understand the power of dressing up.
Why Dressing Well Is Important
When you are in clothes, it gives you the impression that you are more powerful, that you are more confident
Here’s the story about clothing. We have to get dressed in the morning, and it’s something that we have been doing for at least a hundred thousand years.
Now, while it does serve the purpose of keeping us protected from cold weather or heat, it also functions in many other ways. That’s where the “enclothed cognition concept” comes into play.
It captures the systematic influence that clothes have unaware psychological processes. When you are in clothes, it gives you the impression that you are more powerful, that you are more confident, or on the other hand, it gives you an idea that maybe you are less confident, or you’re more introverted.
It can do positive for you, or it can do negative. That’s the whole point of this.
When you think about enclothed cognition and its function, it makes sense.
For many of us, even myself, I would wear shorts, and I would not be happy, I would be in a bad mood, I would not go anywhere with my shorts on because psychologically, I was not accepting my legs, for a very long time.
When you put on clothes that make you feel joyful, that makes you feel confident; you’re also putting out power
If you are a woman in business and represent a product, service, or work for a company, and you have to represent what you do, what you wear will impact your business.
Another part of this is the colors that you choose
How you feel in your clothing has tremendous benefits for you as a human being, with your communication, within your business, and everything you do throughout your day.
Dressing for work helps because you get in the business mindset. Getting dressed is super important, especially right now if you’re doing a lot of zoom calls, video meetings, and Facebook and Instagram Lives.
So making the monotonous daily task of getting dressed can be fun when you take full advantage of it and change your mindset.
You deserve to get dressed!
Just because you’re home doesn’t mean that you can’t get dressed and get out of your PJs. You can get dressed and feel motivated and powerful!
So I want to challenge you to try and do three different things!
- What I’d love for you to do is right when you wake up, I want you to check in with yourself, and I want you to ask yourself, “What do I want to feel like today?” Most likely, you’re not going to say, “I want to feel like crap.” right? You want to feel good, and you want to feel energized, you want to feel motivated, you want to feel confident.
- Next, I want you to identify those pieces of clothing that symbolize that state of mind for you. I want you to march over to your closet and pull out those pieces that make you feel that way. And then you’re not going to stop there. I want you to put them on for your day.
- In addition to that, whatever your makeup routine is, I want you to do it if you have one. Then I want you to choose to feel that way. Things can be challenging right now. Believe me. We have had many ups and downs lately. I could be down in the dumps and not show up on Facebook every Wednesday to be talking to you all and choose that, but I choose not to. I decide to get up. I choose to show up, and I choose to stay in action because it’s what’s keeping me motivated as a human, as a mom, as a wife, as a business owner, and as an image consultant—staying accountable to my clients, to my team, and to the people that work with me.
I know I’m not making this up, and I’m on a mission to empower as many women as possible and challenge you to do this. You have a choice!
I hope you choose to feel motivated, confident, powerful, amazing, beautiful, fabulous, all of those positive words.