Have you ever been scrolling through Facebook, or Instagram, or somebody’s website, or Yelp, or Google, or maybe you got a business card with a photo on it, and you’re looking for a particular service?
You’re looking to hire somebody for a specific service. When you fall on their page or their Instagram profile, you look at the picture of that person who will provide that service to you, and without intentionally judging, you judge.
It’s so important that the way you put yourself together represents the prices you are charging for your services or products. I want you to understand this does not have to do with being superficial, being fake, how much money you spend on your clothes, or whether you’re wearing designer clothing.
This is the psychology of dressing well.
Before we get into why it’s so important, let’s talk about two parts of the whole psychology of dressing well and why it’s so important.
Is What You Wear Aligning With Your Price?
There are two parts to why there is this psychology to getting dressed.
The first part is how you dress yourself is actually a reflection of how you feel about yourself inside.
The second part of that is that people will notice.
I’ve been working at home for ten and a half years now, and the best advice I was ever given when I started to work from home and own my business was to get up and get dressed every morning. It just makes such a big difference. I have a lot of challenges in my life, but I’m never going to show that through with how I appear. I have a responsibility to my clients and myself.
To keep myself put together so that I can be more productive and not constantly thinking about the challenges that are going on in my personal life, personal is personal; business is business.
When you are not put together, and often we’re justifying ourselves because we wake up late or have so many kids, we’re rushing around to get things ready. It’s not about that. It’s about taking a moment to take control of yourself, for yourself to think about yourself and your well-being.
When you dress in a way that looks like you are a hot mess, it reveals that you are a hot mess.
You can use fashion in a couple of different ways
You can use it to work for you, or you can use it to work against you. Suppose you are somebody that runs after fast fashion. In that case, you’re going to be somebody that is constantly spinning your wheels running after trends every season, and feeling that you have to continually be buying to stay on trend and to stay on style, versus if you’re somebody that uses fashion to tell your story, you match your fashion to align with yourself, with your personality, with your life experiences, with your current job position, and with the way you envision yourself to be in the future, that is going to be a positive way to use fashion versus on a negative way to use a style which is running after fast fashion.
Visually, everything we do is a way of communicating. The same thing works with how you dress.
The same thing works with the kind of jewelry you wear, the type of clothes you wear, or the styles of clothing you wear. What you wear is the visual way of communicating.
So when you’re putting clothes on, are you putting clothes on intentionally to communicate a certain way? Or are you just getting dressed, to get dressed because you feel like you have no time, and you’re rushing, and you’re not making it a priority?
Next time you go to get dressed, think about that.
What type of communication do you want to relay to other people that are coming into your life that day? Think about not just the clothes but what kind of accessories are you wearing?
Are they communicating something specific to those that you want to talk to? For example, a statement piece.
Intentionally, I wear statement pieces when I go to in-person networking events because they are icebreakers.
Studies show people will size you up in the first seven seconds that they meet you, which is a fact-based on studies.
Statement pieces also give off a little bit of the person’s personality
Are they extroverted, or are they bold? Are they open to conversation? That’s statement pieces do that.
Whereas when you wear more simple pieces, they are also more for somebody that’s more soft-spoken, dainty, if it’s something you often wear. So that’s how you can use accessories as well to communicate visually to others.
Let’s talk about self-affirmations, and the use of how you get dressed, and how that works together
Here’s the thing…when you look better, you feel better.
When you feel better, you’re going to be more productive, and when you’re more productive, you’re going to be more successful. This is a cycle that goes on and on in our lives.
Now, there are times that we have lots of challenges in our lives, and then we’re down in the dumps, or we’re in a rut, and we don’t feel like getting dressed. I have been through many challenges myself, and I’ve noticed that I don’t get dressed and show up during those times, and I stay in that fog. What I wear that day keeps me in that fog even more.
However, if I take a little extra step and put on maybe some color, or put on some earrings, or a fun necklace, it just changes my mood right away, automatically.
The way you dress must be represented to want people to notice you and have positive first impressions about you, especially when it relates to business.
You will notice something different. You’ll be more confident, you will feel more productive, and you’ll be more motivated to do things.
The overall style and how well you get dressed for yourself will do that for you.
When it relates to business, it’s essential as well.
The other thing is that how you get dressed, and what you wear, how you put yourself together, not only communicates what’s going on in your life right now, but it’s going to communicate to others what you want and how you want to represent yourself in the future.
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