In this episode, we are recapping the moms30for30 capsule wardrobe challenge. I will be sharing the insights I have learned and the ones shared by the ladies who joined in this round.
Listen to this if you are curious about a capsule wardrobe, simplifying your closet, being more intentional with clothes shopping, being mindful about how trends impact you and finding your personal style, and if you have struggled with the notion of being a mom who gets dressed each day.
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What is the moms30for30?
This is a 30for30 challenge in which we wear 30 items of clothes for 30 days (or pretty darn close!)
Why I love to do the 30for30 challenge:
It has helped me do things like learn to put outfits together, get to know my style better, interview my closet so I can declutter things that don’t belong, and get dressed each day.
If you want to read about the past challenges I have done over the year head to this page.
This challenge has helped me really challenge a lot of discomfort I have had about being ‘too much‘ and having a limiting identity of ‘who I am/who I am not’.
Challenges put us in a situation where we are challenging ourselves….getting uncomfortable! And also, getting some consistent data and increasing our awareness of what the experience is like for us. We have so much to learn from doing a challenge vs trying a behaviour or action for a day or two.
Insights we (myself and those ladies who joined in!) had around wearing 30 items of clothes for 30 days!
Listen to hear more about each of these points:
- Getting dressed in our favourite items vs always wearing the familiar items
- Some questions to ask yourself to help you understand if you are going for favourite or familiar
- The benefits of wearing your favourites
- The burden of keeping ‘backups’
- A simple exercise to help you determine your favourites
- Understanding why we shop
- How fast fashion impacts our ability to determine our own personal style
- Noticing feelings of insecurity and scarcity we have when we think about buying more clothes
- How we handle these feelings of insecurity and the two outcomes it can give us
- My new shopping mantra that I have adopted that has helped me shop very mindfully
- Taking pride in ourselves vs the vanity of focussing on our outward appearance
- There is a common sentiment that being a mom who focusses on her own appearance can be a self-focussed or vain situation
- The filter through which we make assumptions about others being vain or being empowered
- How to determine what is acceptable for you and understanding healthy pride vs vanity
Related and Mentioned Links
- Thanks to those who have filled out the 2022 Feedback survey, if you are up for sharing your feedback please do so here
- The intro episode into this year’s 30for30 and my aha moment around what was in my closet 151. Capsule wardrobe closet remix challenge, the #moms30for30
- Decision fatigue (for those who feel overwhelmed by all the options of fashion) 144. How to lighten the mental load of DECISION FATIGUE
- Noticing a scarcity mindset 40. Does the ‘not-enough’ mindset show up in your momlife? (Scarcity/Abundance)
- Getting dressed day episode 128. Getting dressed every day, with less guilt & more confidence (with Jaime McLaughlin)
- Being moms who support other moms regardless of what we wear The Instagram Post
Photos from my 303for30 challenge this month
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Welcome back to the simple on purpose podcast.
0:12
This is a place where I encourage you to slow down and start paying attention to your life. Start removing the distractions, really decide what matters most to you and show up well for that living on purpose.
0:26
So to start out, thank you to those of you who have filled out the feedback survey, that is something that I do each year and I ask questions about how you like to follow simple on purpose, content that has helped you over the years topics you want to hear about just like your general feedback, because what’s happening is a lot of things when we listen to people online or follow them, we think about some of the things that they share. But we never take the time to let them know if it’s been helpful or what else we’re curious about. So now is the time, now is the time to let me know. And if you’re up for that, then head to simple on purpose.ca. The link is in the menu. It’s also in the show notes of this episode, you can find that there.
1:03
In this past month, the month of February, I hosted the moms 30 for 30 challenge the 30 for 30 is wearing 30 items of clothes for 30 days. And you’ve probably heard about this challenge if you’ve followed me over the years, because it is something that I’ve done many times over the years, I really like to do this challenge. It’s just like gets me out of my funk. Sometimes. I like doing it because it helps me learn how to put outfits together get to know my style better, almost like interview what’s in my closet. So I can declutter the things you that don’t belong. And I you know, it just like helps me get dressed, period. Because sometimes I go through seasons where I’m not getting dressed.
1:43
And over the years of doing these 30for30s I feel like every time I do it, I have so many realizations and insights and just aha moments, some are repeats that I needed that again, and some are new. If you want to look through those old posts of the past challenges I’ve done, I’m going to link that in the show notes. So this challenge, as with most challenges, it pushed me out of my comfort zone.
2:08
And over the years, there’s been a big way that this challenge specifically has pushed me out of my comfort zone. And that is how uncomfortable I would feel to get dressed up in like outfit. And I use that term for like the simplest amount of clothes that I could possibly put on. Not like getting dressed up like on the TV shows, but like a normal person would get dressed up. Because when I would get dressed up, like if there’s necklace on or a scarf on, or oh my goodness, nail polish, I would feel so uncomfortable. Like I’m drawing attention to myself, I’m being too flashy, I felt too fancy. And it just made me really, really uncomfortable feeling that. And there was some deep stuff that I was exploring as I was going through this challenge over the years.
2:54
And it took me a long time to start to really own what I liked in own how I wanted to feel, and allow myself to bust that limiting identity on who I was and who I wasn’t and let myself be whatever I felt like being that day by how I dress. Now I’m proudly someone who wears nail polish, like I like to look at my hands and see nail polish. I do it for me, I do it for me, the focus is on how I feel, rather than worrying about drawing attention.
3:21
And you know, this is why we do challenges right to learn something to push ourselves a little bit, get uncomfortable. For instance, I could say, okay, get up and get dressed tomorrow. Fine, you can do that. But I’m not getting enough consistent data to really learn anything versus get up and get dressed every day for this month, you’re going to learn some interesting stuff, you’re going to have some resistance to it, you’re going to have some tolerance that you grow to it, you’re going to have some appreciation for it as you go along.
3:49
So aside from the week that I took off, because I had COVID in February, I extend my outfits into March a little bit, I didn’t get all 30 outfits, I was pretty darn close. And I’ll share some of those outfits, some of them at least in the shownotes if you’re interested in checking those out.
4:04
So for this challenge, there were members in the Facebook group who were taking part, sharing their outfits sharing their thoughts through the month. And when I was putting together my own insights that I wanted to share on this episode I asked for theirs as well. So those will be shared throughout the episode. I want to thank them in advance for coming on this journey with me for committing to it for being up for it and offering their experiences along the way and allowing that experience to be shared here. So thank you, ladies. And I’m going to share some of the insights that they said that I could share here. I’m just going to use their first initial. Keep in mind that there’s multiple people with the same initial but you’ll get the idea.
4:42
As I was putting all of these notes together, I realized that there was a lot to say there was a lot that I had to see on this episode. So I can already tell you it’s going to be a two parter.
4:51
Let’s get started with part one. And the first insight Insight number one was getting dressed and picking your favorite are picking the familiar clothes. In the Facebook group, I saw a lot of comments around this theme of reaching for the easiest and most common clothes we wear. But doing the challenge finding themselves starting to reach for the favorites that we never wear.
5:14
M shared that she was getting rid of her clothes that don’t fit and moving the ones I love to the front and center, and not saving them for special days, because I’m special every day. I love that. I love that takeaway so much. And I’ve said it in the past, we’ve too many options in our closet. But when we focus on the ones we love, the most getting dressed is a lot more fun.
5:36
So if you take stock of your wardrobe for a week, how much of it do you love to wear? Or do you feel like it’s just easy, it’s familiar. Are there clothes in your closet that you really like to wear, but maybe you save them for one month or two? I this was my one of my insights too, because I have a couple of shirts, mostly they’re white shirts that I quote unquote save to wear. And I find that I had been wearing them like once every two or three months. So if I love it, I should be wearing it way more than saving it for what for that magical day where I won’t spill anything on it because I research has shown that doesn’t happen for me. So I don’t want to be settling for safe and familiar. I want to be reaching for the clothes I love more often.
6:21
J shared that it really helped me hone my decision making process of what to wear each day, who doesn’t need one less decision each day, I felt more confident my clothes because of course I picked things. I knew I really liked the way they looked on me. So I felt better about myself. I also ended up getting rid of several items because I realized I never gravitated towards wearing them, or had not worn them yet this year. Thanks for the challenge. I love doing it.
6:45
When you zone in on those things you really love. You don’t need all the backups. And I think it’s the backups. Like a closet full of backups that get us we get a false sense of security in keeping them and then they just sit silently in our space, filling up our space heckling us that we aren’t wearing them enough. Guys, this stuff causes physical clutter, emotional clutter, as well and mental clutter, like trying to manage on how I’m going to make that shirt work. I don’t really love wearing but it’s easy, whatever.
7:14
So let’s get to know the clothes that you love. When you think about packing, imagine you’re packing for a little trip, what will you pack? This can be a really great, like filtering questions. Just notice in your wardrobe, the clothes that you loved. And I shared. I think back in January, as I did an introduction to this challenge that I felt like this. When I packed for a trip, I packed my favorite clothes, and I hung them up in the little hotel closet and I just love seeing them there. I’m like, Why can’t my closet look like this at home? Well, it can, I could, I could just get rid of all of the stuff that I don’t really love. And I would be really excited to look at my closet. And speaking of having that kind of packing mentality.
7:54
This is something I also heard M echo. She shared that she went on vacation, she only packed a backpack, no luggage to cart around the airport. And she packed a couple of outfits, jacket boots, and sneakers. I think we all ideally want to pack like that right slow clap to you M.
8:10
The next lesson is around shopping, which I feel like I need a refresher on this every season. Because in our culture of fast fashion that we live in every season, we are bombarded with the cutest options, the looks that we need in order to upgrade whatever water we have in order to remain relevant.
8:32
So one thing I know about doing the 30 for 30 is that at the end of the month, I have some outfit ideas on outfits I had put together through the month and I really liked them. So now I feel like I have options that I can just default to when I do this challenge. I remember, I like my clothes, I have some good options, I have probably more than enough options to really fit my life style, really.
8:55
So why do I feel scarcity? Like I need to shop like I need to fill in all these gaps. And on one hand shirt fashion is fun, fun to try new things fun, have options. I enjoy it. But on the other hand, I noticed that scarcity mindset like I don’t have enough or don’t have the right things. And when I’m kind of in that mindset, I know that if I’m shopping, it would be serving an insecurity. And I thought about this a lot this last month about what is underneath that insecurity. I don’t need more clothes logically. So why do I shop? Why do I think I need to buy more?
9:31
And one of the things that I think is we’re looking around and we’re seeing all these outfits and we think oh that’s cute. Oh I would like to wear that. Well. I like that look. And the problem is we are inundated with options. Especially now because really anything goes in fashion these days. You could dress 80s 90s You can wear bootleg cords, like I wear those in high school you can wear modern styles, retro styles, you can do boho athletic Instagrammer glam. We have so many Many options available to us that it’s really normal to look around and feel like, oh, a little bit of everything might be nice, I could do a little bit that a little bit that, Oh, that’s cute, I’m gonna try that. And what happens is we’ve kind of filled up this mental list of options of the wardrobe we need. But we’re just really getting murky.
10:17
We want to try all the things we want to fit in all the places. And it’s really hard to know, at the end of the day, what you feel like is most you in all of that. So fast fashion trends, they don’t help us they’re changing every season, they’re me, they’re just stirring the waters even more.
10:31
And I think what we do then, from this subconscious emotion of insecurity is that we do one of two things, and one I think, is pretty common, we buy the safe option, we just want to satisfy that insecurity. So we’re just going to buy something that feels safe. But it doesn’t quite feel like we’re there. Like we haven’t really filled that gap on what we want our wardrobe to be right. Because it’s not what we really want. But on the other hand, maybe we go too far the other way, and we buy something so radical, doesn’t fit with our lifestyle, we think it’s gonna solve for this insecurity. But now we never were, we never go to it, we don’t really know how to style it. Maybe it doesn’t even fit our wardrobe, our lifestyle or personality. So we have these two ends of the spectrum, buying too safe buying too risky. And the style can be an expensive lesson to learn. So the sooner you start paying attention, the less money you have to spend on learning what works for you, what doesn’t what you like, what you can maybe go without.
11:30
So I will tell you that this challenge helped me see some of the safe options that I had bought, aren’t working for me. And I know, I’m going to be upgrading a couple of those soon.
11:39
But I can also tell you that this challenge helped me adopt a new mantra when I’m shopping or looking at clothes online. Like I need another shopping mantra, I do. On day 27 of this challenge. I went to the city, I don’t live in a city, I don’t live anywhere where there’s malls, there’s like one traffic light here. And I was at the mall, and I was wearing clothes that I liked to wear, which I think is really important when you’re shopping. You know, it’s like going to the grocery store when you’re not hungry. And I was looking through the windows and looking what people were wearing looking all the options. And I was really eyeing up a lot of cute sweaters. It is winter here in Canada still. And I love sweaters. So I was trying on some sweaters and I found one that I really loved in my own personal shopping rules. I have to try it on and I have to love it. And there was one that fit the criteria. And I was carrying it around the store. And I went and put it back because here’s what dawned on me here was my new mantra. This was me in my head going I have sweaters at home. Right in if I was so sad when you’re a kid and you’re like you want to go for lunch and your mum’s like we have food at home and you’re like, Oh man, I really want to eat fast food. That’s how it felt. I have sweaters at home, I have at least three sweaters at home that I love plus some that I really, really like. So why more? It’s hard to remove yourself from that excitement of getting something new. But I don’t want that kind of emotional rush of buying something to confuse me on how much I already do have, right? So if that’s helpful for you, when you find yourself shopping, Think, Do I already have this at home? Do I need more?
13:16
Here’s some takeaways from J. She explained how this challenge helped her learn her own style a little bit more. And I really loved watching J share in the challenge this month. Because she came out of the gates ready for it. She started the month getting a really brave and adorable haircut. And you could just feel her energy when she was sharing her pixie each week. So I love that she made like a list of points. Point number one, I did my hair and makeup and Got dressed for 20 days. Number two, I’ve made my bed and took a picture each day this took discipline. Number three, I pre planned my outfit the night before most days really helped me on the days when we were all going in different directions. For a mom tip. Nice work. Number four. In looking at the photos, I feel I got a better sense of what I like slash don’t like five by getting dressed each day. I feel like I’ve got a sense of a more cohesive style. This has been a really great experience. And for me, taking pride of myself has not been a priority. And my gosh, it feels good to get back to it.
14:13
And I want to sum up this episode this part one, because I really want to focus on that word. She said I have not been taking pride in myself. It has not been a priority. And I think this idea of taking pride in ourselves can be a really tough one. A while back I did an episode on getting dressed each day with Jimmy McLaughlin. I’ll link that in the show notes. And some of you wrote to me that you struggled with that episode with the idea of getting dressed doing your hair if you want putting on makeup if you want that it felt self focused and I get it I for myself too. I had to mentally pep talk myself into allowing three small kids watch five minutes of elbow in the morning. Well I got dressed put on some mascara and eyebrows.
14:53
We have this weird tension that giving ourselves attention. Our outward appearance attention is being shallow or In for one part, I think we come at it with this personal assumption about how long it takes us personally to get dressed, which I’m going to talk more about in the next episode. But we assume that someone must have spent a long time working through their wardrobe to put that outfit together, like how long did that take. But I think the bigger part is the filter through which we see others, our own personal filter our own personal biases, our own personal assumptions we have about that person determines if we view them as being for getting dressed. Or if we’re like, Yeah, you did, you look good girl, like add a girl wear what you want.
15:37
So just keep in mind that oftentimes, we come at our views of other people based on our own subconscious assumptions we have about them. And I really want to be careful about how we manage that, as moms, I’ve talked about this on Instagram before, I think, a couple of years ago, that we as moms can some credit sometimes create identities or types of moms. We categorize moms based on what they wear out, I’ll link that post in the show notes. But I find that sometimes we can also segregate ourselves into like categories, and judge those who maybe are in a different category, like, Oh, they’re always getting dressed up, or they always were workout gear, whatever. But we should all just be wearing what we want to wear and support our fellow sisters wherever they at with with whatever they want to wear.
16:20
So when it comes down to getting dressed, we need to decide for ourselves why we want to get dressed, we can’t determine what is acceptable for others, we need to determine what’s acceptable for ourselves. And if you are feeling like it’s vanity or being too self focused, consider your motives as we do in all things where we are getting self awareness. When we are getting dressed. Do we feel like we’re doing it for approval or attention, then we know we’re serving our ego, right? Or when we’re getting dressed? Are we doing it because we want to feel good. We want to express ourselves we want to take pride in ourselves, then we’re not acting in Vanity, we’re actually acting in a healthy side of pride.
16:58
Just like that healthy pride we have when we take care of the house, we paint the walls, we sweep the floors, we wash the windows, we hang up photos, we tend to our home, we take pride in our home, and we can take pride in ourselves as well without it being vanity.
17:13
So let that sit with you. Spend some time thinking about what you feel like makes you feel proud of yourself how you like to take pride in yourself without it’s swinging to the side where it serves our ego or it’s or it’s been vanity, I know I’m taking the steep but for me this challenge always brings up these deeper heart issues for me like what’s going on underneath the surface.
17:34
So I’m going to stop myself here. I’m going to resume with more insights from the 30for30 in the next episode, head on over to that whenever you are
Transcribed by https://otter.ai