De-Stress Getting Dressed

Getting dressed is one of those things that sounds super simple, but isn’t always as easy as it should be. Almost all of the women (and most of the men) I know have had a morning where getting dressed turned into a catastrophe. Sometimes it's for a special event, but most of the time it is a regular morning.

After trying on outfit after outfit, you reach the point where getting dressed seems to be much more trouble than its worth. Everything you own is on the floor, or in a reject pile.

A lot of the time this stress comes from disliking what you see in the mirror. Logically, we know that our jeans aren't out to get us, but that doesn’t stop us from throwing them on the ground and calling them names. This happens regardless of your body shape – at Orchid & Oak we believe in loving your shape no matter what the size on the tag is.

When it comes to meltdown mornings, there are some practical steps you can take to de-stress getting dressed.

Decide What Kind of Outfit You Want

You’ll save yourself a lot of stress if you know what kind of style you’re aiming for from the beginning. Are you going for professional, business casual, or weekend at the beach? 

Choosing a category will put boundaries on the types of items you look at in your closet.

Consider getting dressed to go to work in an office. You can skip the casual tanks, shorts, and yoga wear. Once you eliminate a bunch of options it’s easier to see what your choices are.

Pro tip: Organize your closet according to category. Have one section for weekend wear, one for business, one for exercise gear, and so on until everything in your closet has a category. Within those categories, put all of one item together. For example, all of the pants next to each other, all of the tank tops, all of the long sleeve shirts, etc. With this system, finding what you want will be a breeze.

Start with the Limited Choices

Most people have fewer choices for some items than for others. For example, you probably have more shirts than you do bras, or more pairs of pants than pairs of shoes.

Start with the thing you have the least of. Say that’s shoes. Pick the shoes you want to wear, and build your outfit around them. It’s a lot easier to make lots of choices fit with on pair of shoes than it is to have an outfit and choose from a limited selection of footwear.

Pinpoint the Problem Area

Generally, once you get frustrated, the whole outfit is to blame. Everything is wrong, and it must be punished by being thrown across the room.

Take a moment to look at the outfit piece by piece. This will help you identify which part has gone off the rails. Sometimes a small tweak is all you need. Start at the top and work your way down, and ask yourself some specific questions:

Is the collar on the shirt ok?
Does this bra go with this shirt?
How do the sleeves feel?
Do I feel like there is too much/too little room around the bust/waist?
Is the waistband on the pants too tight?

Once you know what it is about the outfit that is irritating you, you can fix it. Sometimes, we look at ourselves and think that the whole thing is wrong. Quite often, this feeling of “ugh” can be translated into the above questions.

Drink Something Cool

Anyone who has tried on nine million outfits in half an hour knows it leads to overheating. This makes you sweaty, which makes getting changed more difficult. Stop for a cool drink. Water is your best option, since it will hydrate you, however, whatever you have on hand that’s cold will help cool you off.

Avoid Negative Self-Talk

When things are going wrong in the dressing room it is incredibly easy to slip into saying negative things about yourself. The conversation you have with yourself switches from ‘stupid jeans’ to ‘I’m too fat for these’. This is negative self-talk.

What you say to yourself matters. When you tell yourself negative things about yourself, they make you feel worse. Say them enough times and you’ll believe them. This is how you go from thinking ‘this doesn’t fit right today’ to ‘I’m so ugly in this’.

When you catch yourself saying these things, take a minute and tell yourself to stop. Look away from the mirror, and say something nice to yourself. Tell yourself you have beautiful eyes, or super silky hair, or legs for days.

Remember Your Value

As an attachment to preventing negative self-talk on rough mornings, remember your value. What you look like is not your most important quality. Chances are good you are also smart, funny, generous, loving, or witty. The value of these qualities vastly outweighs what you look like.

Saying nice things to yourself will help you stay positive when you feel bad about how you look. Remember that your value doesn't stop with your clothes.