New skirt, new look
New Year, New Look
Most professional development is about changing from the inside. By addressing fears and limiting beliefs and looking inside yourself to understand your values, your natural strengths and your life purpose, your self-awareness and the way you are perceived by the rest of the world automatically changes.
Without intentionally changing anything on the outside people start to see you, and respond to you, differently.
However, I have discovered that the opposite can also be true - a change to the outside, if done with consideration, can help you understand what is going on inside.
New skirt, new me
Two recent experiences reinforced this idea for me.
Firstly I employed the services of a personal stylist. I wanted my clothes to more accurately reflect who I am. Working closely with the stylist helped me get even clearer about some of my values, my personality traits and what clients get when they work with me. The whole experience was reminiscent of "Pretty Woman" with shop girls rushing around getting me different sizes, colours and accessories while I just paraded around in my potential purchases.
And as I tried different clothes on I was able to observe my reactions to them - "Too stern", "Too bland", "Too flimsy". Testing out different images helped me to tap in to a clearer view of myself...the outside helped me understand the inside better.
Secondly, I have undertaken a re-branding process for the business. You will see the results over the coming weeks and months. For a while the website and my corporate image have not been an accurate reflection of the way I really work with clients and the benefits they get from that work.
I knew this at a gut level but didn't know what would be better. Working with a branding consultancy on how my site and my stationary should look helped me to explore my business in a deeper way. Looking at pictures from magazines, photographs from image libraries and words cut randomly from newspapers helped me get much more clarity about what my business really does.
The end of the year is nigh
As we approach the end of another year it is customary to look back and look ahead. Sometimes the questions we ask ourselves at this time of year can seem too big to answer - "What did I achieve this year?", "Did I achieve my goals?", "How did I grow professionally and personally?", "What do I want next year to bring?", "Where do I want to be in 12 month's time?"
They are great questions, appropriate questions...but the answers can be illusive.
So how about starting from the outside -
1. Collect up all those magazines, old newspapers and junk mail. With as little "brief" as you can, start cutting out pictures and words which resonate with you. You may not know what these images mean but they will be images that you have a reaction to either positively or negatively.
Now start sifting them - which reflect you now, which reflect you in the future, which are your fears and which are your dreams? What else are these images telling you?
There's no right or wrong answer. Just use these pictures and words to help you access ideas inside yourself.
2. Try on everything in your wardrobe. In front of the mirror ask yourself what these clothes say about you - do you feel like "yourself"? Do the clothes reflect who you are or who you want to be? Or do they reflect someone you aren't or don't want to be? What adjectives are associated with the clothes you like? And with the clothes you don't? What can you learn about yourself from these findings?
If you like this exercise, try on other people's clothes too or go shopping and experiment with items you have no intention of buying but that may make you feel differently about yourself.
3. Identify one or two changes you could make on the outside (changes to yourself or changes to your business or organisation) that seem at first a little "peripheral". Perhaps the office needs a face-lift. Maybe you need a few new ties. Perhaps replace the sign above the door or get some plants for the lobby. Maybe say good morning to everyone when you arrive and goodbye to everyone when you leave...Now observe how these changes affect you, and other people, on the inside.
