Whether it’s food shopping, daily routine, the way you exercise or the clothes you wear…it’s very easy and totally normal to find yourself stuck in a rut.
For me, it’s meals. I don’t love cooking, but I do it because we need to eat. In my family, we have one healthy eater (me), two that will eat most things and one that likes almost nothing. Throw in a long list of food allergies and deciding what to cook each night becomes a right old pain in the butt. I find myself preparing a rotating menu of about 6 meals when I’m in a rut, or I drive myself crazy by cooking two or three totally different meals to try to keep everyone happy. Yup, I’m that mug.
Then, every so often I dig out a cookery book, or watch a cooking show and get inspired. I cook new recipes (and try not to get cross if they aren’t well received). Putting in a bit of effort makes me feel like I’m doing a better job and my kids get to try new things. It feels good and I enjoy it more. But, when life gets busy and I don’t make time to plan, it’s all too easy to revert back to the same old meals.
How about you? I’m wondering if you ever find yourself in a clothing rut, pulling on the same daily ‘uniform’ because its ‘safe’, comfortable, easy and quick?
Much like with my cooking, it’s likely that every so often you become bored with wearing the same outfits day in, day out. But unless you get inspiration from somewhere, it’s really difficult and unlikely that you will make the effort to make changes.
How to get out of a style rut
Think of this as your cookery book equivalent. Follow this very simple idea to shake things up a bit, push yourself out of your comfort zone and get creating some new outfits. And the good news is, it doesn’t need to cost you a penny.
Wear the stuff at the back of your wardrobe
When you’re in a rush, it’s easy to grab the same things you’ve worn a hundred times already, knowing that they’ll do. I’ll bet you have a ton of nice things in your wardrobe that you rarely wear because they take a little bit of thought.
Try taking 30 minutes one evening to pull out a few pieces that you rarely wear and work out what to pair them with to make a good daytime outfit. Then, the next morning, grab one of your new combinations and give it a whirl. Repeat this each week to work your way through the contents of your wardrobe.
To help you to remember what you’ve already used, tie a ribbon or a piece of string at the back of your wardrobe rail. When you’ve worn the new item and its ready to go back into your wardrobe, place it behind the ribbon. Try not to pick it out again until you’ve worn everything in front of the ribbon. Realistically, you are unlikely to wear absolutely everything you own but the idea is that everything gets at least a chance. If you don’t choose to wear something in let’s say a month, you might think about letting it go. (Obviously this doesn’t need to apply to occasion-wear or out of season pieces.)
Each time you’ve created an outfit that you really like, snap a photo on your phone as a reminder to revisit it once you’ve worked through everything else.
Over the course of the month, you should find yourself more regularly wearing different combinations and honestly, this small change can have a big positive effect on how you feel. I bet it’ll get you looking at other positive changes you could make in your own daily routine.
Give it a go and report back! And if you’d like to share some meal ideas with me to get me out of my rut, do post them in the comments! I always need inspiration!
