Stop Panic Shopping and Start Building Your Style Strategy
- emsteinbrink
- 2 days ago
- 20 min read
Does this sound familiar? A big event lands on your calendar, and you’re panicked because nothing in your wardrobe feels right. So you embark on a desperate shopping spree, hoping to find the perfect solution.
We all get the impulse to shop our way to clarity, but it’s a short-term fix that rarely delivers the long-term alignment and confidence we crave. Instead, the key lies in building a style strategy that’ll transform your relationship with your closet and create a wardrobe that reflects who you are and are becoming.
In this episode of The Visibility Shift, you'll discover why panic shopping is a distraction that leads to more confusion and frustration. I’ll reveal the pitfalls of retail marketing that contribute to that feeling of misalignment and take you further away from your goal, shift your perspective on what true style transformation entails, and discuss the foundational steps to cultivate a wardrobe that truly serves your authentic self.
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1:00 – Why shopping shouldn’t be the starting point for your style transformation
2:38 – The common trap you can fall into when a significant event occurs
7:22 – How the retail environment manipulates you to stray away from your personal style
13:21 – A glimpse into the three-part style strategy I go through with clients to provide clarity, confidence, and alignment
15:16 – How style visioning helps you define who you’re becoming and what you want to wear
19:03 – Style applications and tools to help you make intentional choices about your wardrobe
20:15 – The most transformative step to help identify what’s blocking you from embracing your desired style
21:40 – The psychological benefits of being more intentional in your shopping
25:12 – A few reminders for when you’re tempted to panic shop
Mentioned In Stop Panic Shopping and Start Building Your Style Strategy
Full Transcript
Welcome to The Visibility Shift, the podcast where style becomes your most powerful strategy for being seen, standing out, and leading boldly. I'm Ellie Steinbrink, stylist and personal brand coach, and if you've ever thought, "My style just isn't working anymore," take this as your sign. You're ready for your next level. And instead of launching into a panicked shopping spree, what you really need is a strategy. A style strategy that reflects where you're headed, not who you used to be or who you think you need to be to fit in.
Because when your style aligns with your brand and your vision, everything shifts. You lead with more presence, you attract the right opportunities and clients, and you fully step into the woman you're becoming. Because showing up as yourself, that's the most strategic thing you can do. Now let's get visible. as yourself, that's the most strategic thing you can do. Now, let's get visible.
Welcome back to another episode of The Visibility Shift podcast. All right, so if you've ever found yourself wanting to change your style or felt like something needed to change, you didn't feel quite aligned in your closet, what's the first thing that you do? You go shopping. The thing is, shopping gives us a short-term dopamine hit for sure.
It makes us feel like we're making progress, but often the reality is that it leaves us more confused, frustrated, and even feeling guilty. Over the years, this habit of shopping your way to clarity has probably led you to a more stuffed closet, unworn clothes with tags on them, credit card bills that make you feel guilty and uncomfortable, clothes you were convinced you had to buy but you actually don't love and never wear. Am I speaking the truth right now for you? In this episode, what I want to talk about is why shopping is not actually your starting point if you want to make a transformation, if you feel like you're launching into a new chapter or transforming into your next level self.
Shopping is not your starting point. A style strategy is. I'm going to talk about panic shopping, what it is, and why it gets you further away from your goals of your next level self rather than closer.
And yes, I've been guilty of this. I'm going to talk about why the retail environment is incredibly confusing and why it can actually work against you and your goals. And I'm going to talk about the first real steps that lead to more style, clarity, confidence, and alignment, something that we all want.
How do we find ourselves in this predicament in the first place? For the most part, we're not thinking about our style. And then something big lands on our calendar. A social event, a speaking gig that is bigger than you've ever had before, a client that you're really excited about, a guest podcast experience, a day of filming, a women's event that you're attending where you're going to be meeting a lot of high-level, next-level women.
Okay, this lands on your calendar and you walk into your closet and you start to figure out what am I going to wear? And in that moment, you start to panic because everything you see in front of you does not feel right. It doesn't feel aligned. It doesn't feel like it represents where you're going, who you want to be, and how you want to represent yourself at said event.
So all of a sudden you go from not really thinking or worrying about your closet and what's in there, and it seems like it was working just fine for all your day-to-day activities and appointments and schedules to having a panic attack. And immediately you start combing the webs.
You go perhaps in-store shopping. You do a shopping haul and you're just grabbing at anything you can see or find. And all this stuff arrives at your house or you bring it home. You're trying it on. Nothing's working out quite right. And you end up back in the same spot that you started.
So when you go to this speaking event or this new client meeting or whatever this big opportunity is on your calendar, you end up wearing something either that you settled for, maybe something you shopped for, and you're like, "Well, it kind of doesn't nail it, but it's good enough. And I'm up against this time barrier. So I guess this is what I'm going with," or you end up wearing something from your own closet that is just going to have to do the job. Believe me, I have been in this point and I've worked with clients who have had this same feeling. It is not a fun feeling.
And I got to tell you, when you're in that moment of shopping and you're getting everything delivered to your house, you're like, "Okay, I feel like I'm making progress. Something's going to work. This is productive. I'm going to figure this out," but often what happens is not the result that we want. We just are more confused.
We end up with a more stuffed closet and we're now more in our head than ever before. And what we were hoping was going to bring us clarity is actually not going to give us the clarity that we want. So shopping becomes kind of like a coping mechanism where it feels like we're making progress.
It feels like we're taking action. But when it's not rooted in a strategy, it actually makes your problems worse. And there's this sort of trap of like, "Okay, it'll just be like the next piece that I buy. I'm sure like the next piece, I'm going to find it, it's going to land on my plate. I'm going to manifest this thing that it's going to just seal the deal. It's going to make everything come into place."
And this idea of shopping without a plan reminds me of another area of life where shopping without a plan can really work against you. I think about grocery shopping. I'm now someone who pre-plans all of my weekly meals.
And I started that probably 10 or 15 years ago when I was feeling very stressed about going to the grocery store and constantly tired of asking that same question of what am I going to cook today and never feeling inspired and never feeling like going to the grocery store at that minute to actually go get the things. And I decided I'm done with this. I am going to start creating plans.
But honestly, think about it. Before I started that, when I would go to the grocery store, I'm just kind of letting things inspire me as I go along. I'm making things up as I go. I'm being swayed by deals and by sales and whatever eye candy is in front of me, whatever seems tantalizing. And then inevitably, I would show up back home and I wouldn't have the ingredients actually for what I needed. I would end up with a lot of excess for the week that never got used and eventually got thrown away.
It was just a mess. If you're nodding your head and you're this kind of person, you know what this feels like. But this is what I mean. This is the same experience when you go shopping without a plan. You're going to end up with things that never get worn. You're going to end up with things that, oh, you thought you liked, but you never really liked actually when you get at home and you never use it.
You feel very aspirational while you're in the moment. But then when you get home, reality hits and you're like, "Yeah, that's not really me." It's just not a great way to set yourself up for success.
Now, on top of that, let's look at how confusing and distracting and manipulating the retail environment can be. You have to understand, I am a marketer at heart. I spent 20 years of my life and my career in marketing and branding and content and selling.
And I know every trick in the book there is to know about how to get people to buy. And because I worked in online marketing, I worked in in-store marketing, I worked through all of it. I know it like the back of my hand.
And yet I find myself just as tempted and sucked in as all of you. But when you think about stepping into a retail environment, when it comes to shopping for clothes or your style, it really is a confusing place and it thrives on urgency. It thrives on tempting you and it thrives on fear and scarcity.
Like, for example, there's a lot of fear of missing out messages, FOMO. When you're shopping online, it'll often tell me now like, "Oh, this is the last one in stock. You better get it."
Or 50 people have this in their cart or this item is trending, which makes you feel like, "Oh, shoot, I better I better get this now." And it doesn't give you time to think. Let's talk about sales. Who here—raise your hand. My hand is raised—is driven by sales, who loves a good deal? Oh, man, do I love a good deal.
And I cannot tell you how many things are in my closet, both things I love and things that I regret that I bought on sale because I was like, "Ooh, that's on sale. That's a good deal. How many things I shopped off of the sale rack is just too many to count."
I'm inspired by that. I bet if you're someone who's like me, you have a closet full of things like that, too. Like I said, sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't. And then we've got stylists in stores now that are well-meaning, for sure. But ultimately, they're driven by making a sale.
And this is the way it goes. You know, you walk into the dressing room and you've got a few pieces picked out and they're like, "Well, come show me. I can't wait to see this on you." So you walk out.
I think I told a story about this recently where this happened to me. You walk out and they're like, "Oh, my gosh, it looks so good. You have to buy it. It looks so good on you. You have to get this." And then even if you felt on the fence, you're like, "Oh, okay, since she thinks it looks good on me, maybe I think it looks good on me, too."
And all of a sudden, do you see how you're being swept up in the emotion of things? And they're handing things over the door and like, "Oh, you should definitely try this on. This is trending like this is really hot right now. There are a lot of women who really like this."
It is confusing and you don't even have time to think. And because we're so driven by compliments—I talked about that in another episode and approvals—it's just natural for us to be drawn to that. They know how to work you.
Let's talk about influencers on social. They're talking about what's trending. They're talking about what's coming up for the season. And then you sort of have fear of missing out, like, "Oh, my gosh, if I don't start buying up and following all these trends, then maybe I'm going to become irrelevant or maybe what I have in my closet isn't good enough anymore." You feel the pressure.
Even thinking about style subscription services, I really have nothing against these. These can be a great way to build your closet. But just know that they really don't know that much about you or your goals or what you're trying to do or what's in your closet already.
They're just trying to give you like a fresh haul every month. And it's on you to have some clarity about what works or doesn't, what fits or what doesn't fit. Not meaning physically fitting you, but aligning with your personal style. They don't have that knowledge. You still have to hold that knowledge. And then thinking about the retail environment in the sense that there is always new stuff coming.
It used to be that when I was a kid, we'd get a spring catalog, we'd get a fall catalog. And there wasn't much newness outside of that. And now there is weekly drops. I get constant emails that are like, "Hey, need something new? Check out this week's drop." It is so distracting. And it makes us feel like, "Well, maybe what I have in my closet isn't good enough."
Maybe I do need to buy something. Again, it's a dopamine hit. And I really think in this process of urgency, of temptation, of more, more, more, more, more confusion, giving us distractions, tempting us, I really feel like we've lost connection to ourselves and to our clothes in this process.
Clothes are easy to acquire. They're easy to discard of. There's not much feeling and intention around all of it anymore.
Honestly, this telling people what to do or telling people what they should have in their closets is a trap I don't want to fall in. And it's why you will not see from me any must-have lists for the season. You won't see me putting out like standardized or predetermined capsules.
I just really believe in building a wardrobe that is suited to your own personal style. And that, in my opinion, is not the same across two women, let alone hundreds of women. So that's how I'm personally trying to not contribute to this confusion.
But I want you to be aware of just how confusing this environment is that you're putting yourself into. And then when you don't have clarity or a strategy, how easily you can be swayed in this direction or that. And, you know, sometimes it works out.
Sometimes you get a piece here or there where it really feels resonant. But I think the story that I hear from most women is that it just leads to more chaos in their closet, more stuffed full, more things that they're not sure what to do with things that they feel guilty about. I've set the stage of why this feels so chaotic and why you need a strategy.
But how do we actually work through this? How do we actually create a strategy? I'm going to give you a little glimpse today of what I actually do with my clients. And this is actually the process that we'll go through in The Visibility Edit, which is coming up this September. It starts in September.
The doors are open now and you can apply to join if you like. But this is the very process that I take my clients through that helps you put a navigation system in place that helps you come back to yourself and come back to the central question of who is the woman I'm becoming? That's really the question that we're trying to get at. Right away, before we ever step foot in a store.
Really, when you think about it, how can you possibly shop for the next level version of yourself if you don't know yet who she is? What she does? Where she goes? Who she's meeting with? What stages she wants to be on? Which clients she's wanting to meet with? What her goals are? How can we possibly know how to solve for that if we haven't answered these questions? This style strategy that I'm going to share with you becomes the navigation system that we can rely on. Season after season. Something that can weather the trends. That can be our point of discernment amongst all these temptations. And that can help us become more intentional. Now doesn't that sound nice? Sounds nice to me.
The first thing that we tackle. There are three parts in my style strategy framework that I'm going to go through in The Visibility Edit in which I go through with each and every one of my clients before we even walk into a store. We don't literally walk into a store, but you know what I mean. There are three parts. There's a style vision, there's style application and tools, and there is the style mindset.
In the style vision, what we're talking about is the question, who are you becoming? Who is the woman you're becoming? What does she wear? The self that has gotten you to this point that has created the level of success that you have now, she's awesome and she's great. And I also am grateful to her, but I know that she's not going to take me to that next level.
So we want to be clear. What does she wear? If you've ever heard me speak, we go through an envisioning exercise where we think about you standing on that next level stage or you getting in that next big opportunity and you getting into that room you most desire. And we visualize very clearly what you are wearing.
And this exercise gives you clues as to colors, silhouettes, shapes, what kind of style vibe. Ultimately in the style vision, after we create Pinterest boards and we allow ourselves to dream and we allow ourselves to get honest about what we want for ourselves and not just look to others as a template for how we should show up, we really dig deep and think about what's in alignment with who I am and who I am as a person and who I want to be seen as a personal brand. But ultimately after doing all this visioning work, we come to defining your three personal style words.
And these three style words, they become the basis and the guides for every single outfit that you make, whether it's on the sidelines, watching your kid's soccer game, or on the biggest stage you've ever dreamed of in your life. These three style words inform how to put outfits together that are uniquely you. I want to give you some examples just to kind of ground this.
My three words are bold, feminine, and classic. And the way I like to think of these three style words is that they all work together, not separately. So when I think about the word feminine, for example, I think of a lot of different images.
I could think of something very like fluffy and a tulle skirt and pastel colors and bows and sequins. I can think of a lot of things, but that doesn't necessarily feel totally like me. I need my style to not only have a feminine touch, but I want there to be a bold element.
So whether that's me mixing bold colors together, that's me mixing pieces that wouldn't normally be mixed together in a unique color combination. And then, of course, it really needs to be classic and tailored. I love me a good blazer.
I love a good trench, but often I like to seek ways in which it's done in a unique way. And so every single one of my outfits that I create, again, whether I'm on my own time with my kids or my family or anything else in between, these outfits only feel like me when they line up with these three words.
Other examples from my clients. I'm going to give you their three style words to give you an idea just to kind of start letting your brain wander a little bit about what yours could be. One client had loud, structured, and playful. Another had vibrant, quirky, and eclectic. Another woman had bright, edgy, and feminine. Yet another had colorful, edgy, and aligned.
You guys heard from Brooke on this podcast. Hers is elegant badass. And then you also heard from Natalee on this podcast whose three words were classic, powerful, and girly. And, you know, I think what we talked about with Natalee is sometimes we don't think of very feminine and girly also mixed with powerful and confident, but we sure as heck did.
So style visioning is one big piece where we get to dream and we get to claim what we want regardless of what everyone else around us is doing. Number two, we get style tools and applications to give us, I like to think of these as guardrails. Okay, they're very practical guardrails.
So like, for example, we talk about colors. What colors look good on me? You can opt to get a color analysis and really find out which colors best suit your skin tone. But in addition to that, we name a power color, which is a color that looks great on you, but also does something to you energetically.
So we start to get clear on what colors do I like, not just what someone told me to like or what someone told me to wear, but what do I actually like? What do I feel great in? What do I feel more energy in? What do I feel powerful in? We talk about silhouettes. I had an episode all about body types and learning about which silhouettes work for your body versus against your body. But even within those guidelines, you get to choose which silhouettes feel like you.
Which silhouettes do you want to play around with? Which ones do you want to leave behind? You get to choose, but at least it gives you some guardrails to work within. And all of this gives you better clarity about what you might want for your personal style.
The third thing we cover is style mindset. Now, I went into quite a bit of depth on this in other episodes, but the truth of the matter is that we cannot make a change. We cannot make any change. Obviously, we're talking about style change here, but you cannot make a change if you don't first know what's holding you back.
And what's holding you back is rules, expectations, beliefs about our body or about our style. And ultimately, if we allow ourselves to keep adhering to these old rules, whether they're relevant or not, they are ultimately going to hold us back. They're going to keep us stuck in old habits, and it's going to work to self-sabotage.
So we're going to make decisions that maybe aren't the best for us, but feel safe and cozy. This, honestly, this third step, where we work on the style mindset, is truly the most magical, and it is the engine behind the transformation that I see in my clients. It's where we finally claim something we want for ourselves and decide to leave old versions in the past, old rules, old beliefs, old things we thought we knew about ourselves, and we leave that in the past.
And that is really the only way to move forward in a different way. And I can assure you this process going through these three things, and when we do this in The Visibility Edit, it's going to be spread out for you over eight weeks. I can assure you this process works because time and again, I have seen my clients make the transformation.
I get feedback all the time about how much more intentional their shopping is, how less tempted they are to buy constantly, or just to be scrolling constantly, that never feeling satisfied feeling that goes away, because they actually feel satisfied with what's in their closet. They feel less overwhelmed. Even women who come to me and they're like, "I feel like my mind is going to blow up when I walk into a store, or I don't even know where to start."
Now they feel like they have a little bit of clarity, they have some direction, they don't feel overwhelmed, and they feel like they can tune out all that noise. And the clarity and the confidence that they have as compared to the chaos they might have felt before going through this process, that is undeniable. After you've gone through this process, or if you're interested in going through this process, I would invite you to go to the show notes, apply to join The Visibility Edit.
But I think you're going to find that shopping can be powerful. You can be intentional and it can actually be fun. I just want to acknowledge that I know this is not how most of us have been taught.
I understand what I'm talking about is a different way and it's going to feel weird. And you're going to want to go back to your knee-jerk old ways of shopping the way you've always shopped. But you got to remember that what has gotten you here where you feel frustration, if you want that same frustration, just keep doing what you're doing.
But if you want a different way, we got to try a different way. And I'm going to say that this is definitely a slower process. It takes some work. It takes some getting curious. It takes being willing to take risks. It takes diving deeper, but it is absolutely worth the work.
And I know that being more intentional with your shopping sounds a little like it's taking the fun out of shopping. So if some of you are sitting here thinking, "Okay, this sounds not fun at all, what happened to the fun?" I want to promise you that it is not going to take the fun out of it. It is actually going to be more fun when you can find the things that feel aligned and say no to the things that are not aligned. You're really going to lose, you know, you're going to say goodbye to those last-minute panicked shopping hauls that are incredibly frustrating and not fruitful.
You're going to lose the overwhelm. And you really are going to be able to see how you can be different and how you can produce something different for yourself and how much more empowered you can feel in the process. You know, my clients will often tell me, I know now what shapes to look for.
I know what colors that I want to look for. I'm not dipping back of my old habits of buying five colors of the same shirt or wearing, you know, when my body shifts like knee-jerk reaction of going back to wearing shirts that are unflattering or fits that are unflattering. They really have a system and a strategy to lean on.
And I think even greater than that, they're clear on what's for them and what's not for them. And hello, that's like my whole goal here. Self-leadership through style, being able to say, "This is me and this is not me and that's okay."
So as we wrap up, I want to give you a few more reminders just to hold on to here before you go out into your day. When you are tempted to shop, as soon as you feel like something's shifting in yourself, I want you to stop and remember strategy first, shopping second. The other thing I want you to leave knowing today is that the real transformation you're craving happens when you get clearer on who you're becoming, not when you buy another blazer that you probably don't need.
Clarity doesn't come through shopping. It comes through the strategy first. Now, we do talk about this in The Visibility Edit that once we get clear on what you want for yourself, what you want for your style, who the woman you're becoming, I absolutely do think that shopping is a way to explore, to research, to find out what works, what doesn't, to expand yourself and get curious about, you know, maybe you initially set your style, personal style, and it evolves, right? And so the more you continue to play and be curious, the better off you will be.
But we want to have a foundation in place before we start there. If this is all sounding like something you would love for yourself. I really would like you to consider joining The Visibility Edit, which starts in September.
There's a link down here in the show notes that you can click to apply to join. I would love to have you learn with me and other women who are serious about defining a style that feels in alignment with themselves about how to be more strategic and intentional and aligned and not reactive. So with that, look for that link in the show notes, and I will see you on the next episode.
Thanks for joining me on The Visibility Shift. If something in today's episode made you pause, rethink, or gave you permission to stop playing small, it would mean so much to me if you'd leave a review at ratethispodcast.com/visibilityshift.
If you're ready to stop second-guessing and start showing up as the leader you are from the inside out, The Visibility Edit is where that shift begins. Head to elliesteinbrink.com to learn more and join the next round. Because the next version of you, she's not waiting for permission. She's waiting for you. Let's make it visible.