The Style Change That Actually Sticks
- emsteinbrink
- May 18
- 15 min read
If you grew up watching What Not to Wear, you know the formula. The big reveal. The dramatic before and after. Someone walks out looking like an entirely different person after just a few days of shopping. But the question that always sat with me was what happened six months later. Did it stick? Or did they slowly drift back to what felt familiar?
We've been sold the idea that style change should be fast and dramatic and Instagram ready. But the kind of change that actually holds doesn't work like that. It's not built in a shopping haul. It's built in the slower, unsexy work of looking at the beliefs running the show in the background.
In this episode of The Visibility Shift, I'm talking about the part of style change no one wants to sell. I share why being in a fix it now state keeps real change from happening, the difference between external compliance and internal integration, and why getting clear on your style beliefs is the first real step toward change that holds.
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1:04 – Why Ellie's What Not to Wear obsession left her with one lingering question
2:50 – The unsexy part of style change no one wants to sell
3:29 – The Biggest Loser parallel and what overnight transformation actually costs
4:31 – Ellie's year-long battle with insomnia and what finally worked
5:47 – Why panic shopping isn't where real change happens
7:32 – The bold blazer scenario and the self-sabotage hiding underneath
9:25 – Style mindset defined and where style beliefs come from
11:58 – External compliance vs internal integration
13:22 – Why every client engagement starts with questions, not clothes
16:15 – How old beliefs sabotage you even after you've done the work, with a Jessie example
17:53 – Why slow is the only pace that builds real self-trust
19:20 – The Style Mindset Reset and how to start spotting your own beliefs
Mentioned In The Style Change That Actually Sticks
Full Transcript
Ellie Steinbrink: 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.
Welcome back to another episode of The Visibility Shift. I grew up obsessed with the show What Not to Wear. Every week, I did not miss a single episode. I could not wait to see who Stacey and Clinton were going to make over. I loved the clothes. I loved what I was learning in the process, the big reveals, the moment when someone stepped out looking completely like a different person, after a few days of just shopping, and they got their hair done, and they've been all styled. But even back then, there was something I always wondered about. Not like how they pulled it off, because you were seeing that happen in real time. But what I was curious about was what happened after. You know, like I wanted the follow up episode, the one where they checked in six months later, or a year later. What I wanted to know was, were they still dressing that way? Did this change actually stick? Or did they slowly drift back to what felt familiar and safe, because it was such a dramatic change and such a different lifestyle shift, in terms of like learning to dress in a different way, but then also being a different person. It just happened so fast. I really kept coming back to this question, like, does this actually last? And this very question, ironically, has followed my entire career as a stylist, because, oh, gosh, I feel it so much now. And, you know, as an entrepreneur running my own business, but we are constantly sold the idea that change should be fast, it should be dramatic, it should be Instagram ready. Especially when it comes to style, although it's really sold to us in every part of our lives, isn't it?
Today, what I want to talk about is the part of style change that no one really wants to talk about, which is the unsexy part of the change, the slow part of the change, but it is actually the part that is going to make that style change stick. As I mentioned, we live in a world right now that just loves overnight transformation, it loves not having to wait for anything, it loves dramatic before and afters, reels that make it look like someone became a new person by the end of the day, shopping halls that supposedly are going to fix everything in your life. And this isn't necessarily new. I mean, I remember back sitting on my couch watching The Biggest Loser to these huge, jaw-dropping transformations. And then later, you know, not that long ago, actually, when the behind-the-scenes stories came out, we learned the truth about those transformations, which is those results came from very extreme unsustainable and often dangerous methods. And without that long-term support for those individuals, many of them ended up right back where they started, or worse off.
Now, I understand that's a very dramatic Hollywood example, right? But the same thinking shows up everywhere now. It's the only content that seemingly performs and grabs our attention, so I know why people do it. And this is how it sounds like now. It sounds like, here's how she went from 1K months to 100K months overnight. Or take this supplement and your sleep is going to be fixed. Or buy this outfit and you're finally going to get that confidence you want. Listen, I'm not pointing fingers here, because I've fallen for it too. In fact, many years ago, I fell into a horrible bout of insomnia that lasted for almost an entire year. And I was desperate. I literally tried everything I could get my hands on to fix this problem. I bought night time teas, I bought every oil and bedtime… you know, pillow spray I could get my hands on. No screens before bed. Went to therapy. All of it. And much to my dismay and despair, honestly, I was just crumbling. Nothing worked overnight. And what actually helped was slow, completely boring and completely unsexy consistency. It ended up being a routine I stuck to day after day, religiously and it took time, like a lot of time, as in about a year or more. And it just completely frustrates me that this is the part that no one wants to sell, because I don't know about you guys, but when I think of the different areas of my life, where I made big changes, it never happened overnight. It just doesn't. So why are we continually getting sold that this is how it happens?
And when it comes to style, this is kind of what I see happening. And if I've had women come to me before and they're kind of in a panic state, they're like, I have this conference coming up and I need to find the perfect outfit for it, or I've got this big brand photo shoot next week and what should I wear for it? Or I just got this big opportunity and I need your help. And I learned pretty quickly, this is not where I do my best work and it's not where you're going to get the best results. So I would… initially I didn't, but not too far into running this business, I started to decline those requests and started to educate them on, I know this is what you want, but this is really what's going to help you out. But the reason is, because when you're in this panicked, rushed state, which you are, when something's on the calendar and there's a time clock running, you're not in a learning state. You're in a fix it now state and I'll do whatever it takes state, right? Desperation. And when your nervous system is in fight or flight, your brain literally cannot process new information. Actually, I know this to be true, because it happens when I'm dealing with my kids, when they have, you know, their emotional moments. I've learned you can't reason with them in those moments, because they've been hijacked. You are not able to think logically or critically. You're not integrating anything. You're just trying to survive the moment. And I know this sounds kind of dramatic, thinking about it in forms of style, but it's true. Think about when you had to get dressed for something big and you didn't have what you wanted in your closet. It's a kind of a fight or flight situation, isn't it?
So yes, can I help someone find an outfit? Yes, I can. And will they look great? Yes. But that doesn't mean anything actually has changed. Let's take a real-life example here. Let's say, you need to go find something for an event. You walk into a store and you're scanning the racks and you're already buzzing, because you're in a panicked, rushed state. And there's this really awesome blazer that you see that's probably more bold than you go for, but nevertheless, it's calling your name, okay? Maybe you try it on and for a moment you ride on that high and you may even decide to buy it and bring it home, but then it just sits collecting dust in your closet. Why? Because something deep down inside says to you, it's not safe to wear this. It may draw too much attention. I may look stupid, like I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know how to put it together with something I have in my closet. I might be the center of attention if I wear this and I'm not sure I'm comfortable with it. It could be a myriad of reasons why it just sits there. Or go back to the store moment, when you see the blazer and you have that little excitement moment like, ooh, ooh, that's kind of interesting. But this time, as soon as you feel that surge of energy, you decide to just walk right by it. Why? Because your mind's like, oh, that's not very practical. I'll just go for the black blazer, it's safer, it's what everyone else is wearing. I'd feel more comfortable in this zone.
So do you see how we are self-sabotaging in these moments? It's unconscious. And we may not even realize we're doing it, but we are. Our beliefs about how we are supposed to show up or how we've seen others show up, keep us stuck. And until we address the beliefs behind the action, we can never truly change anything. And that's why underneath this all, we aren't just trying to fix a style problem. We actually need to address a belief problem. So every single one of us has a style mindset, whether we know it or not, okay? And how I define a style mindset is essentially beliefs, okay? Style beliefs. If you want to replace mindset with beliefs, the way you think about style is rooted in certain beliefs. So you might have beliefs about your body, good or bad. You might have beliefs about what's flattering or not. You might have beliefs about what's allowable to wear, what's not allowable, what's safe. You might have feelings and beliefs around visibility or whether you're just kind of supposed to keep it quiet, or you're supposed to rock the boat. And some of those beliefs were formed when we were just young girls. And some came from as recent as work cultures or corporate environments. And some came from culture, from industry norms, from familial traditions or beliefs and sometimes from survival strategies. Again, some are obvious to us and many of them are actually very subconscious.
Things like don't draw attention to yourself. I know I learned that, it was kind of like just go with the flow from a very young age. I was like don't disrupt too much. Things like wearing black is safer, because I don't stand out, or the thought that if I do stand out and draw too much attention to myself, maybe it'll look like I'm trying to be the center of attention, or maybe I'll put myself out there for criticism or judgment. Or there might be even things that run through your head that say like, okay, I'm scanning the environment and I'm seeing other women or leaders in my industry and they all dress in this way so I'm going to follow suit. And what I want you to hear right now is that beliefs are powerful, because they drive behavior. And again, as I'm saying, sometimes this is happening behind the scenes, we don't even realize it. You don't decide to avoid that bold blazer. Because there's so much programming at play, you actually just do, you just act without thinking, okay? So until you slow down to examine what's underneath that action, that decision, nothing really changes.
Here's another way I could say this to get this difference across more clearly. Fast style change, or this fast pace, in which we can just kind of like transform our entire closet, it really relies on external compliance. Meaning when we don't have time to think, we defer to what is around us, or what existing rules have been built up in us. And slower style change, creates internal integration. So meaning we do have time to think and can be more intentional. So while fast style change can alter pretty quickly how you look, again, you can be like what not to wear, where you look one way on one day and then the next day you look like a totally different person, but slow change alters you from the inside out. It alters how you decide. And until your internal decision making shifts and the reason behind it, no amount of shopping, or shopping hauls or any little quick fixes are going to stick. This is why I'm so insistent in my work with my clients that we start with mindset, before we step a foot into a store, which we actually, we do virtually, before we put outfits together, before you have to show up in front of a camera, or an audience, because style is visible and sometimes vulnerable.
And being in these visible spaces brings up things we don't expect, like identity issues that we're dealing with, like how comfortable we feel, like our self-trust. As I mentioned, when someone works with me, we don't start at the rack of clothes. I start with questions. I have a questionnaire that really gets you thinking about what it is you want for yourself and why. Why is a style change pertinent right now? What feels out of alignment with your current closet? Who are you becoming in this season and why will this style change complement who you're becoming? I think the “why” is really important, right? It's not like just, I just want to look different. I just need a new vibe. Okay, but why? That alone, those questions, shifts someone out of a panic and into awareness, into curiosity. And then from there, we spend three separate one hour long sessions that gets spanned across several weeks, unpacking these beliefs that I'm talking about, learning how to trust our internal cues again over leaning on tactics like people pleasing, or crowdsourcing, or scanning the environment for how we should dress, coming back to ourselves. Undoing years of rules that worked well enough, but now they feel like they aren't working or they just are keeping you stuck and then only after we have established some awareness. We've opened our eyes. We've created this foundation of why we do what we do then we're ready to shop.
That's why when clients see pieces that I've picked out for them during their reveal meeting, they often say things like, I would have never chosen this before. I wouldn't have trusted myself to give this a try. I thought this would never work for me, or I would have walked right past this. This is where what we've learned, in the initial sessions, can come into reality. It can be put into practice in real time. So again, there's the awareness piece. That's huge. That's what that initial time is for, awareness. Then we put it into practical application through the shopping, even in the try-on sessions. If I can see someone is hesitating, I will ask, I'll always ask them first, like, how do you feel in this? Because I want them to start to learn how to get really honest about how they feel in clothes. And if they're like, I'm not really sure, I know to ask a little bit more. Is it like, do you really just not like this? Or is there something else coming into play here? Is there something, one of those deep beliefs that's trying to rear its ugly head, in this moment that we need to kind of be aware of and say, okay, I'm not listening to that voice anymore. I'm ready to move on. And even after all of that, even after we've selected the final pieces and I've styled them into outfits, old beliefs still pop up and try to sabotage you just to see how serious you are about making a change.
And this is exactly what my client Jessie shared during her recent interview here on this podcast. We had gone through almost a year long of work and she was attending this event and chose one of the outfits that we put together during our time together, felt totally on point with her style. And even in that moment, she caught herself in old beliefs, when she saw this other woman at the event in this totally sleek and minimal and monochromatic cream outfit. And she started going with those fears. Maybe I should have worn something more sleek. Maybe my look is too bright, too playful. But then she caught herself, luckily and thought, no, this is who I am. This is actually who I defined so intentionally in that work with Ellie. I'm not going to abandon that. This is who I am. I'm going to stand firm in it. The power of this work is not just the awareness, but being better able to spot those frustrating old beliefs, when they try to take over, because they will. This process doesn't erase those old beliefs from coming up. It makes it possible for you to recognize it and for you to more quickly do something about it and make a decision from a more grounded, clear place.
Because when you can see these old beliefs, more quickly, you have a choice as to whether to obey them. When I think about my styling services and the way I work with my clients, the way they are structured, I often wonder, could I do this faster? Should I do this faster? After all, there are plenty of services that promise transformation in far less time. And the answer is always yes, I could do it faster. But the real question is, will I? And for me, that's a hard no. Because moving at this fast pace with your style sells a feeling, right? It's a dopamine hit. But this slower pace of change with your style requires a relationship. A relationship to be developed with yourself that is based in self-trust and curiosity and awareness and intentionality. A relationship with how you feel, when you're in your most visible moments. A relationship with decision making. Slow is never going to be sexy. I get that. And I'm aware that it's going to be a million times harder to sell something like this. It isn't worthy of a 60 second reel on Instagram. But the reason I'm so hell bent on this process and working with women in this way is because it works. And what I want for you isn't a highlight reel that looks flashy. What I want for you is real change that holds whether anyone is watching or not.
If this episode is resonating and you're curious where your own beliefs might be quietly running the show in the background, because they are. I've not met a woman where it's not. I've created a resource just for you to help you get curious and get started. It's called the Style Mindset Reset and it's designed to help you identify the rules and expectations, whether those are conscious or unconscious, that are shaping and deciding how you get dressed, how you shop, how you show up. The goal in this guide is that it doesn't fix anything overnight, but it does do something really important. It will open your eyes. It will bring awareness, because awareness is always the first step to change. So if that's something you're curious about, if you're ready to take that next step, you'll find that linked in the show notes.
I just want to say this final word of encouragement, because if you're anything like me, impatient, ambitious, wanting results yesterday, I just want you to know that moving slow isn't a bad thing. And somehow, slowly, over many, many years, it feels like it's just against everything we've been taught to believe that fast is the way to go and slow is the enemy. I truly believe it's actually the key to success. No matter how many times we're sold something different, I've learned this lesson enough times to know it's true. So now I'm asking you, are you courageous enough to try something different? To flip what you thought you knew about change upside down, to flip what you thought you knew about making a real style change upside down and see just how much of a difference it can make, when you go against everything else that you're being taught.
So ponder that question this week. Are you willing to try to do something different? Because if all the ways you've been trying to fix your style haven't been working, why not? Why not try something different? So as a first step, again, you can go download that guide I mentioned, the Style Mindset Reset. Sit with it. See what it brings up. And by the way, I'd love to hear what aha’s you're having as you do that reflection in this guide.
So reach out to me through Instagram. Leave a comment here. Your wins in this process matter, no matter how small they are. And they really make my day. I just want to say you've got this. We don't have to run like the world runs. If you want real change for yourself, worry less about how everyone thinks it should be done. Worry more about what actually works. And with that, I'll see you in 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.
Let's make it visible.
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