When Your Signature Style Doesn't Feel Like You Anymore

You've worked hard to craft a personal brand that makes you recognizable. Often, a piece of your style (whether it's bold glasses, a signature color, or a stack of bracelets) becomes your thing. It's your personal shorthand, the visual cue people instantly associate with you. 

But then, when you consider evolving your look, fear starts to surface: “Will people notice? Will they still recognize me? Will they still value me without my ‘thing’?” What happens when that once-loved signature piece starts to feel less like a strategic asset and more like a comfort blanket? 

In this episode of The Visibility Shift, I confront the universal struggle of letting go of the style element you’re known for, even when something tells you it no longer feels authentic. You’ll hear my personal story about a style element that kept me stuck for years and how I wrestled with the fear of losing value and followers. I’ll also give you the three crucial questions to ask to determine if your signature style is still an asset or the very thing keeping you from the next version of yourself.

This isn't about ditching your favorite accessories overnight. It’s about questioning the stories we attach to these objects and realizing your impact and presence rest on far more than just one visual cue. 

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2:47 - How your signature style element became a shorthand for other people

4:13 - How a daily creative practice became a massive source of resentment

8:46 - How my brain tried to talk me out of letting it go (and what happened when I did)

11:57 - Practical questions to decide if your “thing” is in alignment with you moving forward

17:17 - How a client discovered she could be more than just her crazy earrings

19:23 - Your overall brand is the sum of many things, not just one visual component

Mentioned In When Your Signature Style Doesn't Feel Like You Anymore

Why Sticking to One Signature Color Can Hold Your Personal Brand Back

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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.

Welcome back to another episode of The Visibility Shift. Today, I want to talk about something that so many women struggle with when they come to me, especially women who have built a personal brand, who are speakers, or maybe just known in their industry. That is the fear of letting go of your signature thing related to your style.

Because you've been known for it. Maybe it's one color. Maybe it's your bold-rimmed glasses. Maybe it's your bracelet stack, your crazy earrings, or your shoe collection and always showing up in something unexpected and new. Whatever it is, people know you for this thing.

Now something inside of you has shifted a little bit. There's this soft whisper that starts saying, "I don't think this feels like me anymore." But this is a really uncomfortable thought because your brain wants to hijack that thought and keep you safe.

So it says, "Well, wait a second. Hold on. If I stop wearing it, what will people think? Will people notice? Will it confuse them? Will it feel off-brand? Will I still be recognizable? Will I be valuable? Will I be interesting without my thing?" If this is something you've felt yourself pondering before, or maybe you hadn't and now you're like, "Well, now I'm thinking about it," you're in the right place.

I want to talk about why this fear shows up in the first place. I'm going to give you an example of a time when I had a hard time letting something go, even though internally I knew I was ready for a change. I want to give you a little bit of a reframe for how you can think about your thing so it doesn't feel so scary when you are ready to make a change.

First of all, let's talk about how your thing became your thing in the first place. Ironically, I find that these things were never strategic to begin with. They weren't planned. They weren't part of this big brand strategy or blueprint. It happened because you started getting compliments on your thing or it made you feel confident.

Or it was an easy thing, in a conversational or networking setting, to talk about when you felt uncomfortable. Or maybe it made getting dressed feel less overwhelming. Think about the ultimate extreme of Steve Jobs, who had his thing, like he wore the black turtleneck, and that was it. That was his thing.

So it was easy for my practical people out there. But over time, it became part of your personal brand, your personal shorthand. When people saw pink, they thought of you, or they always expected to see you in pink. When people saw bold glasses, they thought of you, and expected you to be wearing those same bold glasses every time.

I think as humans, we like these shortcuts, don't we? Because I can see how, you know, I talked about this in an earlier episode of the podcast, how models of branding that came from corporate realms have taught us that this is the way to go. Like have a shorthand for your brand so you're easily recognizable and easily ready to be bought from, essentially. But here's where I want you to pause and reconsider this belief.

Your thing may have been part of a branding effort, but now I want you to question: has it become your comfort blanket? Of course, when becoming a new version of yourself, it feels scary to drop the comfort blanket. Yet you know you can't evolve by clinging onto it. It literally keeps you stuck.

I want to share a time when I was hanging onto a comfort blanket. Maybe you'll resonate with the story. It's not necessarily about a piece of my outfit, but it was definitely an element of my style that was keeping me stuck for a very long time.

So way back before I even started my business, about a year before I officially started my business, around 2019, I had this pretty big, revolutionary, woo-woo moment during a meditation session when I felt a very strong calling to pursue my passion of style. That very day, I honestly cannot remember the last time I had a clearer message sent to me.

I believe it was God, but who knows? It was the universe trying to get my attention. I listened. That day, I decided I was going to take it seriously. When I got home from work, I posted something on my Instagram feed and I said to myself, I'm going to start posting every day about style.

I had no intention of quitting my job or launching a business. It was just a creative outlet, a pursuing of my passion. It was something that I felt needed to come out of me. I said I'm going to do this every day, which in hindsight feels aggressive, but when I get tired of doing it, I'm just going to stop.

So I said, if this ever feels like it's not joyful, like it's a chore, like it's an annoyance in my day, I'm just going to stop because it wasn't like I was building a business. It was just following this message I had received out of curiosity. Well, long story short, I never stopped posting.

A year after I had this revolutionary moment, this download of inspiration, I actually did start my business in 2020\. So years passed, years and years, and I was still posting my daily outfits primarily on Instagram because it was a better forum for that. At first, it was something I enjoyed.

It was allowing me to flex my creative muscle. People would ask me where they could find this thing or buy it. And I was like, "It was really not what I'm here for," but I had this way of sharing an outfit and then having some inspirational message tied to it or something about how clothes change you or how to rethink your clothes or what's in your closet. So a lot of what you've already come to know me for.

But in 2025, I started to grow resentful of these daily postings. What that felt like in the beginning was that it started to feel like an interruption in my day. It's silly, but I would have full days with client loads and other things for my business. Then there was something about going into my room where I took the photos with my nice mirror.

I’d make sure the floor was picked up because my perfectionistic mind felt everything had to look perfect. Then the lighting had to be great. Because I live in Nebraska, some days the lighting is horrible. There's no light. Then the photo looked dark. Then I also felt like I needed to have this perfect outfit every single day.

I was noticing this dissonance in me. At first, I ignored it. Whatever, I'm just going to put up with it because this is what I do. This is who I am. This is what people have come to know me for. I kept forcing myself to do it despite the annoyances and the signals my body was giving me.

I was overthinking it and letting my brain take over. I was super regretful, but inside I hated it. This didn't feel like a true way of showing up for me. It certainly didn't paint an encouraging picture for women out there who also didn’t feel “on” every day.

Like I was painting this picture of like absolute perfection every day, like day after day, like showing up in this perfect outfit and in my mind it was inspiring, but I was like, "Maybe it's not so true for everyone." I started to play with this idea of letting it go. And something kept tugging at me and holding back. And it was this voice inside my head saying, "Well, what if you stop?"

I'm just going to say upfront that these voices that I was hearing, now looking back at it, sound pretty silly, But you know how this works. These stories are long-held beliefs that often don't make sense, but my mind was saying, "What if people stop following you because you're no longer useful, or you're no longer adding value, no longer interesting? And after all, you are a stylist, and this is what you do, you show outfits. So if you're not a stylist who shows their outfits, who actually are you? What makes me unique? Who am I without this?"

Again, I know this sounds silly, but I wrestled with them. All the while, I was letting my head thoughts take over and just totally disregarding my body. So after months of battling back and forth at this, like wanting to stop, but thinking I needed to keep going because it was the right thing to do, one day I just got fed up with it and I was like, "I'm done," which is often how I get to a boiling point and then I'm just like, "That's it, I'm out."

I've often had people tell me that you get to that point where what it was costing me to continue to do this ritual daily was more frustrating, more costly, I guess, than what I thought might happen about letting it go. Basically, the cost of getting all things perfect and getting the perfect lighting and having my outfit dialed in and feeling frustrated when my outfit wasn't dialed in and being hard on myself on the days when I just wanted to like not be on, that felt less expensive than whatever it might cost me to stop doing it.

And guess what? When I stopped doing this, nothing happened. Literally, nothing happened. And this is what I always think is the facade of like, socials is that we think that it's a big deal to us and it's really not that big deal to anybody else, but no one seemingly noticed, like no one messaged me and was like, "Hey, where are your daily outfits? I miss seeing you in them." It's like, no, didn't happen. Life just kept swimming along like normal.

Only now, I felt more in alignment with my brand and my message. It felt like a performative version of myself had been let go. Because in reality, I'm not a machine creating perfect outfits, although I can see how in doing so, it made it seem like it, the reality is I'm much like you. Some days I feel totally on point. Another days, my outfit just doesn't hit or it's not very special or interesting. Or I just feel like I'm phoning it in, I'm human.

But my overthinking brain, my obsession about what I thought needed to happen or what was right just didn't allow me to show up as fully as myself. And I've never once looked back since that day. I am like so grateful that I finally let that go. Again, how silly is this? But that's exactly why we're having this conversation, right?

If this is hitting home with you, if you have your thing, whatever it is, that is part of your style, that is part of your wardrobe or your shtick, if somehow you feel like that's a chore that's not in alignment, I loved you to give you some practical questions, to help you determine whether or not this is something that is in alignment for you moving forward.

You may be thinking, "Well, this seems a little silly, to really think this deeply about whether or not I should continue to always show up in my bold glasses or whether or not I should always be wearing my bracelet stack." It's really not about the thing in my experience. It's what these things hold or what meaning we've put around these things, the stories we tell ourselves about who we are and whether or not we have value without it.

So stick with me here. So the three questions I want you to consider is number one, does it still bring me joy? That was my question in the very beginning. When I first started to go down this journey, follow my passion with style, does this still bring me joy or does it feel like a chore?

I can say with a lot of honesty that up until earlier this year, so that would have been almost like five, six full years of posting a daily outfit, it did feel like joy. Then it didn't. So if it feels like you're a chore to keep wearing it, like it's an annoyance to always have to incorporate it into your outfit somehow or that maybe you feel limited in what you can wear because you have to plan around it to make sure everything else works with your thing, maybe you always have to wear black so that your fancy shoe can shine or stand out or being limited to one color when you secretly want to expand into maybe some other colors. Let yourself be honest, does this still bring me joy? And then let that honesty be your answer. Okay, so does it still bring me joy is number one.

Number two, does it feel authentic? Or does it feel performative, is the opposite way to think about this. For me, I got to a point where the outfits of the day felt performative. I was putting extra pressure on myself to get the perfect outfit together and that's definitely not real.

I have a very strong core value to be genuine, to live in integrity. So forcing myself to create these perfect outfits daily felt totally out of alignment for me. Honestly, I didn't even realize it until it like smacked me in the face. You can get tons of compliments and feedback and praise on something that isn't aligned and it happens all the time.

Honestly, I think that's why we want to keep going with the thing even when we know it's not right. Because it feels good to get compliments, it feels good to be noticed, it feels good to get praise, doesn't it? I mean, I'm right here with you raising my hands. If you are hearing and getting the praise but feeling disconnected, that is a misalignment. That is your sign it's got to go.

So does it feel authentic is the second question. Number three, does keeping this thing as part of your shtick have a deeper story tied to it that I need to address? This was ultimately the hardest part for me to unravel with "my thing."

It wasn't just about stopping the daily outfits or in your case, maybe it's not just about like, "Oh, I'm not going to put that bracelet stack on today," or "Oh, I'm not going to wear a pink today," or "Oh, I'm not going to wear my dark rimmed glasses," or "I'm not going to wear my sparkly sneakers." It's what does that thing represent or say about me?

So in my case, posting daily photos was how I believed I added value. I think I believed that for a really long time. How could I add value as a stylist if I was no longer doing this? I had to look harder, I had to look closer. What was really the thing that people valued from me; was that these daily posting of outfits or was there something deeper?

And ultimately, I've answered that question that yes, obviously it's not just about the outfits, it's this, it's here doing this with you. It's rethinking your style, but the same is true for your thing. Ask yourself, is that what really makes you valuable, that thing? And without it, will you still have value to give? And my answer for you and my best guess is yes, you do.

Or maybe it's not that it gives you a feeling of value. Maybe it's that your thing gives you something else, like attention, like praise, like a way to not talk about yourself and give your thing airtime when you're feeling flustered and nervous in a networking setting, hello introverts. Or maybe it's a way to have shock value.

I mean, I get it, I love walking in a room and having some shock value. I wouldn't be honest if I didn't say that. So if you're like, "Oh my gosh, I feel ashamed to say that, I'm just going to raise my hand and say, I have been that person." Whatever it is, get curious about this, what this thing gives you, or at least the story of what it gives to you.

This is about separating out story from fact, "Is it really true that I will not be interesting without it?" "Is it really true that I won't have value without it?" "Is it really true that I'll have nothing to say in a conversation without my thing?" "Is it really true that I won't be unique?" I'm not going to pretend that these are easy questions to ask, but they are important.

I want to tell you a story about a client. So to put this in more real terms outside of just a story about myself, I once worked with a client who, when we first started working together, told me that she was known for these crazy earrings. They were always like themed, they were a conversation starter.

She's like, "Earrings are my thing. I gotta have a crazy earring because it helps start the conversation." People came to know her for it. She got compliments on them. It was a way to start the conversation and when she was in sales, so obviously that's an asset.

When we started, she made it clear, like, "This is my thing." In my mind secretly, I had a hunch that her impact and her presence rested on more than just her earrings. Of course, I didn't tell her this outright, but I wanted to show that to her slowly over the course of our time together, so that she could see that she could be more than just these earrings.

As we started to define her truly authentic style, a style that would fully represent who she is, the style that makes her most unique, we realized that she didn't necessarily need to lean on these earrings to do all the heavy lifting. How we knew this was because once we started trying on these outfits without a crazy earring, you could just see she felt so alive and in herself and just present.

Some of that creativity got channeled into the way we put our outfits together in unique ways or maybe different color combinations that were unexpected and vibrant. She loved really vibrant, bright colors or just going outside of the box of traditional, professional dress in her industry, which is healthcare and is one of the industries that is the farthest behind in terms of, like, progressing with dress codes.

But the bottom line is that she discovered there was more than one way to stand out and honestly, the conversation of earrings never came up again. The earrings didn't have to do all the heavy lifting. Whatever your thing is, it doesn't have to do all the heavy lifting. Bet on yourself. Bet on yourself that there's something more to you than just that one thing.

So as we close, I just want you to remember this. I can say from experience that letting go of your thing may feel like the world is ending. It may feel like things are imploding, like everything's going to go up in smoke, like you might become invisible or just not be special.

The reality is you're allowed to evolve. In fact, that's a great thing. That's really encouraging for real growth. The second thing I would say to you is that your brand is more than just one thing.

If you want to dive deeper into what it means to build a personal brand beyond just like one color or one thing, check out just a couple of episodes earlier than this, where I will get you thinking about it, what it means to have a brand beyond just one signature color, that's a great episode to check out.

But remember, your brand is not just one thing. It's the sum of many things, your voice, your message, your presence, how you make people feel, your overall vibe, and yes, your visual brand, AKA your outfits. But in my opinion, your visual brand isn't just pinned to one thing, it's more than that.

I think it's easier for our brains to process there being one thing because it's simple, and for people who like structure and things to be nice and clean and tidy, like me, but it is more than just the one thing.

So if you're feeling these thoughts get louder, like I did, like maybe something's off, like maybe I've outgrown this, like I'm getting a little annoyed that I always have to wear this color that I'm always photographed in this color. But deep down, I am legit scared to let this go. I just want to say you are not alone.

I've been there and as you can hear now, I've had clients who have been there. But ask these questions I brought up in this episode and ask them honestly, let yourself answer honestly. Allow yourself to embrace change. Maybe it won't be as scary as you think. Maybe it will actually be the most freeing thing you've done in a while.

If you'd love to have some support in creating a style that reflects this new version of you that you're becoming, or maybe you just want a style that is a little more expansive than just one note, that is exactly the kind of work I do in both my one-on-one programs and also my group program.

If you're interested in either of those, I have waitlists open right now to join. So check that out, there's a link in the show notes and there's also a link to learn more for those programs. But in the meantime, I am so grateful you're here with me every week. If this resonated, share it with someone else who you think might also really enjoy it. That would mean so much to me. 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.

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.