Why Small Steps Are Not Insignificant When You're Ready to Change

You know something needs to change, but you don’t yet know what. It’s not dramatic. It doesn’t arrive with clarity, confidence, or a five-step plan. It arrives as restlessness, as friction, as the creeping sense that what used to work no longer does. 

So you sit in that uncomfortable middle. Not at the beginning of a bold makeover and not at the triumphant reveal, but in the quieter moment where you’re resisting the urge to force momentum just to feel productive. And in a culture obsessed with reinvention narratives and overnight transformations, that in-between space can feel like failure.

In this episode of The Visibility Shift, I'm challenging the idea that change has to be fast, visible, or impressive to count. I make a case for something far less marketable and far more effective: small, intentional actions taken before clarity arrives. You’ll discover what it means to trust yourself when the vision hasn’t fully formed yet, why rushing to “figure it out” often leads you further from alignment, and how slowing down, asking better questions, and making subtle shifts can create more lasting transformation than any dramatic overhaul ever could.

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2:04 – Why the pressure to have a “big plan” may be the very thing blocking your next move

4:57 – How trust is the real requirement for meaningful change

7:57 – The overlooked reason style change feels so overwhelming (and how to soften it)

13:27 – The first step you can take to start walking down a new path

17:15 – Subtle ways your closet reveals who you’re trying to be for others

19:51 – Small changes you can make today to start to course-correct

Mentioned In Why Small Steps Are Not Insignificant When You're Ready to Change

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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. I'm so glad you're here. Before we dive in, I just want you to know where my head and my heart are with this episode.

This isn't going to be about making a big style change at the beginning of the year, or having a giant makeover, or figuring everything out right now, because I often think that's the energy of a new year or a new season. That just isn't real life. Real life moves slower, even if the world paints it in a different way.

This episode is about what to do when you feel a nudge to change directions in your style or otherwise. You feel that temptation to kick it into high gear and get something done right away instead of moving slower and with greater intention.

I'm going to be bringing this episode back to style and how to make those big changes that may right now feel scary or unclear through small steps that allow your nervous system to get on board in a more realistic way.

Okay, so let's dive in.

At the time that I am recording this, it is my first week back after the holiday break. So this is my first week back working in the new year. Unlike many of the people I am seeing on my feed right now, I am not claiming my big goals for the year, my word of the year. Quite honestly, I'm not even feeling the motivation to do much at all, if I'm honest.

I haven't even set up my business plans or my revenue goals. Is this just me? But honestly, because I haven't been feeling motivated to do this, I feel behind. I feel like something's wrong with me. I feel like I should just be going along with this and finding the motivation and making my plans just to create a plan and show that I have one.

However, what I've had to come to terms with is that it's normal to feel this way. Just because it's the new year per the calendar doesn't mean a shiny new me who has a ton of clarity and direction is going to emerge. It's okay if you don't have the big plan yet.

But what do you do in these moments where the big plan or the big vision isn't yet clear, but you know something is changing? You can't just sit around and hope and pray that it's going to change or that this insight is going to come to you. Although I do heavily rely on my faith to reveal direction about where I'm going.

But honestly, it's in moments like these, where things feel uncertain or there's lack of clarity, where inaction is the worst thing that I can do. So to counter this, I focus on taking small actions.

This is something that's really been on my heart this week, and I keep hearing it from different sources, this idea of taking small actions. When the bigger task feels so overwhelming and big and important, like, “I need to figure this all out right now,” but deep inside you kind of know it's too big to figure out all at once right now.

These small steps that you choose to take, this decision to keep moving forward, is important. It does matter.

I'm just going to remind you that in the season where big plans and big challenges and big goals are highlighted as the way to go, I want you to remember that small steps are not insignificant.

What this time is teaching me, where I know I should be moving toward a bigger plan but I don't have the clarity yet, is that what feels normal and right, or maybe what the world has taught us is normal and right, is maybe not true for me right now.

Maybe what is more true and honest for this season of my life is to be okay with not having a grand plan, to be okay with not having a clear vision or direction.

If this is speaking to you right now, I think what you may be feeling, and what I'm definitely feeling, is that this way of walking through a season like this requires a lot of trust, and it requires being open to a new way of doing things.

Now, when it comes to uncertainty, it's really challenging for me to trust something greater is in the works. It's asking me to bet on a new way. It's asking me to sit in the uncomfortable silence for a bit longer and resist taking action just to take action, or to come up with a grand plan just to have a plan because that's what I think I'm supposed to do.

Honestly, that's what looks good on the socials, isn't it? To come out and be like, “Here's what I've got going on.” It just looks sexier.

But I think the lesson here is about getting uncomfortable, breaking old habits, choosing a new path, changing things up. Because when you do, almost always something new reveals itself, doesn't it? When has doing the same thing over and over, time and time again ever led to a new realization or a new change?

This is true when you think about other examples of life. This is true of health. When you learn about continuing to grow yourself and to be stronger and to be fitter or healthier, you have to continue to challenge yourself in new and different ways. You want to keep adding weights. You don't want to stay at the same weight. You want to switch things up. You want to use new muscles. You don't want to just keep doing the same thing over and over again.

Now, consistency is different, but how you show up might need to be different.

This is true in relationships. We can get stuck in a rut in how we relate to each other, how we choose to spend time together or not. Often, changing things up, doing things in a new way, is what will lead to greater connection.

This is certainly true of career changes. I remember back to when I was at the height of my marketing career and I was totally burned out. I had the realization that I no longer wanted to be in marketing, which was scary as hell. If you asked me at that time what I wanted to do next, I had zero clue. I had no answer.

But the one thing I did do is I changed things up. I made a change to my schedule. I took on a part-time role, which was nine to three every day, technically part-time. Yes, it was still in marketing, but that little shift of changing things up, putting myself on a different path, actually gave me more time back.

That was the key that helped me see more clearly. That was the key to my change. Working a bazillion hours a week with zero capacity for myself or my family wasn't a pattern that was going to help me make this change or even just be able to see what that next change would be.

What does any of this conversation I'm having have to do with style? I know you've been so patiently waiting to hear.

The thing is that crafting a style that feels authentic and true to you and aligned—these are all words we hear a lot, like an authentic style, a style that's true to you. They're thrown around and they seem very alluring, but they also feel very overwhelming, right?

What I've learned in my time working with women on their style is that getting to a style that feels authentic is an exercise in trust and taking risks. At times, the progress can feel slow.

Many times, the women I work with come to me because the process of changing their style, or the idea of wanting to change their style, feels overwhelming. They don't know where to start. It feels like such a big task and too much to tackle.

But here again is where I want to talk about taking small steps. Small steps in what we learn over time about ourselves and why we dress the way we do today. Small steps where we learn about our bodies and how to dress them, maybe in a new way than we ever realized how to do it.

Small steps in learning about what we like versus what other people have told us to like or what we feel expected to wear. Small steps like learning about what beliefs we hold about the way we dress or our bodies that ultimately get in our way and prevent us from making these changes.

All of these small steps to learn about yourself and your body are getting you toward the bigger changes that can sometimes feel so hard to see on a daily basis.

Style change is often reflected to us in the media as a one-day overhaul. On these TV shows—of course, I love What Not to Wear, so that is the first thing I think of—but they're often this very sensationalized, dramatic turnaround. But that isn't really how it works.

I've seen it time and time again with my clients. Each and every one of my clients has started small. Being open to learning about their body type and having the courage to try to find their ways, for example, after years of feeling like just because they have a pooch, what they would call their “mom pooch,” feeling like it has to be hidden.

Or maybe a small step was just testing the waters of wearing something other than black in a work setting, even if it meant wearing a dark teal and not going with a bright pink straight out of the gate.

Small steps might even look like admitting to yourself you hate wearing something that your industry or your work environment has determined is “the thing.” Like you've heard me talk about, I have a client who was in the financial space who allowed herself to admit that she hates wearing blazers, even though blazers were the thing you wore every time you spoke, every time you got yourself on camera. Everyone always needed to put on the blazer for legitimacy.

What I'm trying to show you is that the way style changes are presented to us in the media and on TV shows is big and dramatic and all at once, but in reality, it happens in the small changes, the small risks, and the small wins over time.

In addition to style change being about taking small steps, style change is also about trust. As I've illustrated earlier in this episode, sometimes change can feel awkward. It can feel clunky, scary even.

But remember, there is a reason you are being called to change, and you have to trust that voice more than you trust the outside voice of, “Let's hurry up and just get on with it.”

Sometimes I think women get this concept of trust confused or turned around when working with a stylist. For example, I will hear my clients say all the time, deciding whether to purchase something or putting something on for the first time in a try-on session, they'll say, “But I trust you, so I'm going to try this on,” or, “I'm going to order this.”

But really, I'm just their guide showing them the new path. I'm giving them the resources and the tools and the options. It's them that has to actually start walking on that path. It's them that has to have the bravery to try a new silhouette or a new color.

It's them that has to show up at a networking event or a work event wearing something slightly different from their norm. It's them that actually has to order the darn thing in the first place and give it a try. Guess what? That takes courage.

Those small steps of trust in yourself, trust in a new way, trust in a different path, they matter.

Often, my clients will thank me, at the end of our time, for everything I've done for them during the process, and I graciously accept that gratitude. However, I remind them that they did the real work here. I absolutely cannot make a change for anyone without their participation.

In fact, I've had a few clients where they did not want to change, even though they told me they did. Their actions eventually didn't affirm that they wanted to make a change, and as a result, the work fell flat. Ultimately, they wanted to go back to their old ways more than they wanted to trust that a new path could deliver something better.

So at this point in the episode, I think it's worthwhile to talk about a few practical ways you can move forward. Because honestly, I can get so easily swept up by aspirational talk and motivating you and getting you excited around an idea. I love that too when I'm listening to a speaker, but then I often desire some takeaway steps that can help me to start actually walking down this new path. So let me offer a few suggestions here.

The first tip I would give you is to slow down and to come back to yourself. Now, if you're anything like me, when I feel a change needs to happen or needs to be made, when that idea pops into my head that something needs course correction, I don't have very much patience. In fact, I want it to change now. I don't want to do the work I know it will take and slow down enough to make the real change because I want to go at lightning speed and see the difference tomorrow.

But I know time and time again, as I've made changes for myself throughout my life, I know that's not really how it works. When it comes to style, I've talked about how I think we get this false impression that it has to be big and dramatic and quick, like we see on the TV shows. But those often aren't real, and those often aren't lasting. They look good for the week that they're on the show and maybe a week after, but ultimately they haven't learned how to actually be that person. It may satisfy a temporary craving, but ultimately it just isn't sustainable.

If you're sitting here thinking about your style, and you've thought about what you want to do this year, or you've had the sense that you're ready to make a shift and you feel this urge to want to burn everything down that you've built in your wardrobe and start completely over, I just want you to take a pause.

Honestly, I'm giving myself this reminder too, because this is always my tendency, like, “Burn it all down and let's start over.” But where I would encourage you to start is let's first get down to what matters and what will make a true difference, which is getting rooted back in yourself.

Get curious about why you want this change. What do you want from this change in the first place? Why do you want it? What feels misaligned about your current wardrobe that no longer fits?

A question I often ask my clients is, “Who are you becoming?” Describe her. How is she different from who you were? Let's get clear on that first before we even start talking about, like, what is she wearing? What about you is different?

And then you might ask the question of how a different wardrobe might better reflect this new version of you. You can start to toy with what that might actually look like. But if we don't first know why you're different and why you want to make this change, it's not going to make any difference.

I'm just going to admit that these are very hard questions to ask. They're questions that a lot of us just want to skip over because it's easier to jump right into the shopping environment. It's more fun, certainly. But allowing yourself to sit with these questions and answer them honestly is going to be the most needle-moving thing you can do today, or this week, or this month.

When we don't take time to consider and answer them honestly, we will end up down a path that is just as misaligned as what got us here. Or maybe what got you here was just fine, but don't rush into trying to find the new path and then have to end up rebuilding it a year later because you realized it wasn't really the honest answer.

This is often why, when women ask me, “What's the first step I should take when I'm ready to make a style change?” I will say, absolutely do not start with shopping. The shopping environments, whether it's online or in person, are very overwhelming, they're disorienting, and often they will lead you off course into a bigger mess than where you started, like a more overstuffed closet or things you end up never wearing and then feel guilty about, or things you don't know what to do with.

Maybe as you're considering these questions, you realize that what feels misaligned in your closet is that you're conforming yourself into someone you actually aren't. Or maybe for you, it's wearing things influencers say are in, or wearing what you see others around you in your office or your industry wearing because it will help you fit in or appear successful or credible.

Or maybe you realize that you're trying to be a different version of yourself, but ultimately keeping up this act you're realizing is just plain exhausting. Maybe it's simpler than that. Maybe you feel a constant pressure to keep up with trends, with labels, with the newest things in order to stay relevant.

Or maybe for you, you find yourself wearing what gives you compliments, whether that's from your family, your husband, your teenage daughters, for whatever reason that happens to be a valid source of feedback for a lot of women in their 40s. Or maybe it's from your friends. But if you're honest, following these compliments just doesn't feel like you.

These are all things I have seen working with my clients. These are things that have come up when I've asked them to get honest about where they feel the misalignment. I've also discovered this about myself when I started to ask these questions honestly about what is in my closet, why I wear what I wear, and why I continue to wear that when maybe I'm feeling the urge to do something else.

So I'm curious, as I'm talking about slowing down and coming back to yourself, what's coming up for you? And by the way, I love hearing from you. So if you feel inspired to do so, please reach out, leave a comment here on whatever platform you're listening on, or drop me a DM on Instagram or a message over on LinkedIn. I'm active on both of those platforms. I'd love to hear from you.

But the first practical tip is important: slow down, ask the hard questions, come back to your true self. That is where everything starts. Again, I'm just going to say it's not the easy path, but it is a better path.

From there, we can take the next step, which is to start small. The entire theme of this episode, right? In this step, I want to encourage you to let what you've learned from your answers that we just talked about, I want those to guide you into what small action you could take today.

Now that you're aware of what feels off and what is leading you down the wrong path, what small change could you make today to start to course-correct? Here again, remember, this is not grandeur. This is not starting over. It's not donating everything in your closet, unless you really want to. I mean, power to you. But start small.

If you realize through those questions that you've been playing by everyone else's rules when it comes to dressing, go into your closet and find just one thing that you actually love, even if no one else does. This one thing that makes you completely happy. Maybe you don't even get compliments on it. Maybe you get some weird faces, but you're like, "For whatever reason, this thing lights me up."

Maybe there is something in your closet that you bought on a whim and it felt totally aligned and gave you a lot of energy. Then for one reason or another, it wasn't the right time, the right place, the right occasion, and you never ended up wearing it. What if today you just pulled it out and put it on? And maybe you don't even leave the house, but at least you allow yourself to put it on. You allow yourself to feel something again.

If you want to take that next step and wear it somewhere, take it out for a spin. I would love that.

Or maybe there's something in your closet that you really despise, if you're letting yourself, we're in this vein of being honest, you wear it because you feel like you have to, or to fit a code, or to fit something, or to fit in within the industry you work in, or because you see other speakers dressing this way, or because you get compliments. But secretly, you never liked it, or you don't feel comfortable in it, or you don't like the color. Allow yourself to let it go today. Just one thing. Donate it, trash it, sell it, whatever you want to do.

My point in these examples, I hope you're realizing, is that none of this is big. None of this is huge or flashy actions. None of this is rebuilding a whole new closet. None of it is walking out shiny and new on day one. None of this is walking into work with a bold new outfit that is a 180-degree turn from where you were yesterday.

I understand some people operate that way, but I also realize a lot of people don't. The point is that the small steps give us courage to take even bigger and bolder steps in the future.

This is a practice of honoring yourself, of trusting that a new way could be better, and allowing this to unfold over time. Who knows, after practicing this, honoring yourself, practicing taking a slightly different turn, doing something slightly different, trusting what feels aligned and what doesnt for a month, imagine what you could accomplish. Imagine how much may change.

Here again, I'd love to know what small step you are going to take today. I said “going to take” because I'm charging you with this today. Please share. I love hearing from you, and I want to cheer you on.

I think you've probably gotten the message in this episode that small changes matter and they're not insignificant. If you're not ready for the big overhaul, that's okay, that's really not real life anyway.

I do want to offer that if you'd like to have a guide in this process, this is exactly how I approach style change. It's slow, it's intentional, and in fact, my signature one-on-one service takes three months to complete, just to give you an example. My group program is an eight-week structure, so we're not speeding through this at a breakneck speed. It gives you time to reflect and be intentional with every step of your transformation.

So if either of those sound of interest to you, there are links to learn more. There's a link to a waitlist for both one-to-one services and my group program. You can go click on those and dive in deeper.

But in closing, I want to remind you that I'm over here cheering you on as you take your first small step. Even if you can't see the end goal, it's okay. Whatever that step may be, big or small, it's meaningful and it will move the needle if you give it time, trust it, and trust yourself. 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.

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.