← Her Style Podcast | Shopping, Color Palettes, Fashion, Wardrobe, Outfits, Clothing
Her Style Podcast | Shopping, Color Palettes, Fashion, Wardrobe, Outfits, Clothing
303 | 3 Things to Do Now for a More Stylish 2026
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You're probably hearing a lot of New Year, new you messaging right now, and if that's making you feel pressured to get your style together at lightning speed, I want you to pause before you start ransacking your wardrobe. Because if 2026 is going to be the year you finally feel confident in your clothes, it's not going to happen because you bought better pieces, tried harder, or followed more trends. Your style doesn't get better when you rush into change. It gets better when you slow down long enough to get clear. Today, I'm sharing the three things to pause and do right now before you shop and before you try to reinvent yourself so your wardrobe feels lighter, more cohesive, and more like you next year. This is how you make 2026 your most stylish year yet. Welcome to her Style podcast where we're all about empowering you to show up and get dressed every day with confidence. I'm your host, Heather Riggs, a 15 year and count certified image consultant and color specialist, ready to build a wardrobe and a personal style you love. Let's get started. Okay, friend, I will be the first to admit I might be a little biased, but I think that as you're setting your goals for the new year, having one or two around your personal style and your wardrobe is not only not shallow. Sorry for the double negative there, but it's not only not shallow. I think it's smart and I think it's strategic. I mean, we have to get dressed every single day. I know this can be one of the greatest sources of stress in your morning. And beyond that, the way that you present yourself communicates in an instant so much about who you are. So as you are looking ahead into the year, what you want to put your focus and attention on without getting into all the cliches of look good, feel good, and how you have to dress for the role that you want, not the role that you have. All of that might be true, but I really want to take a step back from the push for New Year New you energy and help you tackle the most important things first. There's a moment each year. Usually it's right about now, or maybe you feel this pressure around your birthday when you start reflecting on what you've accomplished. And you're also feeling like this is the time that you have to make all of these other goals happen. And that can really make you rush into action. If you haven't been 100% satisfied with what's in your closet or how you've been looking lately, you might Decide this is the time to fix that fast. You've got to go get new clothes. You need to try out a new style. You've got to embrace some new trends. You're feeling all of this new, new, new. I have to do things differently. But I want to tell you that action without clarity is only going to create more confusion. My uncle always says you can't rush into these things. That's one of our family's most frequent sayings, and in this case, I think he's definite. So I want you to pause on taking action for a moment and focus instead on developing some awareness. I think reflection beats reinvention every single time. And so in this episode today, I want to give you three things that you can do right now for a more stylish 2026. And when I say that, I mean lasting style. I don't want you to just have a couple of cute new outfits to wear to the office next week. I want you to feel your best when all year long. And it starts with doing some discovery work first. So the number one thing that I want you to do before anything else is get language for your style. One of the most powerful shifts you can make right now is also one of the most overlooked. I think most women think they know their style until they try to explain it, shop for it, or recreate it consistently. That's when things start to feel a little bit murky and you end up drawn to a lot of things but committing to nothing. You buy pieces you like, but then you don't know quite how to wear them and put it all together. You're easily persuaded by influencers. And then you look at your wardrobe and you feel like you have a lot of great pieces, but there's still something missing. It's not all clicking together. And this isn't because you don't have a strong sense of style. It's because you don't have a strong definition of your style. When you have words for your desired look, everything will start to come together. Decisions get easier, your outfits feel more intentional, and shopping becomes less emotional and more strategic. I know that is something you want in the new year ahead. And this is where understanding your personal style patterns becomes incredibly powerful. It's not to label you or to force you into a box, but to give you a framework for making smarter choices. Knowing your style is like having guardrails. You can still make left and right turns, but you're not veering off the road. And if you don't have that language yet, or if it's been a while since you've checked checked in on it. My free Personal Style quiz is one of the fastest ways to gain clarity before you try to change anything. You cannot overhaul your closet without having a clear picture of where you want it to go. And I think that naming your style is the simplest first step, so please start there. The second thing that you can do right now to set yourself up for success is to audit before you add. If you're dissatisfied with your wardrobe right now, I firmly believe the last thing you should do is run out and go shopping. That is without a doubt, putting the cart before the horse. I know it's so tempting to do that when you feel dissatisfied with your wardrobe. When you are looking ahead at your style goals and how you want to show up in the new year, you think, I've got to just go get some new stuff that I love. But I think instead the better thing to do to set yourself up for the most stylish year of your life is to start or continue practicing restraint. It's one of the most confident and advantageous moves you can make. I know it's counterintuitive to everything you've been told, to everything you see happening around you, to everything that you want to do right now. But before you add anything new into your closet, I encourage you to pause because your current wardrobe is giving you a lot of valuable information if you will just stop and listen. So I want you to begin investigating what's in your wardrobe right now, because that is going to tell you what you reach for on autopilot, what feels effortless, and maybe most importantly, what you avoid. Even if you love it in theory. And when you slow down long enough to notice these patterns, something really powerful happens. You will stop defaulting to shopping as the solution. You will stop chasing versions of yourself that don't match your real life, and you will start making decisions from awareness instead of urgency so you can really evaluate what's in your closet, what's actually, actually missing, what's working, what's not, and most importantly, why. I think your wardrobe is not a problem to fix. It's data to interpret. And once you learn how to read it, how to figure out what's there, what you need to do moving forward, you can start fixing it in ways that will solve the root issues instead of just covering up the problem with a temporary band aid fix. I know it feels so good to buy something new. We all love that rush of a new clothing piece that we get to wear, but that feeling is fleeting that's why you keep having to buy over and over and over again. So if you want your wardrobe to work smarter, you've got to shop smarter. And impulse buying is not the way to look and feel your best in the year ahead. So if you take one thing from this episode today, I hope that's it. To stop and audit what you have before you add to it. Okay, number three is to start dressing with intention. This last to do on the list is go to start to bring everything together for you. It's going to make your day to day feel a lot easier. And it's something that you can put into practice immediately. Because once you have language for your style and you've stopped reacting to your wardrobe out of urgency, the next question becomes, how am I actually using my wardrobe day to day? Last week we talked about dressing for how you want to feel. I think that that matters in such a big way. Now. Today we're going to focus on intention, which takes that one step further. It's about translating that feeling into your presence, how you show up and communicate outwardly. So intention isn't just about emotion. It's not just about how you feel. It's about direction. It's about deciding consciously what role your clothes are playing in your life instead of getting dressed on autopilot or defaulting to what feels safe. Intention asks a different question. It says, what do I want my presence to communicate today? That could be anything. It could be that you want to show up feeling and looking grounded and capable. You might want to show up creative and expressive or polished and authoritative, kind and approachable. I could keep going on and on and on. The key here is distinction. This isn't about trying to look like someone else. It's about choosing which part of you you're leading with. And when you get dressed with intention, you can stop looking in the mirror and wondering, is this okay? Does this work? You've already decided you thought about how you wanted to feel and what you wanted your outfit to say, and you picked it for a reason. So instead of feeling unsure or distracted by what you're wearing, you can show up feeling fully at ease. And that ripples out into a lot of small ways, like how you walk into the room, whether or how loud you speak up, how you make choices. You're not second guessing yourself all day. You're not adjusting or comparing or mentally checking in every five minutes. You're not measuring yourself against everyone else in the room. You just feel good enough to show up and focus on your day and this is why two women can wear almost the same outfit. And one looks really insecure, while the other one looks completely confident and certain in herself. It's not the clothes, it's the intention behind them. And let me tell you a little bit more about what this looks like practically. So instead of asking things like, is this good enough or stylish enough? What will people think? Will I regret wearing this? You start asking questions that sound like, does this feel like me today? Does this work for what I'm doing? Am I comfortable showing up like this? Some days intention is choosing the comfortable option. Some days it's choosing the outfit that helps you feel really pulled together. And some days it's letting yourself be seen instead of playing it safe. There's no pressure to do this perfectly. It's just about showing up on purpose. And the beauty in this step is that you can get started with it right now. There's no shopping necessary. If you put more intention into how you put your pieces together, you can start up leveling your style with what you already own. And I think it'll help you make better choices about what to bring into your wardrobe next. If you zoom out, you're gonna start to see the pattern with what we've talked about today. Language creates awareness, awareness shapes intention, and intention leads to aligned action. Do you see how much came before we start getting into action on making changes to our closet? You're not gonna feel more confident because you rush to fix everything. You're going to feel more confident because doing all of this deeper discovery work is going to help you know who you are, what you want to say with your style, what you already have, what's working, what's not working, and what you want your outfits to do for you on a day to day basis. Again, knowing this can change. Looking at all the scenarios across the board, what you have going on, what your bigger picture goals are, having this full understanding of what you need your wardrobe to do for you is going to change everything. So if you want 2026 to feel lighter, if you want your outfits to feel more intentional and aligned, the smartest place to start is with these three steps. Again, I would love for you to slow down the process and first get language for your style audit. Before you add anything new and start dressing with intention, using what you already have available to you. If you haven't taken my free personal style quiz, or if it's been a while and you need a little refresher, this is the perfect moment to reevaluate what your style is and how you want to show up in the New year. It's going to help you put words to what you already like so you're not guessing anymore. It's going to show you the patterns behind why some things work for you while others don't, and it gives you a clear starting point instead of that I don't even know where to begin feeling. You can find the quiz@herstylellc.com quiz and as always, the link is in the show notes for you as well, friend. I hope that this episode empowered you to slow down and do a little discovery before you begin revamping your wardrobe. Take your time getting your style where you want it go. You can do this without pressure, without a full overhaul, and without starting from scratch. Cheers to making 2026 your most stylish year yet. I'll meet you right back here in the New year. Thank you for listening to today's episode. If you want to stop copying everyone else's style and start dialing in your own swoon worthy signature look, head over to take my free 5 minute personal style quiz which you can find at the link in the show Notes. If you've enjoyed our time together, please be sure to rate, review and subscribe to her style podcast so you never miss an episode. Finally, I invite you to make this a two way conversation and send me a DM over on Instagram eatherigstyle to let me know how I can best support you on your style journey. I'm always here for you in style and service. Until next time.