Why Style Decision Fatigue Costs You More Than a Bad Outfit

You already know what it feels like to stand in your closet, stare at everything you own, and still feel like you have nothing to wear. That part gets talked about a lot. What doesn't get talked about is that it's not actually where style decision fatigue costs you the most.

The bigger hit comes later. It's the packing you did at 1am because everything else came first. It's the photo that goes up on LinkedIn, and you just cringe. It's the retailer emails and the comparison scrolling that never fully shuts off. These don't feel like a style problem. They feel like a focus problem, a confidence problem, and a presence problem. But they all start in your closet.

In this episode of The Visibility Shift, I'm walking through where style decision fatigue actually shows up and what it's really costing you mentally, emotionally, and financially. I share stories from clients who had no idea how much they were carrying until it was gone.

5:06 – The high-stakes moments where style decision fatigue steals your presence when you need it most

10:21 – The daily transitions most women don't plan for and what it costs them when they don't

12:33 – The background noise that keeps style stress running all day and what finally makes it stop

19:48 – The mental, emotional, and financial costs of not having a plan for your style

23:59 – What changes when your wardrobe actually works for you

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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. Today I want to talk about decision fatigue around your style. And I think the most obvious place this shows up and really the most likely talked about, is showing up in your closet. When you're standing in your closet in the morning, staring at your clothes, feeling annoyed at the options or maybe the lack of options you have, feeling tired, not having any creativity in that moment, not knowing how everything all goes together. You're feeling behind before the day has even started, right? And while this is the most obvious place we experience decision fatigue, when we think about decision fatigue with our style, it's not actually where it costs you the most. 

And what I see time and time again with my clients, who, by the way, are very smart, high achieving business owners, entrepreneurs, speakers, leaders, what I see is that decision fatigue around style shows up in very unexpected moments. And those moments are way more expensive than just a rushed outfit experience, in your closet ,in the morning. Because when we make 35,000 plus decisions in a day, by the time you start thinking about your style, you've already spent your decision-making energy on everything else. 

So what I want to talk about today is the expected and the unexpected ways that decision fatigue shows up in your life and why this is especially brutal and hard to deal with if you're growing in your business, if you're growing a business, if you're speaking, traveling, or becoming more visible, if you have those goals for yourself. I want to talk about the real costs that really aren't talked about enough, and that is the mental cost, the emotional cost, and the financial cost of this. And what can actually change for you, when you think about systematizing your style instead of DIYing it. Alright, let's dive in. 

So as I mentioned, the most expected moment of decision fatigue, I think that gets a lot of attention when people are out there talking about style or other stylists, is that there is major decision fatigue in the morning, right? This is what gets all the attention. And by the time you walk into your closet, you're already thinking about, you know, I know for me, I'm not really thinking about what I'm going to wear, although obviously I have to make that decision in that moment, but I'm thinking about what's ahead for my day, I'm thinking about my client work, I'm thinking about meetings, I'm also then thinking about kids and logistics and lunches and I'm thinking about my own food needs. For the day, I'm thinking about content. I mean, I've got like, just like you, I've got an exhaustive list of things going through my head. And now, you know, you might even be coming into this day, having not slept very well. So maybe you're physically exhausted on top of it. And so the idea of getting dressed or choosing something to wear, like, feels like such a big mental exercise at that moment. You know, you try something on, it doesn't feel right, you change again. This may go on for quite some time and before you know it, you're completely irritated and you want to just give up, or maybe you're interrupted by a child and whatever you have on, is just going to have to work, right? This experience in our closets is so darn frustrating, because it feels like just one more thing, you shouldn't have to think about. Or put another way, just one more thing you have to figure out, in a day, full of decisions. 

Ironically, I mean, I hear a lot of women tell themselves, this isn't that big of a deal. I should be able to figure it out. I'm a grown ass woman. That's a quote from one of my clients. But right there, that thought is what is ultimately making everything worse. That thought of “I should be able to figure this out”. As I said, this closet experience, as if it's not taxing enough, is honestly not the place I want to spend most of the time talking about today, because I feel like, as I said, this is a topic that really gets talked about a lot, this indecisiveness in your closet. 

But I want to talk about the more unexpected moments where I think the noise and the distraction is even louder. Let's take, for example, packing for a work trip or a conference. This is a huge area, where a lot of my clients admit, it is way more stressful than anything else, when it comes to getting dressed. And if you think about it, packing doesn't happen in a vacuum, does it? It's not like you can just spend hours and hours thinking about packing, right? Which is why it makes it so stressful. You know, what the reality looks like, is that as you're getting ready for a trip, you're not only thinking about packing and what to wear, you're prepping for a keynote, or maybe you're thinking ahead to who you're going to… like if you're at a conference, like who are you going to be meeting at the conference? Who do you want to meet? You're making dinner plans. You're, you know, looking through the schedules, trying to figure out what your next few days are going to look like, but then you're also wrapping up client work. You know, you're trying to scramble throughout the day to, like, wrap things up so you can be gone for a few days. That's only the work end of it. And now you've got, like, if you've, you know, potentially you're, like, securing child care, you might be prepping meals, you're, like, making sure everybody's set before you leave, you're trying not to forget everything. 

And where does style fall in this list? And I'm just going to say presumably, presumably it falls last on the list, doesn't it? Which is why you end up packing for this trip at like 1 a.m. and you're either throwing literally everything from your closet into the suitcase that you could possibly need, including three extra pairs of shoes, just in case you don't want to wear the one you had planned. Or you just pack everything all black or neutral colors, because it just all goes together. These are actually two very common things I hear from my clients. And by the time they pack, their brains are so fried that they just pack on a wing and a prayer and hope it all works out. I even had one woman tell me that she ended up forgetting her outfit and the only thing she had to wear for this conference, this keynote, was pajamas. So she had to go out and buy an outfit, when she landed and try to figure out how the heck to look professional on stage with whatever options were available to her. 

So as if packing for the actual event wasn't bad enough, like for the conference or the keynote, that's not bad enough. One woman told me she always packs, you know, she wants to be comfortable when she travels. So she just kind of threw on some like sweats and didn't put much thought into it, but then runs into a client or an audience member at the airport and thinks, oh my gosh, I wish I would have put more thought into this. As if this isn't stressful enough, right? I hope you're hearing yourself in these experiences, because they are common, it's not just you. But what is worse is that the moment you get to wherever you're going and you're dressed in whatever you decided to pack, you have this thought, this horrible thought, as you're standing on stage, or you're standing at the conference networking, or you're standing in your hotel room, looking in the mirror at what you've chosen, this thought that says, I wish I would have put more thought into my outfit. 

And this is the second example I want to discuss as one of the biggest unexpected moments and costs really of decision fatigue. This, “I wish I'd thought about my outfit more” moment is the one that hurts the most, isn't it? And you know exactly when this happens. It's like when the group gets together, maybe it's your company, maybe it's a group of women in your industry, you get together for that group conference photo and you see the photo. And you're thinking, oh, I wish I would have put more thought into my outfit. Or the moment you're standing on stage and you start nitpicking things like, I forgot my Spanx. I should have worn my Spanx, or I should have worn a different bra. I wasn't thinking about my undergarments. I was so focused on the outfit, I forgot completely about that.

Or the networking event where everything else went pretty well, but later you see a photo of yourself and it gets posted on LinkedIn and you just cringe. This has happened to me more than once. In this moment, or these collective moments that I'm talking about, instead of being engaged and present with whatever you're doing, you start thinking about your bra and how uncomfortable or unsupportive it is, your shoes. Why did I think I could get through the day with this pair? My feet are killing me. You're thinking about the lack of stretch in the garments that you chose. You're thinking about how you forgot this one particular thing and now your outfit just isn't right. You're remembering this detail you didn't think through well enough, because you were thinking about everything else. Or you're thinking about how so-and-so looks amazing and you wish you could figure out how to look that impressive and pull it together. How is she doing it? You're worrying that you look how you feel, which is you feel hurried, you feel unplanned, you feel last minute, you feel like a hot mess. And suddenly, instead of being in the moment, you're replaying what you should have done differently. These very moments are what hijacks presence and it's the most costly of all. 

But it can also show up in these smaller moments that are just so annoying and infuriating and more day-to-day. And also very common for the women that I work with, it's the shifting. You know, on an average day, you might be shifting from a work mode, back to mom mode and then back to a networking event mode, into the early evening hours. And all of this has to be planned in the morning, before you leave for work or the evening before. So you go from work to then maybe you have to go to school pickup and maybe there's an activity at the end of the day, at the school. You got to be thinking about that, because you got to hike up the school grounds. So you got to be thinking about, well, I don't know, what's the weather like? Do I need to be wearing a coat? Am I going to get rained on? What kind of shoes am I supposed to be wearing? And then you're supposed to go like launching back in from mom mode to like a room, a networking room or a happy hour where you're expected to be polished and confident and visible. 

And when you don't plan for all these logistical transitions, you're rushed, you're annoyed, you're second-guessing, you're probably making less than optimal choices. Maybe you plan to wear something that you know, like, I'll be comfortable when I'm walking to my kid's school, but then you feel underdressed, when you get to the place. What ends up happening is that by the time you arrive at these events, you're feeling and maybe looking a little frazzled. And the thought that you wish you would have thought through your outfit a little bit more, is stealing energy from the moment, where you actually want to be present. 

I have clients who tell me that once we worked together and we planned some of this stuff out, that this stress disappeared, because they had a game plan. They had outfits designated for the various places they had to go. They had outfits that could kind of flex up or down, depending on where, you know, if they needed to go to a kid event and then they needed to go to something after that. They already knew what combinations of pieces in their closets work. So it took one try to get dressed, not 10. They didn't have to think. That's the deal. They didn't have to think. All of those little decisions throughout those transitions went away. And what I'm talking about here is a complete game changer. Total mental relief. 

And my fourth thing I want to talk about is that it's a thing that's a little more elusive, when it comes to this decision fatigue, because it's always running in the background. It's not about those one visible moments in your day, like where you're regretting your clothing decisions, like I talked about earlier, like maybe a bigger conference or a stage, but it's the stuff that is just kind of running in the background all day. What am I talking about? How about that nighttime scroll on social media, where you fall into comparison and despair? Here you just had a failure with your clothes, at a networking event during the day, or you didn't feel that great and now you're seeing photos of people who look like they're killing it. Or you're seeing style influencers saying, this is in and this is out. And by the way, what's out is what you just wore today. Or there's retailer emails blasting you all day long. I get like 50 retailer emails from different stores that I shop at, you know, telling you what's hot for spring and, oh, now you need to add this to your closet. And you're like, well, what about all this stuff that I have in my closet? Can I still wear that? Is it still hot? Is it in? Is it out?

And it's, you know, as you're scrolling, it's the photos of other women in your industry or social circles. And you wonder how they seem to have it all together and what is wrong with you. And beyond that, it's like the random thought where you're like, oh, I've got that event next month. Or you just get an invite and you're like, what am I going to wear? And it doesn't seem urgent now, but it's just this constant like, in the back of your head, but there's really no clear answer to it. Tell me you don't have these thoughts. What I'm talking about is these constant thoughts that never really go away. They're just on constant replay throughout the day, because we're bombarded with it wherever we are. Whether we're checking your emails, whether we're on social, it's just like this low buzz everywhere you go. And it's like, even when we delete the emails or unfollow accounts, it's like, we can't avoid it. 

This isn't just about having more clutter in your social feeds, it's having clutter in your mental space. It's making you second guess, is what I'm wearing good enough? Is what I just wore today good enough? Is what's in my closet good enough? Can I do better? I can figure this out. I'm gonna figure this out. What colors am I supposed to wear this season? Are skinny jeans back in? Or is it okay to wear, no, I should be wearing wide leg jeans. It's just this constant chatter that will not go away. Because people are constantly making you doubt, am I doing the right thing or am I not? But here's the really cool thing. 

Can I just tell you, my clients who have cut this off, meaning who have worked with me to dial in their wardrobe through my standout style Kickstarter program, it's a one-to-one program, and they've pre-planned their outfits for all the things they need to go to on their personal style app, so they can just go and look and find the outfits they need. We've already figured out their style, so they don't need to be worried that they need to now be like somebody else or be something different. They all tell me something really interesting. They say things like, I don't even notice those emails anymore, they don't bother me. It doesn't send me into a panic. I don't scroll and shop for the clothes I don't need. I'm not tempted. I feel completely satisfied with what's in my closet. So I don't have that knee-jerk reaction to always be like, oh, I should be doing something different. You guys, these are exact client quotes. 

In fact, one of my clients, Sam, told me that I don't spend time scrolling and shopping for clothes I don't need. Oof, man, how honest is that? And then Lisa shared with me, I don't even stress or worry about shopping anymore. It's so freeing to not have to think about it. This, my friends, is the power and freedom of knowing that decisions were already made. They're taken care of, taken completely off your plate, no longer yours to worry about. How amazing is that? I work with a lot of high-achieving women and it looks like female entrepreneurs, women who are running their own small businesses, women who are leaders in their companies, C-suite leaders. There's one common through line I see with these women. It's that they have systemized most everything in their life, except style. 

Yet style is the very thing that shows up loudest in the moments, when you need to be present, when you need to be focused, when you need to be on your game, just as we've been talking about. It's funny to me that women have this very strong ingrained belief that I should be able to figure out my style. And yet I also completely understand it. It's weird and I also understand it, because I too as an entrepreneur have this tendency to just figure it out, because that's what you had to do, when you started your business, or to get to the place you are even if you're not running your own business. But the longer I've been in business, it's become clear to me that the amount of things I need to learn, just to run my business, everything from marketing, to content, to tech, to now learning the changing ways of AI, to changes on the social platforms, to being better at my craft, to learning to be a better speaker, to finding the right places to network. I mean, on and on and on. All of this is overwhelming enough. This is hard to keep up with. 

And I'm not even talking about non-business items, like my family, my kids, my health. You add being an expert on style on top of all this, because we know how important it is. I mean, most women, when they come to me, they know it's important for me to show up in a way that represents me well, that represents my personal brand well. But in order to be an expert at style and to get the results that you want, that means you have to learn a whole new skill. Everything from knowing where to shop, understanding how to dress your body. And mind you, it's a body that's changing. So even if you learned it in your 20s, now it's totally different. You need to think about and plan for your budget. You have to plan outfits ahead. You have to pack strategically. You have to think through every scenario. You need to know how to accessorize. You need to know which colors go with butt, which colors are good for your skin, which styles work on your body, and how to create a personal brand that's memorable. I mean, exhausting. 

And I would say Lisa said it perfectly. I feel like my wardrobe was very blah. I was struggling with where do I even go? Like this is a woman who is in a very demanding career and she's a leader. And she said, I just needed someone, who was better at this than me, to tell me what to do. I don't know about you, but this feels incredibly unsustainable. This feels like an expectation that is way too high, given what's already on your plate. As you're listening, I think it's becoming clear that style is so much more invasive in our thoughts than we realize. This isn't just that moment of decision fatigue in the morning. It's this constant, ever-running thought that drives us crazy. And the cost is far more reaching than just what I think we go to, which is like overspending or it's a financial cost. In fact, I'd argue it's costly from a mental standpoint, an emotional standpoint and financial. I mean, the mental cost is clear. Much of what we've been talking about so far, reflects the mental cost. It's the constant second-guessing, overthinking, wondering what to buy and where to buy it, worrying about what's in or what's out, defaulting to old habits when you don't know what else to do. That's kind of overthinking. The mental cost of learning a new skill, or learning just how to dress your body as it changes, is an incredibly big one for my clients, I will tell you. 

This is just a lot of decisions that take mental energy and it really does take a toll. But the emotional cost, I think, is where I see the hardest hits, unfortunately. I've seen, you know, not having style planned out or figured out, be a hit on women's confidence. I see them falling into comparison. I see them trying to fit in, when they don't know what else to do. I see them feeling less than. I see them feeling awful in their bodies, because it's changing and letting it hurt their confidence, or hurt their presence. 

There's actually this exercise I do, when I'm working with my clients in the standout style Kickstarter program where we talk about a day. We have two days that we compare and we talk about a day when you felt really good in your outfit. And I asked them some questions about how that day went. And then we talk about a day, when you didn't feel really good in your outfit and what happened as a result on that day. And I got to tell you, a lot of what comes up is this emotional cost. Things like they don't feel on point, or because they weren't happy with how everything went in their closet, they felt frustrated and annoyed and then they were like short with their husbands or with their kids. Or they sort of like hid at work. Or they, a lot of women will say, like, since everything was a failure in my closet, then it's just like I fell off the wagon with everything else throughout the day. Like I fell off on my health journey. It's incredible how much of an emotional toll this takes. 

And then there's, you know, the more obvious, financial cost and it is a cost beyond just, like, spending more than what you need, because of these last-minute panicked shopping trips, when you have no plan and are desperate to get something to work out, because there's an event coming in three days and you need something to wear. There's the buying random shit off social that you've been convinced is the in thing to do or someone influenced you and it's going to make you look more credible or relevant. But there's also things like just these items then collected in your closet and they never get returned. And every time you see them, you're like, oh, I spent so much money on this. And the anxiety increases. 

And something I'm really big on is I'm convinced that we don't need to be buying as much as we do. We actually just need to learn how to buy the right pieces and then mix and match those in ways that are more effective and more creative, so that you get more out of your clothes that you invest in. I'm huge on that. That's how I approach all my client wardrobes. But just listen to this list. These costs we face as a result of not having a plan with our style. It's just simply not sustainable. Why are we convincing ourselves that this is sustainable for us to keep hanging on to, on our own? And if you're trying to grow or you're simply busy leading your business, or your company, this approach to style will always lag behind you. 

I'd like to take a moment to step away from the toll this is taking on your life and just to imagine what happens, when your wardrobe works for you. You know, before I answer this, I want to give you a really personal example from my own life, because it's helped me see this even more clearly. So recently I joined a program with a functional dietician and actually it started as like a seven day blood sugar reset program. I had been kind of stalking this woman and listening to her podcast and she was just making a lot of sense to me. So I joined the seven day reset. And after the reset, I was like, oh my gosh, this is, I feel great. This is answering a lot of questions I've had about my health, as I go into perimenopause. 

And so I decided to join like a year-long program with her, where she provides the meal plan. She provides the grocery list. She's providing teaching and guidance so that I'm addressing the things that matter most to me, like managing my hormones, like managing my gut health, like getting enough protein and fiber and fueling my body properly for exercise. And honestly, I did not realize how much I was carrying until I signed up for this program. I mean, I've been someone who has been planning my meals for 10 years, more than that. It was actually after the kids were born. But before this, the way in which I was doing it, I was totally stressing myself out. I was constantly searching for new recipes that I thought fit what I should be eating, as a perimenopausal woman, but also satisfying my family. 

I was tracking my macros. If you're a perimenopausal woman, you'll know exactly what I mean, but tracking my macros in MyFitnessPal. I was just constantly wondering, was I doing it right? I was consuming a lot of information that ended up being conflicting. I was overwhelmed without even realizing it. Not because I don't care about my health, but because I was trying to be the expert and the executor. And now I'm on this system with a woman that I trust and I just follow it. And I had no idea how much physical time this was saving me and mental energy and time. I don't second guess it. I'm not putting my meals into the fitness planner. I don't spiral at night, like what should I be doing? I'm not having the cravings. I mean, it's exactly how I see this conversation we're having about style. 

And this is the same reason my clients hire me, not because they couldn't technically figure it out, but because they don't want to spend their energy there anymore. You know, clients will tell me, they don't think about shopping anymore. They unsubscribe from emails. They ignore influencers. They trust when, you know, what they already have is good enough. They feel appropriate and on point and more than appropriate, they feel amazing, no matter where they need to go. I had one client tell me that every morning, you know, I use the style boards that I had created for her, to get dressed and I just jet out the door. It was like no more trying on multiple outfits. I just look awesome all the time. 

I had another client, Christina, say, I don't feel like a frumpy mom anymore. And then Sam shared with me what used to be a major source of stress is now a strength. Holy cow. This is what a thoughtful, planned approach to your style looks like. Intentional spending of your money, intentional investments in pieces that are aligned, less waste, more clarity, but more importantly, you feel free to be present and focused on whatever else is going on in your life. I mean, just imagine walking into a room and not thinking about your outfit. Or standing on stage, without being hijacked by thinking about how uncomfortable this or that is. Or staying longer at a networking event, because you're fully engaged and you're not like, I need to go home and get out of this, because I don't feel right and I just feel uncomfortable. Or not having a panic attack, when you're at the grocery store and you see someone walk in and it's a potential client and you want to go run and hide, because you don't have a good outfit for your off time. That's the real win, you guys. 

Okay, I know this episode may have felt like a lot. Like you had no idea, just how invasive style was, or style is in your life, until I named it. But it's really as simple as having a plan. It's not that other women have it figured out and you don't or they're more stylish than you and you're a hopeless cause, or that you're just bad at this and will never figure it out. The real issue is that you think you have to do it alone. This do-it-yourself mentality has gotten you so far. It definitely has gotten you far in your business, but it's no longer helping you out, in this area of your life. In fact, it's backfiring. 

So I'd like to encourage you in knowing that relief from this ongoing stress is possible. You heard it in my client's words. You heard it in their examples. If you want relief from this thorn in your style that is style, that's costing you way too much right now, this is exactly what my Standout Style Kickstarter program is designed for. It's a one-on-one program meant to give you clarity, help you to take your power back, when it comes to your style, instead of being at the whim of other people's expectations for you. And ultimately to take away this incredibly heavy mental load that we've been talking about. 

It's a system that will leave you feeling freer, lighter, more emboldened and wondering why you didn't do this 10 years ago. So right now, if this sounds interesting to you, I have opened my Standout Style Kickstarter program for summer and fall. And now is the time to start, honestly, because this is a three-month process. So down in the show notes, you'll find a link where you can learn more. 

But let me just say this as we wrap up, let this be the year you stop overthinking your style. You stop letting it clutter up your mental capacity. You stop letting it be a constant source of stress. And you start letting your style instead be a source of strength and power. Because trust me, you deserve this. 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.