Stop Dressing to Prove Yourself and Come Back to Who You Are

Getting dressed used to be the most joyful thing in my life. As a little girl, it was pure creativity. Through my career at an ad agency, it was self-expression. When I launched my business, it was play. But somewhere along the way, entrepreneurship changed that. The more visible I became, the more I felt I had to look the part, buy certain brands, and become a version of myself I thought would earn credibility and clients.

That pressure built quietly until an event in Canada brought it all to the surface. I ordered outfits I couldn't afford, tried on sleek, coordinated looks that screamed "six-figure business owner," and nothing felt right. Something inside me kept saying, this isn't it. In that moment, I had to choose between proving energy and the vibrant, colorful woman I'd always been.

In this episode of The Visibility Shift, I'm telling the full story of how my relationship with style shifted from self-expression to performance, and what it took to come back. I talk about proving energy versus grounded, God-led energy and why so many women are exhausting themselves trying to dress for credibility instead of coming home to who they actually are.

1:01 – The real reason a packed closet still sends you into a panic before a big event

2:59 – The freedom of creativity, play, and self-expression with style from childhood into adulthood

6:35 – How entrepreneurship quietly rewrote my relationship with getting dressed without me even realizing it was happening

10:21 – The energy that's been driving your style choices and how a business event in Canada forced me to confront myself 

15:35 – The difference between the two ways visible women can choose to show up (proving energy vs. grounded, God-led energy)

18:22 – Why it’s not a coincidence that this craving to return to themselves often happens to women in midlife

Mentioned In Stop Dressing to Prove Yourself and Come Back to Who You Are

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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. Have you ever had a speaking engagement or a photo shoot, maybe a networking event or a conference, something that was important to you and you really wanted to nail it, but you found yourself completely spiraling about what to wear? And I find this happens, even if it's been on your calendar for months. It's not always like the last minute, I know I got to go somewhere in a few days, but somehow it sends us into this panic of like, oh my gosh, I have nothing to wear. And mind you, this is often the case, where we have stuffed closets. But it does send you into this panic, right, where you go into a shopping frenzy, you're returning things, you're texting your friends, you're, you know, getting everyone's opinions, you're just mentally obsessing about this. Now, I've talked about this a lot, here, on the podcast and I've talked about it from many different angles. 

But I want to talk about something today that I don't think I've actually been able to name until just now. I say it a lot, but I don't really think any of this is actually about the clothes. It's not actually about finding the outfit or getting that into our closet. I think what's happening is that somewhere along the way, getting dressed became grounded in this proving energy. And it totally jacked us up. I think getting dressed stopped being about self-expression and it started becoming proof. Like showing up as quote unquote your best self became like a fake visibility you felt you had to put on, to be accepted as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, as a leader, instead of what it means to come home to yourself in public. Now to understand where I'm coming from in this episode, we need to go all the way back. 

So I'm going to talk about me as a little girl. Who we were, maybe you can relate to this, but who we were as little girls was such a beautiful thing, wasn't it? Before we were encumbered, before we knew even how to look around us and compare, before we felt not good enough, like none of these things that we worry about now, were even on our radar back then, right? And I know for me, when I was in my element, which was style and clothes and playing dress up, it was just pure joy for me. It was creativity, it was play, it was self-expression, it was learning about color and art and balance on a canvas from my mom, who is an artist, like taking that inspiration and putting it into my outfits. And it wasn't just when I was a little girl. I mean, this came with me, through my entire teenage years and into adulthood. And I found myself very alive when I was on the hunt for finding unique things and incredible deals and then learning how to put things together in unique ways and colorful combinations and experimentation. It was fun. It was a creative expression. And this continued on even into my working life. 

Once I was out of college and into my career, I worked at an advertising agency which actually allowed me to express myself to the fullest, because there weren't the rules that existed with my clients, in very corporate cultures, where there was a rule about what you could wear and could not wear. My outfits really were my playing ground, just like the copywriters and the graphic artists had found energy in the creation of their art. It was never for me proving energy. It was me on full display. It was art. It was my personality just oozing out of me. And when I had the inspiration to start doing something more serious with my passion around style and using this creativity I had inside me, to help other women, I didn't start by starting a business. In fact, before I started my business, about nine months before that actually, I started by just playing. I got a very clear… during a meditation session, actually, I had learned how to do meditation, during a meditation session, I got this very clear download from God that said, you need to do something with this style. And I didn't know what that meant. But I had never, ever gotten such a clear download in my entire life. 

And so I knew you better pay attention. And so what I did with that, that very day, I mean, I meditated over lunch hour that day, I came home. And I was like, I don't know, I guess I'll just start talking about style, what I know about style. I'll just share what I know about creativity and how to do this whole thing. I'll just start sharing it on the Instagram account that I already had. And I said to myself, I'm just going to keep doing this every day, until I run out of ideas, or I grow tired of talking about it, or it becomes something that's not fun anymore. And I promised myself that if any of those things were to happen, I would just stop, because for me, this was play, this was experimentation. I mean, honestly, in the beginning, I wasn't like, I'm going to create a business. I just… it was fun. Well, long story short, I never stopped. And as I already alluded to before, about nine months after I had this very clear download from God, this is something you need to go do, I actually ended up losing my job due to the pandemic. And at that time in my life, I thought there's nothing else I would rather do.

And so I went all in, in launching my business. And man, what a joy it felt to be doing what I loved most and serving women. You know, allowing my passion to be something that not only filled me and my desire for creativity, but also then it helped women in a real way. Like what a dream come true. But something happened along the way. My energy around clothes changed. And if I'm being totally honest, I know entrepreneurship did that to me. And I'm not going to say like someone did it to me. I let it change me. And it didn't happen initially, but when I started to get really serious about how can I make this into a business? How can I make money? How can I attract the right clients? Something started to change in me. And I'll say that I didn't know it was happening at the time. I mean, I remember in my early years working with women, who were in the C-suite. And I remember feeling a very strong need, some internal need to change how I dressed to attract the right clients. I was like, well, maybe I'm a little bit too quirky and fun and bold. Like, maybe I need to start looking a little more polished. And maybe I need to start, you know, buying the kind of brands that they buy. And the more visible I became, the more I felt like I had to be polished and on, quote unquote, on, all the time, during work times and outside of work times, because I was running into people. And then I felt like, oh, okay, I'm a representation of my business, I must be like this really polished stylist and businesswoman. 

When I started becoming aware then also, you know, getting into like, how do I run a business? And how do I become a great entrepreneur? And how do I make this, this venture successful? When I started to immerse myself into the entrepreneurial space and I was not only like wanting to, you know, kill this entrepreneurial space, but I was wanting to speak. I felt an even bigger pressure to look perfect, to have the perfect body, the perfect outfit. Like I saw these women around me, who were claiming they were six, seven, eight figure business owners and they just looked so unattainable to me. Like I was like, I don't know how I could ever be that version. But if I don't become that version, I will never get what they get. And then, as if this wasn't enough, the fact that my career, my job was a stylist, I put extra pressure on myself to wear certain brands, to extend myself, to buy things I probably couldn't even afford. And actually I can say I know I couldn't afford it. I felt like this, showing up in this way, would give me authority. I felt like it would give me credibility. I thought it would earn me likes and stages that if I just looked the part, I will become that business owner I dream of being. I will manifest this version of myself that I always wanted to be, if I can just get that rich girl energy. 

The funny thing is, no one pressured me to do this. It was all on me. It was this, this pressure. I was, I mean, I can blame things, right? I can blame external pressures, but it was my own pressure, because I started to scan the environment and I started to compare and I started looking around and absorbing what I thought were the keys to success. I started looking not just at entrepreneurs, but other stylists. What did they look like? What did authority look like? What did polish look like? And when I say I didn't understand this at the time, I truly mean it. But I do now. I was squarely in proving energy. So what is proving energy? Well, I would say most simply it's defined as something that's externally led. It's when your style, or really not even limited just to your style. It's when your entire identity starts asking, what do I need to wear? What do I need to be? What does my bank account need to look like for people to validate me? This is all happening without me having an awareness. 

And fast forward to last summer, I attended this event in Canada. There was actually two events happening. I was attending an event, where there were going to be other business owners and entrepreneurs and then I was invited to a much smaller group that was higher level business owners, like six, seven, eight figure business owners, where I knew not only was it going to be kind of a mastermind, but it was going to be a time, when they would film and gather content for my social media, for my brand. And this trip was where I first confronted this proving energy head on. And I know I've talked about this trip, this event, here, before on the podcast, but I'd never really been able to name what was happening behind all of the panic, when I was trying to figure out what to wear. I mean, talk about putting pressure on myself to become that next level version of myself, to ship shape into whatever I thought a 6, 7, 8 figure business owner looked like, to have the perfect outfit, because I was going to be on film and I knew that would be on my social feeds for a while. And it was going to represent me and I was struggling with how do I want to be represented? How do I want to be seen? I had this pressure to like be the coolest dressed person in the room, because, heck, I'm a stylist and isn't a stylist supposed to be the coolest person in the room, like the most forward, put-together person? 

I really was mounting all this pressure and building this impossible task of becoming who I thought I should be. It was impossible to achieve this. And I remember ordering, looking in my closet and trying to find options and ordering things. And, you know, again, extending myself beyond what I could afford at that time. I was already putting money into the event. Some of these options were really cool, really sleek. These coordinated suit looks, really impressive. And I don't know what happened in the midst of all of this chaos, of the stress, of the ordering, of the returns, of the, oh my goodness. But as I was trying these outfits on, nothing was clicking with me. And I was just like, it was a proving energy, it was a forcing energy. And it was just like, this isn't it. This isn't it. This doesn't feel like me. And there was just this nagging internal voice that was like, this isn't it. But then the outside version of me was like, no, I can do this. I can play this role. I look like the boss. I can play this role. But it wasn't right. And I could not ignore this voice that it wasn't right. These outfits that I so badly wanted to wear, they ultimately abandoned everything about me that made me unique and special, everything that God made me to be. He made me to be someone, who's a lover of color, who likes details and interest in outfit, who likes playfulness, who likes personality, who likes boldness, who likes the unexpected, I realized I had drifted so far into this proving energy that I was abandoning the very thing that made me magnetic in the first place. And thank God, in that moment, it jolted me into my senses. And ultimately I chose two outfits for those two events that felt legitimately like the vibrant, light-filled version of myself. Thank God for that, because those are some of my favorite photos from that event, because I feel like they capture me. And what I realize now is that there are two very different ways we can choose to show up as visible women, as entrepreneurs, as speakers, as leaders. 

We can choose proving energy, or we can choose grounded, God-led energy. So let's just compare those two. So proving energy is really a lot of external pressure. It's comparing yourself. It's performative. And you might be thinking, I don't feel like I'm performing. But if we're honest, is it? And the other way I think, I can identify if it's proving energy is ,it feels very exhausting. And it also feels like I will never be enough. Like it doesn't matter how good my outfit can be. It's just never going to get me there. Like there's a never ending goalpost that I will never get to. That's what it proving energy feels like. When it is grounded, God led energy, there is a very deep internal anchoring. It's calm, there's self-trust, there's self-knowing, it feels fun, expressive. It feels rooted in who God wanted you to be. And again, this is why I say this isn't just about your outfit. Because yes, your outfit is one way in which who you are at your core gets expressed, but it's also in what you say, how you say it, how you show up on your Instagram accounts, or if you show up on your Instagram, it's how you connect in those one-to-one meetings. It's who you choose to work with. 

Grounded energy isn't trying to win the room, to be the most oppressive, to get the most compliments, to get the best deals, to be noticed. Grounded energy is willing to let the real you be seen in that room. And ironically, isn't that what usually people want the most? That's what people connect with the most. You know, I think a lot of women and maybe you believe that you just need better clothes. Like you look at your closet and like, yeah, I need some help in here, need some new clothes. And honestly, that's how we get on this hamster wheel of getting tempted by the emails that tell us we need the newest thing and we need the latest thing. And what you have in your closet isn't good enough. And that's how we get in that trap so easily, because we think we always need something better. And honestly, this is what women come to me for. But the more I work with women, the more I learn about what's really happening. And I don't even know that they could name this, but I believe what they're really craving is a return to themselves. 

And I don't think it's a coincidence that I work with a lot of women in midlife, because I think this is where this gets reckoned with. I know that's been true for me. I'm in my mid forties. This is where we start to reckon with these things. Our conversations about, I don't know where to shop, or how to find things I like, or find things that fit, those conversations you're having with yourself, those are really just masks for a different kind of panic, which is the exhaustion of performing a version of yourself that no longer feels aligned. This is why I often say this really isn't about style, because no one outfit can solve this feeling of disconnect from yourself. And, you know, I think what you're getting clued into here is for a few years, I was disconnected from myself. I think the reason this matters to me so much is because I remember who I used to be. I remember what clothes used to feel like. I remember the joy. I remember how it was a creative expression. And I don't want women to lose themselves in the pursuit of looking successful, or being successful, or looking credible, or looking like whatever they think is the ideal that will get them what they really want. 

You don't need to become someone else to be credible. You simply are. And you don't need to perform success to be worthy of whatever room you're in. You command the room just by being yourself. The most magnetic thing about you was never the outfit. It was always the woman inside that brought that outfit to life. So if today opened up something for you, named something you haven't been able to name before, I'm so grateful, because realizing this for myself has been one of the most freeing things of my entire life. And really what I want for all women is to come back to that feeling of freedom, to remember who they are, why God created you, how he created you to show up in this world and truly celebrate it instead of finding reasons why that core version of you is not good enough. 

I'm not saying here that style is the problem, but what I am saying is that the way we are approaching style and the way we are relating to style, has become out of whack. And in order to come back into a right relationship with your closet, you have to come back to a right relationship with yourself. So this is what I do. And if this is something you want to be a part of, I would love to talk to you. Please reach out, email me, message me, in whatever platform, you know, leave a comment wherever you're listening. I'd love to be the reason you come back to yourself this year and become the most magnetic you've ever been. Not because of what I do for you, but because of what you are able to realize through our work together. Not because you bought fancy clothes or you were able to buy certain brands, not because you were the best dressed, not because you were the most impressive, but because expressing your true God created self is the secret you've been hoping and praying for all along. Let yourself loosen your grip. Let your eyes be opened. Let yourself return home. I would love to do this together. 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/visibility shift. 

Let's make it visible.