Enjoying Your Style

At its best, your style is an expression of your personality and philosophy. It highlights your strong points and mitigates your weak ones. You can't help but conform to some social norms, but your hair, clothing and grooming should express something of who you are, even to strangers.

When you look and feel good, not only will you enjoy life more, but you'll be in a better position to help other people. If you have some burning passion, or a dream you'd like to see realized, it's important that your associates like and trust you. And people are more willing to listen to a well-dressed and self-confident person.

Why Enjoyment?

You can improve your style without really enjoying it. You can buy what's trendy, or conservative, or classic, and still feel like a loser. A stylish exterior is a poor band-aid for deep psychic pain, or for pervasive insecurities.

The Oxford American Dictionary defines "enjoyment" as "delight or pleasure (in an activity or occasion)". It's hard to enjoy yourself if you're focused on what other people think, or if you're out of touch with your emotions.

Personal development is an integral part of stylistic development. Most style, fashion and beauty publications ignore this simple fact. At best, they'll offer different looks for different types of people. And their types will be based on shallow labels. Are you a "prep," a "hipster" or a "rocker"? What is this, high school? How does this get you closer to any goal, whether that goal is attracting a mate or entering political office?

If you don't have a meaningful, enjoyable life, why are you alive? Maybe, like Harold from Harold and Maude, you "enjoy being dead." But you're not dead, really. You're just backing away from life. So you might as well enjoy being alive.

This page is part of our Getting Started series.

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