The Happy Closet - Well-Being is Well-Dressed: De-clutter Your Wardrobe and Transform Your Mind

by Annmarie O'Connor

Overview

Get ready – it's time to create a happy closet!The Happy Closet will help you transform your wardrobe (and your mind) into an organised and clutter-free space, ensuring you dress for the person you are today and never again utter the ill-fated words, 'I have nothing to wear'.In this inspirational book you'll find out how to move past the unconscious hoarding patterns in your personality. You will learn how to go from collecting rails of clothes you rarely wear to shopping effectively and mindfully to building a wardrobe that works for you, whatever your lifestyle. Once your clothes are in order, you will feel more confident, more in control and less anxious.This is a book for anyone who has ever wanted to have more with less. Get ready to discover your Happy Closet, where well-being is always well-dressed.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780717169160
Publisher:	Gill Books
Publication date:	12/18/2015
Sold by:	Bookwire
Format:	eBook
Pages:	318
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Fashion journalist and stylist by trade, reformed hoarder by habit, Annmarie O’Connor shares how she went from impulse buyer to decluttering coach by uncovering the emotional hang-ups and unconscious habits that underpin closet happiness. Meet your new closet therapist.Annmarie is an award-winning fashion writer, stylist and founder of The Happy Closet – a lifestyle decluttering service which balances well-being with being well-dressed.Her editorial and styling work has appeared in publications such as the Irish Examiner, Sunday Times Style magazine, The Irish Times, Irish Tatler, Image and The Gloss. She has also styled for London Fashion Week, The Voice of Ireland and clients like LVMH, Harvey Nichols, Brown Thomas and BT2.On air she is a regular contributor to The Dave Fanning Show, The Ryan Tubridy Show, TV3’s Xposé and Ireland AM, and RTÉ’s Today Show. She is editor of the Louis Vuitton City Guide to Dublin 2012.For further information visit www.thehappycloset.me.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter 4

THE PARADOX OF CHOICE

‘When faced with two equally tough choices, most people choose the third choice: to not choose.’
Jarod Kintz, The Book Title is Invisible

Imagine the following scenario. You decide to go jeans shopping and discover an epic denim bar with its own menu of cuts, washes, lengths and colours. A sales assistant sporting Buddy Holly glasses and unending confidence asks you if you need help. Of course you do, but you tell her you’re just looking. After all, it can’t be that difficult. You scan hundreds upon hundreds of pairs all meticulously labelled and categorised according to their unique selling points. Suddenly, what seems like a simple exercise starts to feel as logical as advanced calculus with a hangover. Brain freeze dictates a swift exit, so you head home, plug in and continue your mission online. Only this time, the square root of pi has multiplied to include a host of countless variables. Now you can either look like a high-rise extreme-distressed mom or a slim bleached boyfriend with busted knees – your pick. So you don’t. You’ve got a pair of leggings in the house somewhere – that ought to do.

Choice: it’s a bit like salt. Small doses add flavour; anything more and you’re looking at high blood pressure. Too many options create anxiety and, in turn, weaken our decision muscle. The result? We either snuggle up to the security blanket of stuff or suffer option paralysis – fearful, in both cases, of choosing poorly.

American psychologist Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less, maintains that making rational decisions is next to impossible when endless opportunity clutters the mind – a modern malady known as ‘option paralysis’. The greater the variety, the less sure we are of our selection and, as outlined in Chapter 3, we all like to think we know what we’re doing. Having a menu is one thing; having the Magna Carta is quite another.

And here’s the kicker. For all the Impulse Buyers, Doomsday Preppers and Split Personalities who gravitate towards volume and newness, there is an equal number of shoppers who are effectively blinded by their presence. This psychological quirk, known as ‘reflexive mental processing’, causes shoppers to manage choice (and regret) by unconsciously screening out the new and unfamiliar.

Picture it: you go shopping on the same day and in the same shop as a friend but while you come home with another white T-shirt, she manages to snag a pair of killer trousers you never even saw. That’s right. The basal ganglia are back in a bid to exert quality control over the vast amount of data the mind has to process. And what better way to screen out the unfamiliar than by focusing on existing connections: the easy, the routine, the old reliable.

There’s a good reason we refer to ourselves as ‘creatures of habit’. On occasion we’ll go balls to the wall and bust out of our comfort zone but generally we revert to a style default. Often this default, be it a wiggle-worthy pencil skirt or an easy sweatshirt, has an emotional tether to a compliment, a feeling (youthful, maternal, powerful) or a state of being (nostalgic, safe), which makes it all the more compelling and thus trickier to challenge.

And let’s be honest: the brain is a bit of a wuss and does its level best to avoid any psychological discomfort. What’s more, the basal ganglia, being typical Jenny Jobsworths, want to save the brain time and effort in making decisions, which, in turn, makes us feel capable and competent.

Sometimes, the mental energy required to investigate the new just isn’t worth the slog. The fact is, the older we get, the more habit-prone and thus predictable we become. In the words of Jeremy Dean, ‘Habit provides a safety zone, but it’s also a kind of cage from which escape is hard.’ So unless you’re under 5 years old or are Linus van Pelt, it’s best you put the kibosh on that sartorial safety blanket and prepare to usher in some new habits.