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How To Get More Compliments - and Feel Wealthy

When I was a senior in high school, rumor had it that the student who won the "Best Dressed" award wore a different outfit to school every day. As I've noted before, I went to high school in a very wealthy community (the link takes you to images of some of the mansions there), so it's entirely possible that the rumor was true. 

How often do we believe that the only way to really dress well and win compliments on our appearance is to have lots of nice outfits, with an emphasis on the "lots"?

Less is more

Courtney Carver, author of the blog, bemorewithless.com, created a minimalist fashion challenge called Project 333. This challenge asks you to select 33 items to wear - including your shoes, jewelry and other accessories - for the next three months, and give away or box up everything else until the next three-month period. A self-confessed shop-a-holic who used retail therapy to de-stress, Courtney found that having lots of clothes created more stress, as she was forced to face an overstuffed closet and a reminder of her mounting credit card debt every morning.

Once she'd limited her closet contents, however, she was terrified that her vastly fewer outfits would attract critical comments. The opposite happened.

It's counterintuitive, but if you limit yourself to just a few nice outfits, ones that you always feel good in, you'll typically get more compliments on your appearance. Courtney noticed this as well, and as other women tried the challenge, they had similar experiences.

Give something away

If you work through Courtney's project, you'll find yourself facing the clothes you never choose to wear, either because they don't fit properly, or they don't look good on you. Outside of special occasion clothes, what if you just gave those remaining clothes away and let them become someone else's favorite outfit?

Here's something else that's counterintuitive:  giving things away makes you feel wealthier - even though you are objectively poorer after parting with your stuff. Zoe Chance and Michael Norton of the Harvard Business School wrote a paper that they summed up as: "I give, therefore I have." They cite research to show that so-called "prosocial behavior" increases happiness and reduces mortality rates, among other benefits. But maybe the most interesting benefit is that givers feel more wealthy.

Look good, feel good - what better combination is there?


Comments

  1. Kris TuallaNovember 13, 2020 at 10:10 AM

    I like the 3 months at a time bit, which allows for seasonal changes. Does that mean in Phoenix we do 2 six-month batches? 😉

    ReplyDelete

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