Spring Cleaning Tip: Start in Your Closet

I don't know about you, but I look forward to a new season just so I can change what I'm wearing. For me, spring typically means trading long pants, bulky sweaters, and dark colors for brightly colored shirts, capris, and flirty skirts. However, the mild winter has left me less than thrilled with my clothing options as the lack of season change has left me without a wardrobe change.

What does every woman do when she feels she has nothing to wear? Goes shopping! And that is just what I did. With all the new clothes, a bigger problem quickly surfaced. I did not have room in my closet to hold all my new clothes along with my old clothes - some that I have had since the '90s.

I knew I needed to clean out my closet. But what lurked beneath the piles of shirts, jeans, scarves, and more were issues that extended beyond my closet. Thankfully, I did not have to face this mess alone. I picked up my copy of the recently released You Are What You Wear by Dr. Jennifer Baumgartner, a clinical psychologist and writer of The Psychology of Dress blog at Psychology Today. The book is broken down into several common wardrobe dilemmas to help you pinpoint the problem with your closet. With easy to use checklists and tips, I found the help I needed to sort it all out.

By following the steps in the book, you can see from the pictures I was able to transform my closet.

To get you started, I asked Dr. B to share her top tips for spring cleaning in your closet:

1. Get honest: Take a hard look at what you have in your closet. Examine what works for you and what doesn't. Make note of your dress behaviors including shopping, assembling, and storing your clothes.

2. Identify a pattern: What behaviors are you repeating? Are you buying more than you need or more than you can afford? Do you not buy enough? Are you buying the same thing repeatedly? Are you wearing the same colors, fit, or silhouettes?  Is your closet crammed? Organized? Are you achieving the same successes or making the same mistakes?

3. Make the connection: How are these patterns repeated beyond the closet? If your closet is disorganized, are you disorganized in other areas of your life? If you wear what you think others will like, do you aim to please elsewhere? Are these patterns rooted in something deeper? Has your wardrobe remained unchanged because something in your life remains unfinished? Do you have a blah wardrobe to soothe the chaos of your life?

4. Plan for the change: Create a step-by-step plan to implement change in the wardrobe and in your life. Make this change a parallel process, the external shift and the internal shift should support and amplify each other.

5. Process the process: Change, in a positive or negative direction, creates stress. Take the time to acknowledge the alterations you have made to your wardrobe as well as your life! Examine what you embraced and why you embraced it. Identify what you resisted and why you resisted it.

6. Maintain: Change should not be used as a noun, indicating the finite. Change should be used as a verb, a continuation of a process. Carry your work through and tweak when you need to to suit your developmental course.

Are you ready for a change or maybe just a little tweak for the season? Start your spring cleaning in your closet by following the above tips or pick up a copy of You Are What You Wear to more specifically help you.

Now that I no longer dread opening my closet door in the morning, I can step out into the Spring sunshine with confidence and a new outlook.

You Are What You Wear: What Your Clothes Reveal About You by Jennifer Baumgartner
paperback, 256 pages
April 2012 from Da Capo Press
ISBN13: 9780738215204
List Price: $16.00

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of You Are What You Wear in order to provide an honest review.