Look through your wardrobe and pull out 5 pieces you don’t like. Be honest with yourself. No one is standing over your shoulder and judging you. Take out those items that you are always avoiding.

Take the first garment and ask yourself:

What’s wrong with this item? Why am I not liking it?

It could be a variety of things.

• You might have liked it before but somehow, it’s just not doing it for you anymore.
• The fit might not be comfortable and you only discovered it afterwards.
• You might be feeling drab in this colour.
• The item might be pushing you too far out of your comfort zone. You need to be in a specific mind frame to wear it and it feels like too much effort.

There could be hundreds of variations! Tell yourself honestly what it is that you don’t like about this item and write it down in your notebook.

Just please don’t stop at ‘eh, not sure’. Put the item on, watch yourself in a full-length mirror, wear it for a bit and dig deep for that answer.

These notes will be a part of your Big No-No list that you started in Day 1 exercise. These are the mistakes you need to watch out for so you never repeat them again. 

Repeat this process for the other 4 pieces.

We’ve identified that you have pieces in your wardrobe that you don’t like and now you know why. Next thing we’ll do is try and find a solution.

Ask yourself:

Is there anything that can be done to change my mind on this item?

I’ll give you my own example.

I have two coats in my wardrobe that I stopped wearing and have been avoiding all season. They were still hanging in my wardrobe and I kept skipping them every time I was looking for a coat.

Today I’ve done what I’m telling you to do now. I faced the pieces I no longer love and wear. The reason I stopped loving the coats is because they are too short for my current liking. My style has changed since I bought them and now I am cheating on them with the midi-length relaxed coats that I am totally in love with.

Is there anything that can be done to those coats? Not really. They can’t be elongated. None of the styling solutions I tried excited me. One of them was an expensive purchase, but I’m just no longer vibing with neither of them.

What am I going to do? I’ll give them away. My mom loves short coats when she is driving so her wardrobe is about to get 2 new additions that she is super excited about. I am no longer driving and the length was the part of the issue for me – longer coats feel a lot cosier when you are walking. 

Is it hard saying good-bye? It is. I’m feeling guilty and disappointed for not wearing them to death like I was hoping to when I was buying them.

Am I afraid I’ll regret giving them away? Well, I don’t have a crystal ball. I might. I might not. One thing I know for sure is that they were upsetting me more by sitting there and not being used than I will be upset about giving them away if I crave having them in my wardrobe again.

I took the coats off the rail, put them in my spare wardrobe where they’ll be waiting for my mom’s next visit and I can tell you for sure – it feels so much better!

So the purpose of this step is to recognize what could be done to revive your relationship with the item that you don’t like. 

• Could you have it altered if it’s the shape you don’t like?
• Could you layer over it if it’s the colour that doesn’t suit you?
• Could you style it differently to get a different vibe from it?

Basically, look for any solution possible to make that item work. 

Regardless of what you decide, you must to commit to your decision.

1. If you are doing something with the item, hatch a solid plan on what you’ll do in the coming weeks (usually I’d be saying in the coming days but everyone’s mobility is significantly limited at the moment, so doing something about the item might have to wait till things go back to normal.)
2. If you just can’t see yourself wearing it again, let it go. Admit your mistake, learn from it and let it go.

If you are a bit of a hoarder (you’ll know you are one if you struggle to get rid of things in the fear that you might need them some day), here is a plan B to avoid separation anxiety.

• Put the item/s in a bag and put the bag out of reach – on the top shelf that you can’t reach without a ladder, in the attic, etc.
• Go back to that bag in 6 months and if you haven’t felt like you missed out on not having this item in the wardrobe, get rid of it straight away.

By getting rid of something, I mean giving it to charity, your friends/family, selling it if it’s worth something. Basically, find a new home for it because your home is no longer an option for this item.  

Let me also answer a question in advance that many of you will wonder about. This is something I hear from clients all the time.

After how long of not wearing an item should you consider letting it go? 

If you come across questionable advice like – get rid of a garment if you haven’t worn it for a year, please ignore it!

The duration of having something and not using it is not an indication of anything apart from how long you’ve been ignoring the issue. 

What you should be focusing on is WHY you are not wearing something.

We’ll be talking more about that tomorrow, but for now consider this angle:

• If you are not wearing something because you don’t like it, for how long is it reasonable to ignore the issue in your opinion?
• What exactly are you waiting for? To fall in love with it again (or for the first time)?

Whatever it is that you are waiting for, it should be enough of a prompt to take action.

The strategy I’ve given you above will help you to figure this out. If there is a way of making the item work, you’ll find it. If there isn’t, what’s the point of keeping it?

I’ve asked you to deal with only 5 items yesterday and 5 items today. There might be a lot more items you like in your wardrobe and a lot more you dislike.

If you still have the energy, address 5 more of each! Or even more if your wadrobe is a big one! And don’t forget that we are dealing not only with clothes, but also accessories, so include them as well! 

We’ll work through the contents of your wardrobe in one way or another during this challenge, but the more proactive approach you take, the better!

Feel free to drop me an email or a message on social media to let me know how you are getting on!! If you have any questions, fire away! 

See you tomorrow! xx