Are you stuck in a Style Rut?

Life is constantly changing and change is the only CONSTANT! Fashion changes every few weeks, our body shapes do so over the years, we put on or loose weight not to mention the pregnancies.

In the same way, our personalities can evolve and our lifestyle can take a major U turn for a whole lot of different reasons. When that happens, we need to make sure that we adapt to those changes and remain able to still project who we are in the way we dress.

For the majority of women, this permanent need to adapt can be overwhelming and that is when the dreaded “Style Rut” happens.

A Style Rut can happen at any age, and it is simply when you get stuck in one way of thinking or dressing, without adapting to the changes that have taken places in your life and around you. When that happens, instead of feeling depressed, see this as an opportunity to update and upgrade, embrace the opportunity to make some exciting changes!

There are commonly two types of Style Ruts:

• The Comfy Rut:

You are scared to try new styles or you are just too busy to think about trying something new. You just stick in your comfort “Style” zone and grab what you know works for you and saves you time. You find yourself wearing the same old over and over and guess what is your favorite color? Black of course! You keep buying the same clothes, you feel uninspired, bored and usually your wardrobe is filled with clothes but you have nothing to wear. Sounds familiar?

• The Memory Lane Rut

You feel like you have left your fashion sense behind. You are stuck (maybe emotionally) in a certain stage of your life. This happens a lot after having babies, our bodies change, we feel more of a woman but we are still dressing like in our 20’s.

Take this simple test and answer the following questions:

• Do you have good intentions of dressing up but when caught for time you end up wearing the same safe outfits again and again?
• Do you wear Jeans more than three times a week?
• Do you only buy classic colors such as black, grey and white?
• Are there clothes in your wardrobe that you have never worn, or do not even remember buying?
• Do you have only one or two handbags that you take with you everywhere?
• Do you wear trainers when you are not exercising?
• Is your wardrobe filled with “make-do” rather than “must-have” items?
• Are you left deflated. confused or even overwhelmed after a shopping trip?
• Does opening your wardrobe feels like taking a trip down memory lane?
• Do you often shy away from trying anything new or different or the latest trend in?
• Do you have two photos taken in different decades of yourself wearing the same outfit?

If you reply yes to most of these questions. It is time to be set FREE!! Get in touch and book your free Style Assessment session with us. We will help you explore, experiment, get creative and have fun with fashion!

http://uniqueimagelondon.wix.com/uniqueimagelondon

Genevieve Muwana

Style Architect

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Rise and Shine!!

Good morning, this is an excerpt from a book I am reading at the moment and I wanted to share this with you all. I hope you be inspired to brake free and rise and shine.

“To me the butterfly teaches the most wonderful and the most important lesson that we human beings ever have to learn. You all know his story. He is a beautiful butterfly now, but he was not always a butterfly. No, indeed. He began life, and he lived what seemed to him a very, very long time, as a worm—and not a very important kind of worm either—what we call the humble caterpillar. Now the life of a caterpillar is a sadly restricted one, in fact, it could be taken as the very type and symbol of restriction. He lives on a green leaf in the forest, and that is about all he knows. Then one day something happens. The little caterpillar finds certain strange stirrings going on within himself. The old green leaf, for some reason, no longer seems sufficient. He begins to feel dissatisfied. He becomes moody and discontented, but—and this is the vital point—it is a divine discontent. He does not just grumble and complain to the other caterpillars, saying “nature is all wrong.” “I hate this life.” “I can never be anything but a worm.” “I wish that I had never been born.” No, he is discontented, but it is a divine discontent. He feels the need for a bigger, finer, and more interesting life. His instinct tells him that where there is true desire there must be fulfillment  because “where there’s a will, there’s a way.” And so the wonderful thing happens. Gradually the worm disappears, and the butterfly emerges, beautiful, graceful, now endowed with wings—and instead of crawling about on a restricted leaf, he soars right above the trees, right above the forest itself—free, unrestricted, free to go where he likes, and see the world, and bask in the sun, and, in fact, be his own True Self—the free and wonderful thing that God intended him to be.”

Genevieve Muwana

 

Create your Mind App Store!

Happy New Year 2013! Today’s blog is about Apps and your Mind!

This past year, I have been reading and educating myself a lot about the power of the human mind and how to harness that power to shape my life, my reality the way I want to experience it. I get chills, I am thrilled when it comes to this subject. I devour every book or material I come across on this subject. It feels to me like diving into my own consciousness, my own mind and observe the process from the outside. The more I read about the mind and discover how amazing it is and thus how amazing the Human Being is, the more I am in Awe of God. To me, getting to know myself is getting a bigger understanding (however small I realise this understanding actually is) of the Nature of God. The more I grow, the more I love Him and feel getting closer to the Truth and we know ultimately that “The truth shall set us free” right? Amen!

Now back to our Apps. You all know what I am talking about, everything has an app today, our phones, computers are full of them and we use them every day. So my inspiration today was and I really invite you to consider this: what if you had Apps in your mind, that you could download and use as frequently as you are using your apps and your phone or your computer. Make no mistake, I am myself a victim of Technology and a consumer.

But I want us to pose for a minute and recognise that it is not technology that is amazing, it is the mind  or the minds that created it and keep creating for all creation begins in the mind! We rely so much on technology for our everyday life that we put our brains and mind to a halt and just drag ourselves through life feeling powerless and being victims of our circumstances not even being aware that we CREATE those circumstances OURSELVES!

Welcome to the Mind App Store where you can download the following from your unconscious mind completely free and use them to serve and shape your life:

There are so many more Apps: Truth, Compassion, Imagination, creativity, Integrity, Boldness, Gratitude, Persistence, Health, Fitness…. go on, have fun and create and download you own Mind Apps and watch you life unfold the way you want it. But remember, an App is just an App, it takes value when you use it; well it is the same here, your input is required. Confidence is but abstract concept until you start applying, growing and nurturing it.

“Just ask and it shall be given unto you”

Do not leave 2013 to chance, take responsibility and plan your year! Just like an architect would do before building a house! Your Mind Apps are the foundation for a solid life!

Be an inspiration in action!

Genevieve Muwana for Unique Image London

How do we end up in a Style rut?

The subject of this blog came to me as I was preparing my workshop on Self esteem and Confidence.

It might sound a bit technical but bare with me.

You see, we all have a conscious and unconscious mind, the conscious mind for the thinking we do on a daily basis and that internal voice we identify to as “me” or “I”. But it is very limited in what it can handle and store at any given time. On the other hand, our unconscious mind is our memories, wisdom, creativity storage. And most importantly for my subject, it stores all of our habits.

Now tell me, when you wake up in the morning, do you spend half an hour wondering about what you are going to have for breakfast? On a daily basis, you just grab the same thing; it could be coffee or tea, home based or at your workplace. You will probably take the same route to work, grab the same news paper and listen to the same radio station.

We cook, eat, tie our shoelaces and ties, comb our hair pretty much in the same way and most importantly dress in the same manner everyday ( I am not saying wearing the same clothes though). Before you know it, repeating the same tasks on a daily basis develops habits which become unconscious and get stored in our unconscious mind so that when we do it, we do not even think about it anymore.

“There, a Style Rut is born”

Some of us do not even realise that we are in a style rut. It will take a friend, I mean a true friend, a family member or even hubby to tell us well ” honey, you need to do something” for us to realise it and become conscious a bout it. And I know it has some comfort to it and it feels safe because there is no risk taken.

The bad news is that a style rut can spread over the other areas of your life becoming slowly but surely a “Lifestyle rut”.

So my word of encouragement: take the risk to make your style unordinary by doing things differently every now and then. Cut your hair, change your lipstick colour, inject some colour in your wardrobe. Wear a skirt for a change!!!! Do not tell me you do not look good in a skirt; there is a skirt for every shape out there.

What needs to happen now is a deprogramming of the old habit in order to effectively replace it with a new one. You cannot install an antivirus if you have one already installed on your computer. It will ask you to get rid of the other one, well same here!!

If however, you not have  clue how to do that, where to start… well, yours truly Style Coach Genevieve Muwana and Sandra Clothes (yes pun intended and there is a story behind this nickname but that is another blog) are here for you.

Together, we will built a program of change that will take you step by step and very gently towards creating your Unique Image!

Until then, be a living inspiration and live in the present

Genevieve Muwana

Dress Your Way to Success round 2!

This is it!! The day has come when we are going to run our second Dress Your Way to Success workshop!! Another amazing opportunity to inspire and motivate the younger generation.

The show will start at 11 O’clock. 10 AM Sandra and I are at the venue and we start preparing the room. If you have read our last blog from the first workshop, you will remember that we had an adventure going on that caused our (at least my) stress level to skyrocket! With that in mind, Sandra prompted me to try the computer and projector to make sure that everything was working.

10.45, the first three people enter the room (yeah they came, they are here!!!!). At this point, I realise that they came by choice, and feel truly blessed to have this opportunity to teach them. Our main concern is to give them tools that they can use straight away and motivate them to be the best they can be not only when going on interviews but on a daily basis as well.

As the presentation goes on, a few more people arrived. Sandra is bombarded with questions as she is trying to make her points which made the workshop really interactive and showed that they were interested.

We covered the following subjects:

ü  How to dress for interviews

ü  Body Language

ü  The importance of Language

ü  Purpose and Vision

It is always fulfilling to see their faces as they learn new things sometimes as if a light bulb switched on! One of our candidates took three pages of notes!!! At the beginning, the projector was a bit blurred and they could not see the presentation as clearly as it should have been but this did not stop her; because she was sitting next to me, she could see the PowerPoint from my computer screen and that is what she did! She was truly eager to learn.

Luckily for her (and us), Beth brought Roger in to fix the projector. Roger, you are our Hero! Beth and Roger are both part of Kaleidoscope, the recruitment agency who hired us and their help as been invaluable and much appreciated.

Our greatest reward is hearing their feedback at the end of the workshop. Here is a sample of what they said about it:

“For me, it was really helpful, made me more confident and more comfortable about an interview”

“It was incredibly helpful, I now know how to behave, look like and say during the interview. Really opened up my perspective to how to be when being interviewed.”

“I really Enjoyed the workshop. It was invaluable for those who struggle with self-esteem issues in all areas of life. Lovely ladies! Good work!”

As I was reflecting on this workshop, I realised how vulnerable these young people are and really unaware of some essential knowledge that will increase their chances at achieving success.

We feel truly blessed to be able to make a difference in our youths at this specific time when unemployment is such a crucial subject.

Special thank you to Paris Petgrave from Kaleidoscope for this amazing opportunity and for her incredible contribution in tackling youth unemployment. She makes sure that unemployed young people are given the best tools to help them nail that interview and get back on the market.

We look forward to our next workshop and to making our work available to as many young people as possible.

Be a living inspiration and live in the present,

Genevieve Muwana for Unique Image London

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