The Hidden Style Rules Holding You Back (and How to Break Them)

You may not realize it, but you’ve walked around being bound by hidden rules for a long time. Rules about what to wear in this or that situation, at this or that age, for this or that body type. And now, it’s time to start calling these things out! Because while they might have helped you fit in, they’re just keeping you stuck now. 

In this episode of The Visibility Shift, you’ll discover the kind of invisible style rules you’ve internalized and where they came from. I’ll also highlight ways these hidden rules have held you back and why simply changing what’s in your closet isn’t the solution to freeing yourself from them.

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify

2:17 – The outdated and unquestioned rules you might be subconsciously carrying around

4:18 – How a couple of clients realized that these invisible rules aren’t about style at all

7:32 – The cost of following these hidden rules, beliefs, and expectations 

10:28 – The secret rule I followed for 30 years and another that made me feel like an imposter

14:05 – What happens when you rewrite the script to break the rules

17:22 – How I work with clients to help them rewrite their story and a question to begin rewriting yours

Mentioned In The Hidden Style Rules Holding You Back (and How to Break Them)

Apply for The Visibility Edit

Follow Ellie on Instagram and LinkedIn

Leave a rating and review

Full Transcript

Welcome to The Visibility Shift, the podcast where style becomes your most powerful strategy for being seen, standing out, and leading boldly. I'm Ellie Steinbrink, stylist and personal brand coach, and if you've ever thought, "My style just isn't working anymore," take this as your sign. You're ready for your next level. And instead of launching into a panicked shopping spree, what you really need is a strategy. A style strategy that reflects where you're headed, not who you used to be or who you think you need to be to fit in.

Because when your style aligns with your brand and your vision, everything shifts. You lead with more presence, you attract the right opportunities and clients, and you fully step into the woman you're becoming. Because showing up as yourself, that's the most strategic thing you can do. Now let's get visible.

Today, we're going to start naming some names. Don't worry, I'm not going to be calling out any one particular person. But what I do want to do is call out these internalized rules we've been taught about what we're allowed to wear, how we're supposed to show up, and who we're expected to be as women, as moms, as business owners, as women in our 40s, our 50s and beyond.

Isn't it just amazing how many rules there are that drive us, that drive our decisions about what to wear? And these rules, they come from literally every place you can think of. They come from corporate culture. They come from culture in general. They come from our families, what our moms used to tell us, or women in our family used to tell us. In society at large, we really can't escape them.

They've been coming at us since we were little girls, and they never really have stopped as we've moved into adulthood. I got to tell you guys, while we might have thought that these rules have helped us fit in at one point in our life, or maybe even helped us get to a level of success, I want you to realize that maybe now these rules are what are actually keeping you from standing out and being the leader that you actually want to be.

So let's talk about some of these invisible style rules, these expectations that many of us are still feeling very compelled to follow. Sometimes what I find in working with my clients is that we're not even aware that we're still following some of these rules.

Here's what they sound like. Wear black. It's the most professional color you can wear. Dress to the level of your audience. I was actually someone who worked in client service for well over 15 years, and this was a rule that was driven into me: that whatever the level of dress your client is wearing, that's how you dress. You dress at that level or above.

How about this? Thin is beautiful. Or, "I can't be stylish unless I'm at a certain size." How about this? "When my body's changing, I better start wearing looser fits or maybe I should wear black because I know that's more slimming." Heels are the most feminine. Women should wear heels. Women should wear dresses.

Short shorts are no longer allowed after the age of 50. "Oh, and don't take up too much space. Let's be polite and quiet and just stay in our little corner." How about this one? "Don't tuck your shirt. If you don't have a flat stomach, let's not show that." Let's never ever show our arms, especially if we have the slightest bit of imperfection or what we consider to be imperfection.

It could go on and on and on, and you guys are probably laughing because maybe you have even said this to yourself or thought this or been told this at one point in your life. But sometimes these are rules we don't even question. For one, maybe we're not even aware of them, but two, we just keep going on and on as if they're set in stone, as if that is exactly what we're supposed to follow the rest of our life.

But over time, I find that the more ingrained they become and the less aware of them that we are, the deeper and deeper they get written into us. And that's where there's a danger zone.

These style rules, I think, were originally created to give us safety, give us comfort, give us the assurance that we're going to fit in or that it's going to lead to success for us. But that's the real trick. They really aren't there for that purpose. The reality is that they're about staying small, they're about staying safe and staying appropriate, basically making sure that we fit in a neat little box that's socially palatable.

You know, I could share so many examples here, myself included, but I'll share one particular client story. This particular client, she now runs her own business. She runs a speaking business and she works with clients and she's highly visible. And she, in particular grew up in a really conservative Christian environment. And in this particular setting, for her as a child, the message she was given was, "Play small. Be quiet. Don't take up too much space. And oh, be nice and prim and proper. Follow all the rules. Don't reveal too much, especially with your clothes. And let's not brag too much. Let's stay real humble."

You guys, I know that these things that happen in our childhood—years and years later—you'd think we've grown out of them. We've gone to enough therapy. We've done enough work, internal work, to get ourselves out of these patterned beliefs.

But the reality is that when we started to then think about the style vision that she had for herself and actually then stepping into that new style vision, that old programming of "stay small, don't draw too much attention to yourself" was really working against her. In fact, she wanted to stand out more. She wanted to be more visible. She wanted to be seen up there on that stage in all of the aliveness that she brings with her personality.

But this old rule just keeps nagging at her and telling her, "Oh, that's not comfortable. Don't go that direction. That's dangerous. Don't do that."

Do you see how there's such a big contrast between these old rules and where we want to go with ourselves, or where we want to move our businesses, or where we want to just move personally?

I had another client who happens to be almost six foot tall and she loved wearing really bright colors. But she also said, "Listen, I'm in an industry where I am a leader in this industry. However, I happen to be one of a handful of women. This is just a very male-dominated industry."

And so here I am, loving to wear brighter, bolder colors in my outfits. That's who I am. That matches my personality. I'm also almost six feet tall. I'm worried I'm just going to be too much, like I already stand out because I'm a woman in a very male-dominant industry. Now I'm wanting to step out and be such a bold presence. That feels scary.

Again, do you see how these rules that we've created for ourselves—"Because I'm already tall, maybe I should just dim it down a bit. Because I'm already a presence, I don't need to then add color and make myself more of a presence"—do you see how this is holding you back?

I've already just started to introduce how these rules and these beliefs and these expectations are what it's really costing you. But think about what the cost is.

Your dressing for others really is what this is all about. You're dressing to appease others and not for yourself. That means it's costing you your own authority.

You may feel like when you have to dress to fit in—because everyone else is dressing that way in your industry, or everyone else is dressing that way at your company, or in your circle of women that you hang out with, or the ones you aspire to be with—if you feel like you have to wear something that feels very performative, it feels almost like you're wearing a costume, and ultimately what that costs you is your loss of self.

Or maybe because you're thinking so much about how to fit in and how to find the perfect outfit that's going to be just right, it feels really performative, right? That takes energy. That is exhausting. That is where that decision fatigue comes in.

If you're someone who already bends into being a people pleaser—I'm going to raise my hand right here. Anybody else want to raise their hand with me?—listen, the temptation to dim your light because you're worried about offending someone or maybe making someone slightly uncomfortable, or that it might invite a judgment or a comment, I can tell you personally, that feels really scary. But is that worth it to dim your light?

When you think about dimming your light and not really showing up as the truest form of yourself—and maybe this has happened to you in the past—I mean, I know you guys are business owners. You've been in this game for a while, have you ever sort of fit yourself into a mold to attract a certain client or a certain opportunity or a partnership, and once you got into it, you felt like you had to keep the performance up?

It's so exhausting. Isn't it? It's not just in that first interview or that first pitch meeting. It's like you've got to keep this up, this performance up.

When you guys talk to me about the decision fatigue, about "I don't know what to wear," guys, this is really part of the equation. This exhaustion you feel is because we're working so hard to appease others that we just lose our steam.

So I said I have a lot of personal stories to share, and I do. When I work with clients, this is a big portion of the work we do before we ever shop and start shopping or step into a store or work on styling an outfit, even from their own closet.

When we go through this, I find that a lot of rules, a lot of expectations come up. There are never a shortage of examples that they can come up with. And the same is true for me.

I won't go into this in detail, but when I was 14, I had two different experiences happen to me where I wore a short dress for two different instances and I got some negative feedback. I got some comments on it that I was not very excited about.

In my 14-year-old mind, I made a decision that if I wear short dresses, that it invites unwelcomed feedback, it invites a judgment that I was worried about. I was worried that people were looking at my body and not seeing me for who I was or seeing the skills or talents that I was there to show or to share with them.

In my 14-year-old brain, I made a decision that wearing short skirts—or honestly anything above the knee—was something to be avoided. And I'm telling you guys, until I did this work a few years ago on myself, that’s the very work that I do with my clients, until I did that work on myself, I did not realize that for 30 years, I was carrying this ridiculous rule that I shouldn't wear short dresses.

What that looked like in reality, in real time, was that when I would go shopping, I avoided buying dresses or skirts, honestly, anything above the knee. I avoided it. If somehow it got into my closet and I had enough courage to wear it that day, I would end up changing halfway through the day.

Do you see how insane this is? I'm a 40-year-old woman. There's no reason why I can't choose a different skirt length. But this is how it goes. It doesn't make sense.

These rules that we hang on to because at one point we said, "Oh, hang on to this rule because this is going to give us safety. It's going to give us success. It's going to avoid this situation I don't really like." We just learn that. Keep going along with that belief. Keep listening to this and everything's going to be fine.

Another example I can share is a more recent example. After I started my business, I started working with a lot of very high-level women, a lot of C-suite women. I found myself—when I started, at the very beginning of starting to work with those women—I started to find that I was questioning, "Oh my gosh, are my clothes good enough?"

Here I am, being a stylist, these really powerful C-suite women and I'm not buying the brands that they're buying. I'm not wearing the designers they are. "Who am I to be in a position to style them if I am also not matching that level?"

Again, do you guys see the craziness in this thinking? But you don't even realize it until you're in it and someone calls you out on it, and that's what I'm doing here.

I'm calling you out, and I'm calling you out for your benefit because let's be honest. For me, in those two examples I just shared, those rules weren't doing me any good. My clients are not hiring me because I dress like them or that I can spend what they spend or wear the same labels that they wear.

That is not why they're hiring me. They're hiring me because of the unique perspective I bring, the unique set of skillsets I bring, the creativity that I embody and the creativity I know I have in my closet, if I'll just show up and be me and own it.

It's craziness, right? You guys, I know as I'm talking through these examples, I know there are examples coming up for you too, and I want you not to be in a position of, "Oh my gosh, I can't believe how many rules. What's wrong with me? How have I gotten this far and not realized what I was doing to myself?"

This isn't a moment to make you feel shameful about all the rules you've been playing by. "This is a permission slip to start to open your eyes to what is really happening."

If you're in a position where you're listening to this and you're saying, "I'm ready. I see what you're saying here, Ellie. I'm ready to start looking at these and start writing a new script for myself," I want to warn you that rewriting the script is really freaking uncomfortable.

That uncomfortable feeling does not mean you're doing it wrong, it means you're growing. I was just listening to a woman speak recently and she was talking about you're not growing if you're not failing. It's the same here. Failure is not the problem, the fact that when we look at these rules and decide we want something different for ourselves and we get that really big discomfort, that very vulnerable feeling, it doesn't mean you're doing it wrong. It means you're doing it exactly right.

But I get it. The reason we feel uncomfortable is because we worry we're going to be judged. We're worried we're going to lose credibility. We're worried we're not going to get invited back to that stage. Worried we're not going to fit in. Worried someone’s going to make a comment.

I get it. The fear is real. Because honestly, for so long, we've been surviving and striving—and honestly, probably succeeding—under a different set of rules. So it feels scary to do an about-face and go a different direction because we're thinking, "What could be lost?" But I'm asking you, "What could be gained?"

You guys are leaders. Leaders don't fit in. They stand out. Leaders don't play by these invisible rules. They aren't strapped by these rules. They rewrite a new one. That's what makes you magnetic.

So I'm giving you the boost of confidence and courage today to say, "I'm ready. I'm ready for something different."

You know, the client I was talking about before who had been raised to believe that standing out was a problem and staying small and staying prim and proper was the right thing to do, I know for certain, and she shared with me in our session, that she was worried when she started dressing in a new way, people would start to say, "Who are you to start dressing like this?"

But I'm going to tell you that when she leaned into dressing in a way that was aligned with her, dressing in a way that felt right for where she wanted to go personally and professionally, she is getting on the right stages. She is attracting the right partnership. She is getting the dream clients that she wants. That is the magic of this work.

So we go back to that comment that I hear so often, which is, I walk into my closet and it just feels so off. There are so many clothes in here, but I still feel like there's nothing to wear.

This is another reason why you may be feeling this way. Because it has nothing to do with you having a shopping problem or not having good style skills. It's that even dressing to appease someone else's script, you're just not being honest.

And I'm including myself in this discussion, guys. I'm not pointing a finger at you. We're not being honest about what lights us up. Instead, we're deferring our authority to somebody else.

Every time you go shopping or get dressed under these old stories, with these old rules, these old expectations that really keep us stuck, we're just going to repeat this pattern.

The solution is—just step one—is awareness. That is exactly the work I do with my clients. It's the work that we're going to be doing in The Visibility Edit, which is an exclusive group container I've created just for you.

That's coming up this September. We are going to rewrite a script that is more helpful. That is going to propel you in the right directions, into the right rooms, right into the laps of your dream clients.

If you want a real example of this, the client I was sharing before who really felt like she had to play small, what we defined as her old belief was, "I don't want to attract too much attention."

And the new belief we wrote for her, like a new mantra to say over and over every time that sneaky little old rule came up and started nagging her, the new belief, the new mantra we wrote was, "I want people to see me so they can see me." Do you see the irony there? If people can't see me in terms of the realness that is inside me, if I don't show them that, they can never experience my magic.

So what I want you to do is I want you to take a moment right now and I just want you to think, What's one style rule or expectation or belief about how I should show up as a woman, how I should show up as a leader, what's just one you have in your mind right now that you've never really questioned? And what's one that you're interested in starting to question? You're interested in starting to explore, "Is this even helpful for me anymore? Is this working in my favor?" That's where we're going to start. We're going to start there. That's your crack in the door, okay?

There's this quote I absolutely love. It's actually written here right by my desk. It's from Leonard Cohen and he says, "There's a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in."

This crack that we're so afraid of is maybe just exactly how your light is going to get out to others. This little thing, this mindset shift, is going to be the thing that shifts everything for you.

You guys, this is why when I meet with someone new or if I'm talking to a woman and she tells me, "I feel like I'm ready for a style change," I say, "Okay, great. But the first thing we're not going to do is we're not going to go shopping."

Do you see why it can be detrimental if we throw ourselves into that shopping environment when we're not actually ready to face whatever's in that retail environment? We're not ready to face the change that we ultimately want for ourselves.

We've got a little work to do here, and it's okay. Because you're not alone. It's every single woman you've ever known needs to do this work. So don't feel shameful that it's just you. It's not.

But honestly, if you want your closet to start reflecting this new version of yourself—this next-level version of yourself that you can feel yourself being pulled into, that you so desperately want to step into—if you want a closet like that, it needs to reflect the woman you're becoming, not the one you were trained to be.

But it's going to take a little work. But guess what? I'm here for it. I'm here for doing that work with you. And I'm here to tell you it's possible.

You guys, I've worked with hundreds of women going through this very thing, and I have been so thrilled to see this transformation time and time again.

But you do need to ask yourself, "Do I really want to change? Am I willing to rewrite a new script for myself so that I can walk on a new path towards a more authentic version of myself and just be ready to let people see that? Am I actually ready to change?"

As I said, this is actually my most favorite part of the work we do. Because it is my most favorite part, and because I know this is really the juiciest part of any style transformation, it's why I've created this exclusive group experience coming this fall, this September, called The Visibility Edit. Again, we're not going to start with changing your closet right away. That will come later.

We're going to start with rewriting the story that that current closet was built on. This is where we're going to dismantle those old rules and design a style strategy for you that's based on your values, your leadership, your brand, that's based on you and what makes you special, what makes you shine.

So if you feel like, "Okay, I'm ready. I'm ready to trade in this sort of performative, people-pleasing style that ultimately is exhausting me," and you're ready to replace that with a presence-driven style that reflects the real you, this is the place you need to be.

I made it an exclusive group container where you'll apply to join because I want you to be around 12 other women who are going through the same thing and are ready to take on that challenge right now because they know that it's going to pay off in terms of their clients, their opportunities, their income, just how they feel.

So if you guys are excited about that, I'm excited about that. I would love for you to join me. Just go down to the show notes, click the link to apply, and you'll be off and running.

One final reminder for you guys: if you're a leader who's going places and you're moving to your next level, I want you to remember, you weren't meant to blend in. You are meant to be seen, okay?

That's what I want for you. This is step one. I know you can do it. I'll see you in the next episode.

Thanks for joining me on The Visibility Shift. If something in today's episode made you pause, rethink, or gave you permission to stop playing small, it would mean so much to me if you'd leave a review at ratethispodcast.com/visibilityshift.

If you're ready to stop second-guessing and start showing up as the leader you are from the inside out, The Visibility Edit is where that shift begins. Head to elliesteinbrink.com to learn more and join the next round. Because the next version of you, she's not waiting for permission. She's waiting for you. Let's make it visible.