Light colors make you appear more friendly and approachable while dark colors are perceived as more formal, dominant and authoritative. Damon Albarn wearing beat the blues shirt You don’t want to move away from your colour palette but use colour to your advantage. In the librarian study, blue was the most approachable colour and red negatively impacted approachability across the board. The brighter colours in your palette will express energy and confidence, while muted colors look more reliable and less threatening. Colour such as blue and green are seen as stable, reliable and trustworthy as are some of the neutrals brown and tan so wearing more of the colours will help you dress approachable. Reducing the value contrast of your outfits will also add more yin. Using medium value colours are great for stepping through that light to dark value contrast – stepping through the colours from light to dark (read this to understand more), lowers the overall perceived value contrast. In the experiment, the researchers found that having a nametag increased librarians’ approachability. In certain professions, having a nametag may be an appropriate way to increase approachability as a nametag is an indicator that you are someone that works in that environment (and that they are not just approaching anyone). However, this isn’t going to apply to all professions. You could try wearing something interesting that reveals who you are – a piece of jewellery; bright shoes or a graphic tee – anything that adds appeal to your outfit and creates a conversation starter. You don’t have to employ all the suggestions above, just include one or two elements to soften down your outfits and make you appear more approachable. It is important to make sure that you don’t add too many yin elements to undermine your confidence. You still want to be you, just in a way that’s a little bit more approachable for other people.

Damon Albarn wearing beat the blues shirt ,hoodie, sweater, longsleeve and ladies t-shirt

For me, leopard print is a print I only occasionally wear and so provides a feeling of variety and difference in my wardrobe and outfit. Damon Albarn wearing beat the blues shirt If you have a greater need for variety and uncertainty, then you are more likely to want a wider variety of styles of clothing in your wardrobe, and you may not be able to plan ahead in the same way Jill can. One of the things I’ve noticed with myself and my clients when life is full of instability and uncertainty, you are more likely to hold onto a style or have a more “uniformed” approach to your style. It feels safer, and when you feel that you have no control over anything else in your life, then feeling like you have some control over your outfits can give you a nice hit of feel-good hormones (serotonin, dopamine), that you have control over something in your life. Now if you are going through a period of great stability in your life, it can become boring, and this is when you may start craving variety of some sort. For some of us, this results in wanting a big change in our wardrobe or look, or different kinds of outfits every day. We need to shake things up, do something different, may decide to change our hair in a more radical way, or buy clothes that are nothing like what we currently own in our wardrobes. If you have a possibilities brain, you may find it almost impossible to let go of clothes, and have a large and cluttered wardrobe that may feel overwhelming at times.I have found that some NP types find it very hard to let go, so creating your own criteria that allow you to let go of clothing that no longer serves you or your lifestyle is worth figuring out. Whether it’s finding a charity that you really feel is worthy of your clothing, or understanding that those clothes that no longer fit you (and are unlikely to fit you again in the near future) are worth letting go of. One strategy I use with my clients like this who feel that it’s almost impossible to let go of items that are too small, is that we pack them away, then write a Used By date on the bag or box, and then if they have not been seeking out those clothes before that used-by date – that once that date passes, they let go of the bag of clothes, don’t open and look at them again (that gets the emotions and possibilities going again making it harder to let go), just like you’d let go of out of date food without looking back.