For many career women, particularly single women, the big 30 kind of sneaks up on them. You are busy building your career, or exploring the world, or perhaps building your social networks (otherwise known as partying).

Before you know it, you enter your thirtieth year and something starts to happen in your mind.  Your biological clock may start ticking louder and louder, or your childhood and adolescent dreams may resurface as you ask yourself,

• “Am I really where I wanted to be?”
• “Is this how I imagined myself at 30?”
• “Have I done what I thought I would do by now?”
• “What happened to my dreams?”

It is no surprise that the book “Eat, Pray, Love” proved to be such a resounding success around the world.  Women in their late twenties and early thirties closely identified with the author as she put her life on hold and began exploring her goals and dreams.

Apparently a lot of women tend to enter some form of therapy or self-development as they reach their thirties.  They may feel a vague sense of dissatisfaction with their lives and want to explore ways of improving their lives.  Perhaps they come to a fork in the road and really need to question who they are and what they want to achieve.

So what can you?

Talk to friends about their life goals.  Try to remember your aspirations as a child or young adult.  You may want to decide on some milestones you’d like to achieve before you turn 30.

• Perhaps take that trip you’ve always dreamed of.
• Learn a new skill you’ve always wished to have.
• Start saving for a deposit for your dream home.
• Consider whether children figure in your future and how you might change your life to accommodate that commitment.

Perhaps now is the time to follow your dreams….

Thelma & Louise is an all-time classic movie that every woman needs to watch at some point in her life.

It’s the perfect movie for a girl’s night in, watching with a bestie or sitting on the couch with a bottle of red, a box of chocolate truffles and a handful of tissues.

(It also has a very young Brad Pitt in one of his very first major acting roles ….sigh…)

One of the main themes and inspirations throughout the movie is Thelma and Louise’s growing appreciation of who they are as women, and realisation of the strength they have within themselves.

Along with some serious mishaps and terrible judgements along the way, it’s a journey of discovery.  They develop recognition of their own self-worth and the ability to overcome the things in life they thought they have no control over.  They learn that they most certainly can overcome whatever they choose.

What it can – and does – teach women is that they have an intrinsic strength that enables them to defeat anything that life throws at them. Yes, even the most horrible and heinous of actions against them.

It shows that friendship is an incredible resource and important thing to have in your life.

It demonstrates that life can throw anything at you at any time, and you will probably always make mistakes – and some really dumb ones at that – but nothing is insurmountable.

Mostly, however, it shows that we can get so caught up in our own heads that sometimes we think we can’t ask for the help we need … and asking for that help could be our ticket out of the hole we’re digging for ourselves in that moment.

Lastly, and don’t underestimate the importance of this point, it can teach that wearing headscarves in open-topped cars is not a terribly brilliant idea.  Make a note of that.

It could be something subtle: your married friends constantly telling you “the news” of everyone they know who is about to get married or have a baby. Or it could be blatantly obvious (and embarrassing) like your mother trying to set you up with her hairdresser’s son.

So what do you do when everyone but you thinks you should have a man?

Well there are a few tactics:

• Find yourself a really good friend who will be a ‘stand in’ man at certain family functions and events to keep your mother momentarily happy. (Bribery involving alcohol might be needed here.)
• Become a self-professed man-hater, suddenly declaring yourself sworn off men forever.
• An obvious one, but possibly hard to pull off – is to declare that you now gay (however, your friends probably won’t be fooled for too long especially if they see one sneaking out of the house via your back door.)
• Tell everyone that you are considering religious life (again, this will probably not fool anyone for too long).
• Throw some statistics around: that over a third of marriages end in divorce and you don’t want to be a statistic so you are waiting for that absolutely perfect man.
• Another good statistic – the average age of marriage in Australia is 31.5 years, so there is plenty of time!
• Honestly is the best policy with family: make your Mum a cup of tea, open a pack of Tim Tams and carefully and honestly explain to her your reasons for not “having a man” at this point in time.
• Use the psychological approach: tell her you don’t want to find a relationship in order to escape from personal problems and unhappiness – that you are concerned for your emotional safety and want to find someone with whom you share common life goals and priorities.
• As for your friends, tell them you’re playing the field while you still can and invite them to live life vicariously through you.

Can you think of any other ways to fend off unwelcome pressure from your mother and married friends to ‘find a man’? We’d love to hear it!

Your Mum drops in with a little something she picked up for you.  You are filled with a familiar dread as you realise she has done it again: bought you an item of clothing. “Oh it was on sale. I saw it and thought of you.”

Now, in your head you are thinking: Mother – what is it about this frilly swirly multi-coloured top with a halter neck and beaded bodice makes you remotely think of me? And then you begin to question your own fashion choices.

So why should you never let your mother choose your clothes?

Well, the store {insert name here, we don’t want to offend anyone} where your mother likes to shop is basically aimed at a certain age-demographic. We aren’t going to say that your Mum chooses boring old-people clothes because your Mum might be funky in her own right. But your clothing says a statement about YOU; you have to feel confident and comfortable, not frumpy and 25 years older than you are.

Now onto the second point: why you would never let your mother choose your man. Well, if it were up to my Mum she would choose the first man she met who a) ironed his clothes and b) knew what Gumption was. But bless her heart, there is more to a man than that. You want someone who connects to you on many levels, someone who you could imagine sharing your life with and someone who is going to fall for you – not your Mum. But of course, if your chosen man is polite and courteous to your Mum it is going to make your life a whole lot easier!

This quote from Bridget Jones’s Diary says it all (said by the character of Mark Darcy): “Mother, I do not need a blind date. Particularly not with some verbally incontinent spinster who drinks like a fish, smokes like a chimney, and dresses like her mother.”

Mothers are a blessing until they flex their tastes on your behalf. You know you can’t stop them doing it but you don’t have to use either the clothes or the man.

But good on her for trying.

This week I have great pleasure in introducing to you the ever delightful, ever stylish and all round good girl, Imogen Lamport who has loads of advice to help you when clothes shopping – yayy!

1.  Being influenced by the sales assistant who is paid to get you to buy clothes (whether they suit you or not).

Retail sales staff are paid to sell you clothes.  Some are even paid extra commissions based on how much they sell. So it’s in their interest that you buy as much as possible, whether it suits you or not.  I’ve been shopping and told a client that something doesn’t suit them and they should take it off, moments later the sales assistant will pipe up and say it looks fabulous.  Who is telling the truth?

2.  Not bothering to try on the clothes

Many women are short on time and so rather than try on a garment they just pick it out in what they consider to be their ‘size’ and take it home, and justify to themselves that if it doesn’t fit they’ll return it.  But so much doesn’t get returned because they don’t get around to it.  Instead of having saved themselves time (by not trying on in the store) they’ve now wasted the time it took them to get to the store, and wasted money by not returning the unflattering garment.    Always, always, always try on garments in the store.  Yes it may look fine on the hanger, but so often, the cut is a little off, and it doesn’t work on the body.  Don’t fall into this trap.

3. Only taking 1 size into the change-room

It’s true that so many stores only allow you 5 or 6 garments in the change-room at once, so you feel you have to be really selective about what you take in.  Don’t be, take lots of clothes and lots of sizes – the sales assistant will keep all the extra clothes at the change room for you to try on if they have a numbers policy and then you can get them to bring you the other sizes and styles you want to try, rather than have to get dressed and leave the change-rooms.  Try on 20 garments at a time, not 5 and you’ll have better success.  Try on multiple sizes of clothes as even in the same store sizes vary between garments.

4. Buying on the sizing label not what fits you

I’ve seen some catastrophic purchases in people’s wardrobes because they bought a size not for fit.  Look it’s a size 12! They tell me excitedly, even though the pin-stripes on the thighs are bent and bulging.  Nobody cares what the size is, the label is on the inside not on the outside, so no one else ever needs to know what it is. If you don’t like the size, cut the label out once you’ve purchased it. You’ll look so much better when your clothes fit you well, rather than basing your purchasing decisions on a number that is completely arbitrary and varies from store to store.  You are not a number!

5.  Buying because it’s designer or a label, not because it suits you

OK, it’s easy to fall into this trap – we all love a bit of luxury and sometimes we may buy a garment not because it suits us, but because it’s a designer label.  We buy it because we want that little bit of luxury in our lives, but beware, just because it’s a label, doesn’t mean it will work for us, our lifestyle or suit our silhouette or colouring and in the end could just be a costly mistake.  Only buy designer when you understand what really works for you – then the investment can be worthwhile.

6. Buying because it’s on sale, not because you need it

Many of us love a bargain – it’s the hunter in us, out there stalking our prey, looking for the best catch.  But just because it’s cheap doesn’t mean it’s really a bargain.  Purchasing clothes that you never wear, not matter how cheap is a waste of money if they’re just going to take up space in your wardrobe and eventually be thrown out and end up as landfill.  Make sure if you buy something on sale you’re not just purchasing emotionally, ask yourself is it really filling a gap in your wardrobe?

7. Not understanding your silhouette and what suits it

Understanding your colouring, body shape and proportions are key to what clothes you should buy.   Clothes that suit you make you look and feel great.  Clothes that are for a different body shape won’t flatter and you’ll never feel fabulous in them.   Investing in finding out what suits your unique body pays for itself time and time again as you stop wasting money on clothes that don’t suit you, plus has the added benefit of making shopping easier as you know what to try on and what to avoid.

8.  Not creating a list before you go shopping

Wardrobe after wardrobe I see has multiples of the same garments.  Their owners will often exclaim in surprise “oh I forgot I had that” as we find clothes stashed away at the backs of drawers.  So much money is wasted on buying clothes that people don’t need and that don’t add value to their wardrobes, filling the gaps and extending their outfits.  Instead their filled with wardrobe orphans and multiples of the same garments.  Before you shop, you need to do an audit of your wardrobe and work out what you really need so that you’re not going to waste another cent on something you don’t need.

9. Buying ‘different’ for the sake of different

Yes, it’s easy to get stuck in a style rut as we tend to keep buying what we feel works, or sometimes just keeping on buying the same garment in different colours, it become so boring.  So we bust out of our rut and choose something completely different, but when we get it home we never wear it because it’s really not ‘us’.  Clothing personality styles are closely related to our personality traits, if we move too far away from our personality we won’t feel great in the clothes we choose.  Try a little bit different rather than radically different and you’ll have more success.

10.  Going shopping without grooming first

Shopping for clothes means spending some time looking at ourselves in the mirror.  So before you go, make sure you do your hair and put on some light makeup – groom – then you can assess how the clothes really look rather than just thinking that you look terrible (particularly as the lighting in some changerooms is harsh and unflattering anyway – give yourself all the help you can!).

Imogen Lamport AICI CIP is one of Australia’s leading image consultants and is an author of 4 style books, sought-after speaker,  blogger and also trains people to be image consultants and personal stylists.   If you need some help getting your wardrobe under control, finding out what suits you and taking the stress out of figuring out what to wear please contact her www.bespokeimage.com.au   alternatively you can get fresh style tips from her blog www.insideoutstyleblog.com .