Letting go of old versions of ourselves and our homes

I was interviewed this week for a piece that’s coming out about my home renovation and of course the question of my personal style came up. How would I describe it, I was asked, as the journalist looked at the images I’d sent her of my house. I groaned which made her laugh and I explained that I don’t think the style I’m known for is actually my style anymore.

I’ll leave the rest for when the article comes out, but it made me think about those transitional times in our lives when our external appearance no longer lines up with how we feel inside. Whether it’s in the way we decorate our homes or the job that we do, the friends we have, the things we’re interested in, our goals and ambitions.

We change and so they also have to change to keep up, otherwise we can and will become profoundly unhappy and disconnected. In terms of interiors it’s why I’ve always advocated for almost constant tweaking and reshuffling of your things - not buying new things necessarily, just re-styling them, keeping that good creative energy flowing in your home. It’s part of the reason I’ve been making some fun styling videos with a photographer/art director friend. To keep the creative energy flowing! (There are five to watch so far, but start here and here).

With my career I’m often tinkering and always thinking of what’s next. My day job is - or has been - a stylist and set designer, but there have been other dreams I’ve harboured alongside that. I’m always surprised when people say they don’t think of me as ambitious - I’m one of the most career obsessed people I know! Apparently I mask it well. And that is unintentional because I don’t think ambition is a dirty word. It’s just been misconstrued to mean “will step over anyone for their own career advancement”. For me it means having a dream and trying to make it happen.

One thing that has helped me over the years in everything from my career to my home to the life I want to lead is to stay laser focused. I have a quote I cut out of a magazine years ago, from an interview with Giorgio Armani (or maybe it was Ralph Lauren. Either way, a hugely successful designer known for a very particular style).

It’s been on my mood boards, my visions boards and is currently stuck on my fridge at eye level amongst photos of my late mum, my kids, and my favourite drawing my son did when he was little. (Aren’t kids’ drawings the absolute best in terms of imagination and rule breaking? A pig in a dress, a tie, and smart shoes holding an umbrella, a golf club and a red balloon. Of course the young artist’s actual vision may be lost on us idiots with our middle age lack of imagination).

You must have a vision if you are going to do anything meaningful. A vision you believe in and express consistently.

- Giorgio Armani (or possibly Ralph Lauren…)

It’s not ground breaking, but the most helpful advice often isn’t. It might even sound like common sense to some of you.

Here’s the thing. Last year when I’d walk past the big cork board this quote used to be stuck on outside my bedroom door, I’d actually feel really bad. I knew Giorgio/Ralph was right because it was how I’d achieved a lot of my past goals, both career and personal. Some people call it manifesting, I call it deciding what you want and making it happen by some combination of hard graft, being in the right place at the right time, and always saying yes to scary opportunities.

I felt bad because I didn’t have a vision anymore. I no longer knew what I wanted.

And while it does sometimes seem that amazing jobs/partners/homes fall into some people’s laps with no planning or vision, for most of us, we have to know what we want to make it happen. Some people just get carried along by life. Me? I like to be the leader in my own life.

That was my obstacle all of last year - and I know I’m sounding like a broken record because I’ve written about this before, but something has now shifted.

Everything I now have or have done, from my books, to the brands I’ve styled for, to my house, to the area I now live in, all came about because I set my sights on them and worked towards them (with countless failures and disappointments along the way). I don’t want this to sound all Tony Robbins (this video is so mega church/evangelical, it’s actually frightening, but I do believe in the practice he’s coaching his audience through). I know not all situations can be magic-ed out of with intention and hard work and - according to Tony - fist pumps in the air. But often, we do have some control.

How can I express my vision consistently Giorgio/Ralph, if I don’t know what it is!

Well it’s been a slow burn, and I’m only at the beginning, but I do have a vision again. A picture in my mind of what I want my life to look like moving forward. It doesn’t mean it will all happen or that it won’t change, but it feels so good to have ideas again. And the way I got to this point is through talking and connecting.

In January I wrote about how so far this year I’m feeling significantly better. Last year was the absolute worst, but for no apparent reason in January and February - typically the most depressing time of year - I’ve had a glut of optimism and a renewed zest for life. So much so that a friend said she thought I’d started taking anti-depressants (I came very close last year, but I held out which for me was the right decision. But you do you, no judgement here).

With this renewed optimism came a need to connect. And so I’ve been diligently meeting friends old and new, saying yes to things when really I want to stay home in my comfort zone, and setting up meetings with friends with the sole intention of helping each other figure out our future plans.

I can highly recommend this practice if you struggle with focus. I now have so many ideas in what was already a crowded mind that brainstorming with a friend really helped me hone in on one or two of those ideas rather than trying to do them all and failing. I’m pretty good at seeing what another person could do with their business, but it is infinitely more difficult with my own. Bi-weekly meetings and check ins also hold us accountable for actually following through.

One good friend of mine, with whom I met on a cold beach pier for hot chocolate and brainstorming, reminded me that in the corporate world entire teams are tasked with the jobs we as small business owners do on our own. Something I knew but had managed to forget, berating myself for not getting enough done. And I should know! I had a big job once as head of store visuals/merchandising for Anthropologie Europe and I had an amazing team and together we got some big stuff done. I couldn’t have opened stores in Paris on my own, that’s for sure!

In Monday meetings in that world, plans are made, work is divided up by team, everyone goes away and works on their little piece of the puzzle and then reconvenes later in the week to share progress, and that’s how projects get off the ground. Meanwhile I’m over here - and I’m sure many of you are as well - trying to do it all.

Doing it all might be manageable for one idea, but when there are, oh I don’t know, six, seven, it’s just silly.

Letting go of ideas and plans can be really hard. It can feel like giving up. There are a few career ambitions that I’ve recently trashed after years of thinking about them. They were no longer viable for various reasons and I realised I didn’t really want them anymore. I’d wanted them because of how they’d look (impressive!), not thinking of how they’d make me feel (probably like shit!)

Sometimes we have to let go of old versions of ourselves to let the new one emerge, but no-one ever told me about the gap in between. The bit where you’re like “who the f am I now and what do I even want?”

Here’s where I circle back to interiors - because I still can’t let go of the old version of myself who is known as an interiors writer and embrace the current version of myself who is just a writer. But baby steps. And there is a link.

With my home, the laser focus Giorgio/Ralph speak of has, for the last three years been the renovation, big stuff, expensive stuff. Furniture, art, the finishing touches have not been on the menu or in the budget. And that laser focus on the bigger picture has now given me a really cool house of which I’m very proud. The layout, the finishes, the bones of it are great. They are the me of now.

The furniture and the bits and pieces that are meant to represent my style? Those bits are mostly an older version of me and my life, one that no longer rings true. And that’s why it was hard to answer the journalist’s question about my personal interiors style. And I know - because you tell me all the time - that many of you feel the same when it comes to knowing what you like, especially as we are bombarded with SO MUCH all the time.

Concrete floors - yes. Twee vintage curtains- not anymore.

One of my spare bedrooms is currently decorated with a big grey desk from one of my kids’ bedrooms from years ago, improved with white paint, but really not a special piece in any way; an old black metal Habitat bed given to me by a friend last year; green metal bedside tables from IKEA that came with my late mum when she moved in; a huge old armchair I’ve had for 25 years and I should probably get rid of because it doesn’t fit anywhere; and vintage floral curtains that I’ve loved for 20 years but the cottage core trend has ruined for me.

None of it is the me of now. It’s just a random compilation of things I happen to have that fill a space and not in the lovely perfectly imperfect, life unstyled way that I’d like. Accepting that the vision I always had of a house with concrete floors and vintage floral curtains no longer represents me is so odd. I ALWAYS wanted this. I have ancient Pinterest boards dedicated to just that! I have the concrete floors now, but the twee vintage bits aren’t doing it for me any more!

But I know that when we let go of old ways of thinking and doing and we whole-heartedly embrace change, good things can happen. Look at Abigail Ahern! The self-styled queen of the dark, moody, luxurious home used to live in an all white and light grey home until she, as she calls it, went over to the dark side. And clearly never looked back. I don’t yet know what my interiors vision is, but I’m just happy my big picture day dreaming faculties are back. The rest will follow.

Thanks for reading or listening x