The Style Quest - How to get started?

This post is a little bit different from the mostly craftsy projects I usually share with you on a day to day basis. Elsie from A Beautiful Mess recently wrote about a shift in her personal style and when I read that post I felt it really resonated with my own struggles in style at the moment. 

I feel that I've grown so much over the past year on a personal level - I changed my career path, I decided to go after my dreams, and I started to find happiness in the moment. I'm finally happy with where I am at the moment, and I'm even beginning to embrace my age and the positive side of being older than most of my schoolmates. This all has affected my perception of myself and therefor also my style.

I feel I don't quite dress according to what I feel inside, and where I am in life. I feel strongly that style is one way to express who we are, it's part of our identity. So, our outside should match our inside. It's as simple as that. Or is it?

I've come to realize that finding my voice when it comes to style is not as easy as I'd hope. My closet is full of clothing dating from my middle school years to the present. I have NO money to spend on new clothing right now. And, I've gotten used to dressing a certain way. So, how do I even begin to reshape my style without actually buying new clothing, and losing a sense of who I am?

When I started the Wardrobe reinvention series, my main goal was to make better use of my clothing, but it has led me on a quest for my own style. It's helped me see not only the potential of different garments I own, but also what I do and don't like on me and what I feel good in. But, it has also raised a lot of questions in me about my style. I feel that although I dress well most of the time, I'm stuck somewhere in my late teens/early twenties and can't get out of this style rut. 

So, in order to find my new style direction, I've designed a little program for myself, which will help me 

1) Get reacquainted with myself.

What are my signature traits? What do I want to express in my style?

2) Find out what I like and what looks good on me. 

Every trend is not to be followed by everybody, but I can find things I like from the current trends, and that look good on me.

3) Reinvent my wardrobe

What works for me and what doesn't? 

4) Create my ultimate shopping list

A list of things I need to add to my wardrobe to make it complete. And by shopping I mean sewing, refashioning from thrift-store finds and so on.

I hope to keep you in the loop and share my experiences here on the blog. 

Have you struggled with finding your personal style or with changing it? What helped you find it? Are any of you struggling with this at the moment? Please tell me all about it in the comments! I'd love to hear about your experiences with this.