From Guessing to Deciding
Every morning, I open my closet and I have nothing to wear.
That’s a lie, obviously. The closet is full. It’s just not full of anything I want to put on.
And it’s not a special occasion problem. It’s a regular Tuesday. Coffee, a coaching call, maybe Target. Low stakes. And I still stand there staring.
I save inspo constantly, especially from Amazon creators. Sometimes I even buy the thing. Then the package shows up, I try it on, and I genuinely cannot tell you if it’s me. It’s cute? It was cute on her.
Here’s the funny part. I do this for a living. A client can sit down with me, and in about ten minutes I can tell her what her brand is. I cannot tell you what my own style is.
What I’d tell a client
So I asked myself the obvious question. If a client brought me this exact problem, what would I tell her?
The answer came fast, because it’s what I’d say about almost anything: stop looking outward. The answer isn’t in your saved folder. It’s already in your closet.
I’d ask her three things. Which pieces do you love? Which ones are you most comfortable in? Which ones bring you the most joy?
You’re not inventing anything new. You’re pulling from what you already know and what you’ve already experienced.
And then the real question: what do you want to be known for?
The mom jeans
Fair’s fair, so I answered my own questions.
The answer is a pair of ripped mom jeans. I’ve had the zipper replaced on them twice. I have paid a person, on two separate occasions, to keep these jeans alive. They now have a rip in a spot that didn’t used to have one. I still wear them.
Nobody does that for a pair of jeans that are just fine. I had already decided they were me. I’d just never said it out loud.
So I asked myself how I feel in them. Not how they look. How I feel.
Comfortable. Cute. Put together. Relaxed.
That’s when it clicked. I’d been scrolling for a look, buying a look, chasing a look. And a style isn’t a look. It’s a feeling.
Those four words are a filter. The question stops being “is this cute?” and becomes “will I feel comfortable, cute, put together, and relaxed in this?” For the first time, I can actually tell whether something fits my style, because there’s finally something to hold it up against.
The content version
I hear this exact story on coaching calls, just with Instagram instead of a closet. And I’ve lived the content version too.
It starts with opening the app and asking, “what should I post today?” Not before a launch. On a regular Tuesday.
Then the inspo folder. Hundreds of saved posts from accounts that look amazing doing things we never would have picked.
Sometimes you post the thing. You watch the numbers. And you still can’t tell if it was good, because the only thing to judge it against is reach.
Then comes the conclusion: “I just need to be more consistent.”
But showing up was never the problem. I show up to my closet every single morning, and consistency has not given me a style. It was never a content problem. It was a decision problem. Nobody ever decided what the content was supposed to feel like.
How to find your four words
Here’s the one question: what do I want someone to feel when they meet my brand? Answer it in four words.
Find them the same way I found mine. Not in other people’s posts. In yours.
Which posts did you love making?
Which ones were easiest to say, where you didn’t have to perform?
Which ones brought you joy, or got the reply that made your whole day?
What do you want to be known for?
Look for your mom jeans post. The topic you keep coming back to even when it doesn’t perform. The way you talk when you stop trying so hard. That’s not a habit to fix. That’s your style, already decided, waiting for you to notice it.
What makes a good filter word
They have to be feelings, not compliments. “Valuable” isn’t a feeling. Neither is “professional.” Nobody finishes reading a post and thinks, wow, I feel so valuable right now. Ask what she actually feels. Relieved? Understood? Like she just got permission? Like she wants to text a friend?
If every brand in your industry would pick the same words, they’re not yours. Warm, authentic, helpful. Great. So is everyone. Those are the words that make a feed pleasant and forgettable.
A little tension is a good sign. Look at my four. Put together and relaxed kind of pull against each other. That’s what makes it a style. Relaxed on its own is sweatpants. Put together on its own is a blazer I’ll never wear. Both at once is the jeans.
How to use it
Before anything goes out, hold it up against your four words. Does it feel like that? Post it. Doesn’t? You don’t need a better hook. You need to make something that does.
Say your four words are calm, honest, a little funny, and clear, and there’s a trending audio everyone’s using this week. Without a filter, “should I hop on this?” is a coin flip. With one, the question becomes “can I make this feel calm, honest, a little funny, and clear?” Maybe you can, and great, go. Maybe it only works if you’re loud and chaotic, and then you already know. It’s not you. Not because you’re lazy. Because you decided.
The filter doesn’t make the decision for you. It makes it fast.
The part that matters most
When a post doesn’t get the reach you wanted, there’s usually only one way to read it: it flopped. So you delete it, or you copy whatever worked for someone else, and you’re right back in the inspo folder.
With the filter, there are two ways to read it. Either it didn’t feel like your four words, which is useful, because you can fix that. Or it did feel like them, and it just had a quiet day. Those need completely different responses. One is a content problem. The other is just Tuesday.
You can’t tell them apart without the filter. That’s why the numbers have felt so confusing.
I’m doing it too
I’m not going to pretend this fixed my closet. It didn’t. But I’ve decided the filter. My style is comfortable, cute, put together, and relaxed. Now I get to find out what fits.
So what would your four words be? For your closet, your content, or honestly both. Send them to me in a DM on Instagram @karyperry. I would genuinely love to see them.
And if you’d rather hear the whole story with all the extra commentary, the full episode is on the From Scratch Podcast.
Prefer to listen? Episode 34 of the From Scratch Podcast tells the whole story.
Kary ♡
