Femme Fatale Guide: How To Build Your Personal Brand & Self Concept
Discovering, refining, and feeling comfortable with your authentic self is essential for claiming your power and deciding how you want to show up in the world. Here's a beginner's guide to discovering your personality, cultivating your personal brand, and unleashing your divine/dark feminine energy. Tips are below x
Create A 'You' Starter Pack:
Values List (Try 5 Core Values/Words To Start)
Your Own 'Dream Girl' Archetype
Write A Recommendation Letter About Yourself (It's a great practice to see yourself from the outside looking in. Once you understand how you want to be perceived, it's time to self-reflect. Allow this introspection creates a roadmap to help you cultivate these qualities. Decide mannerisms and habits to cultivate, a way of dressing, interests to pursue, skillsets to master, etc.)
Ultimately, finding who you are comes down to these main principles:
How You Want To Show Up To The World
The Characteristics That Make You Feel Whole Behind Closed Doors
The Way You Hold Yourself: How do you dress, do your hair and makeup, speak, and interact with others? How do you want others to describe you when you're not in the room? What do you do every day? What interests, skills, careers, academic subjects, and social causes drive you? What characteristics do you strive to embody? How do they align with your personal strength and natural skill sets?
To find your likes & dislikes: Look for confidence and alignment in all areas.
Think about the activities that give you energy and feel effortless once you get into the flow. Is it writing, drawing, a sport, shopping, interior design, reading books, doing your nails, putting together outfits, puzzles, or fitness? Discover the parts of your day and types of tasks that center you. What are you doing when you feel at peace, in flow, and as though time stops? Also, lean into your strengths. Are you naturally good at writing, understanding people, public speaking, singing, dancing, a sport, putting together outfits or spaces, creating Pinterest boards, or doing your makeup? It’s easier to marry passion with an innate skill.
What you would love to do in your free time if you had no responsibilities and would be glad to do for free? Think about building a set of likes like creating your dream job. Would you be a personal chef, dancer, stylist, tennis player, nail artist, professional organizer, book critic, trainer, therapist, scientist, writer etc.? Use your imagination and creativity. Look at the posts you resonate most with and reblog on Tumblr or create boards with Pinterest. See the similarities among your favorite content and why it inspires you.
Another way to discover your likes (and dislikes) is to experiment! What music genres are you listening to and which can you play for something different? What outfits make you feel most confident? What books and TV shows could you spend hours engrossed in? Browse Spotify, YouTube, Pinterest, Tumblr, bookstores (Amazon lol), clothing websites, Netflix, etc. to try out different aesthetics across categories until you find items and content that speaks to your soul.
For finding your dislikes, as obvious as it sounds, do the opposite.
What activities, aesthetics, and content drain your energy? What types of books, music, and TV make you space out? What foods could you happily live without? Subjects in school that you dread? Careers that would be soul-sucking? Outfits and beauty looks that make you feel uncomfortable or not like yourself? Anything that continuously creates resistance no matter how much energy you put into trying to align with it can count as a dislike.
To discover your aesthetic, my advice would be similar:
Picture what your ideal life and self looks like: How would you dress, eat, spend your leisure time, do as a career, decorate your home, do your makeup, read, watch, listen to, study at school if any path was available and guaranteed to provide you a lifetime of success and ease?
Take time to think about the archetypical aesthetics that you admire most and 5-10 words you most want to embody when people describe your look/persona. For example, I’m drawn to the Parisian girl, ‘90s model, classic femme fatale, NYC chic, and minimalist ’that girl’ clean wellness aesthetic. My words are refined, elegant, luxurious, contemporary, worldly, intellectual, cultured, and chic. Find inspiration for every aspect of your aesthetic: Your clothes, home, beauty routine, leisure activities (books you read, music and TV show choices, athletic activities), food preferences, etc. that resonate with you. Create a Pinterest board for each area and then a larger vision board with snippets of each category.
Do you prefer certain colors, silhouettes, aspects of certain cultures, schools of thought, and TV or book archetypes? Lean into how they look, act, speak, and move throughout the world, the routines, habits, and preferences of these ideal figures. Combine different aspects of these archetypes and cultural influences that resonate with you and mind-map them to suit the criteria above.
Remember: This process takes time and will refine itself organically as you learn about yourself. Start with one or two areas of your life and expand from there. Discover what makes you feel good and the brand consistency will come with time and authenticity.
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