Want To Be More Stylish? Use The “Trip-And-Fall’ Test!

Want to look better in whatever you’re wearing?

So do I.

So much of how we look is about how we feel and how we carry ourselves in our clothes. I always see guys on online forums asking how they can “pull off” something or other and it reveals that they don’t yet have a baseline of confidence to wear that particular item. There’s nothing really wrong with that.

Regardless of how you think they should go about gaining that confidence, we all agree that confidence is incredibly important in your overall look.

Usually, that confidence comes from practice. If you practice wearing certain kinds of clothes, you’ll feel natural and comfortable in them. That ease will be evident to those around you and you will appear more stylish.

We all have clothes that we feel REALLY good in, don’t we? Maybe it’s a leather jacket, or a tuxedo, or a cool hat and pair of boots.

We’ve worn those clothes enough to wear them with rock-solid confidence. We step out of the house with a bit of a smirk since we know we look good.

And isn’t that a good thing? Isn’t that what we’re all striving for? To feel happy in what we’re wearing and ready to take on the world?

Well, yes, to some degree.

But let me pause the scene right there for a second. Because there is risk in being a little too confident. When confidence starts to become smugness or arrogance, it’s a problem.

But how do you know if you’re smug and arrogant or just simply confident? How can you tell if the way you carry yourself is off-putting to others? Well, there is a very simple mental test you can employ.

Imagine that while you were walking down the street, among throngs of people, you suddenly tripped and fell.

Nothing serious where people would be concerned for your well-being, just a simple misstep that sends you to the ground in a somewhat comical, undignified way.

The test is not how you would react to the fall, but how the people around you would react to SEEING you fall.

Would they just smile and hope you didn’t twist your ankle? That’s good. It means you probably don’t come across as an insufferable, arrogant ass.

But if you sense a little schadenfreude coming from the on-lookers then you probably need to assess whether or not you’re walking around in your awesome clothes with a touch of Resting Ass Face.

One of the biggest fears men have when they get the inkling to up their style game is that those around them will think they are pretentious or “better-than”. Unfortunately, some people DO think that of people who dress nicely.

But it’s not necessarily the clothes that cause some people to instinctively cast a side-eye in the direction of the well-dressed. It’s often the demeanor of the person wearing the clothes that causes that suspicion.

Now, there are some fools out there that will hate anyone who dresses in more than just a t-shirt because it’s foreign and scary to them and they react to unfamiliar things with fear and anger. You can’t do anything about them. They are destined to live their lives in personal and professional mediocrity. Don’t spend any mental effort worrying about their opinions.

But most people are perfectly normal. And even though they might not feel threatened by the guy in the blazer, they might take a little bit of satisfaction in seeing that guy eat it if he was carrying around a “holier-than-thou” attitude a moment prior simply because he was dressed well.

Basically, don’t be that jerk.

Carry yourself in such a way that if you tripped and fell in front of people, you could pick yourself back up, chuckle, and be on your way. If people think your fall was accompanied by a little karmic justice, then you need to assess how you come across to others.

Yes, it’s great to feel confident in what you’re wearing. It’s also important for that confidence to convey warmth and good humor and not cold standoffishness.

Keeping a sense of humor will inoculate you (stylishly, but also emotionally) to all the little hiccups of the day from the aforementioned trip-and-fall to spilling your coffee to sweating like a pig after running to catch your train.

Dress well, absolutely. But also smile at people. Take a joke. That warmth will have a cyclical effect and make you feel even more confident in your clothes since you’ll know the people around you probably aren’t put-off by your demeanor.

Stylishness is about so much more than looking good. It’s also more than feeling happy and confident. Because that happiness and confidence can quickly get out of hand if you’re not careful. That’s especially true for those of who have been in the “menswear” game for a while.

Make sure to take note of your ego before you leave the house. You’ll probably find you enjoy your clothes, and your life, a lot more than you did before.