An Elegant Day Comes Down to These 5 Choices

The other morning, I woke up, and as I do most mornings, I put on some Miles Davis. And Fonz and I were sitting together having our coffee, and I turned to him and I said, “Do you hear this music? This is how I want life to feel every single day.” It was the vibe. It was elegant. And as soon as I said that word, something clicked. Because I started thinking about the days where I actually feel that energy, that jazzy, spacious, everything in its right place feeling, versus the days where I feel scattered, reactive, and pulled in 17 different directions at once. And here’s what I realized. My most elegant days aren’t about what I accomplished. They’re about a few very specific choices that I make, a few tensions that I navigate. And I’m telling you, when I get these right, everything clicks. And that’s exactly what we’re talking about today.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where our motto is simple: elevate your self-image, elevate your life. I’m Tonya Leigh, your hostess, and I’ll guide you to become the woman who doesn’t just dream bigger, she lives bigger. Let’s dive in.

If you crave more elegant days, you are in the right place. Because let’s be honest, the world doesn’t feel very elegant right now. There’s tension everywhere. People feel anxious, overwhelmed, unmotivated, or all three at once. And here’s what I believe. People are craving elegance. They just don’t realize it. Now, elegance gets misunderstood. We can sometimes picture heels and pearls and perfectly slicked back hair in a beautiful bun. And sure, that can be part of it if that’s your thing, but that’s not what I’m talking about here. Elegance at its root is simplicity and effectiveness.

But to me, it goes even deeper. Elegance is about discernment. It’s about spaciousness. It’s about self-respect. It’s how you move through your day, especially when everything around you is chaotic. And when I study my own life, the difference between my most elegant days and my most depleted ones, it really comes down to five choices.

Restraint vs. Reactivity

Choice number one is restraint versus reactivity. A few months ago, I was at the airport, which let’s be honest, it’s where we see humanity sometimes at its very worst, and our flight was delayed again. And I watched a woman completely meltdown at the gate agent. She was screaming, throwing her bag down, demanding a manager.

And listen, I understood the frustration. I felt it too. But what struck me was how depleted she looked. Like red face, shaking hands. You could see how she had poured all of her power onto the floor of gate 37. She might’ve thought that she was standing up for herself, but what she actually did was give her power away to a situation she couldn’t control and to a person who couldn’t fix it. That is an example of reactivity. Restraint is different. Restraint is the pause, the breath, the moment where you decide how you want to respond instead of letting the situation decide for you.

Now, this isn’t about suppressing emotion or pretending that you’re not frustrated. It’s about emotional sovereignty, not outsourcing your emotional state to other people or circumstances. Because when you react, what you’re really saying is, “I need this to change so that I can feel better.” Restraint says, “I’m going to feel what I feel and then choose my response.” You can still advocate for yourself. You can still ask questions. You can still look for solutions or make requests, but you do it with a sense of composure, with strategy, with your power intact. And here’s the paradox. Restraint actually gives you energy. When you don’t let your emotions spill everywhere, you stay centered, you remain elegant. An elegant day starts with you keeping your power in your own hands. So that’s choice number one.

Constraint vs. Sprawl

Now, choice number two is constraint versus sprawl. I had one of those rush mornings recently, grabbing things, putting them down everywhere. And by the time I left, my bathroom counter looked like a beauty supply store had exploded. I didn’t notice it until I came home later and I felt the chaos hit me. Just looking at it was depleting.

So I took 10 minutes and I put everything back where it belonged and immediately I could breathe again. This is exactly how most people live their days. Too many priorities, too many commitments, too much competing for their attention. Constraint, however, can feel uncomfortable because your brain insists everything is important. But if everything is important, nothing truly is. Elegance requires decision, and decide literally means to cut off. Not everything belongs front and center. Some things need to be put away. Some things need to be eliminated altogether. And some things get space because you deliberately choose them. That’s constraint, not deprivation. I like to consider that curation. When you constrain, what you choose gets to breathe. You have space to do it well and actually enjoy it. Elegance doesn’t happen in overwhelm. It happens in the space you create by deciding what matters.

Savoring vs. Rushing

Choice number three, savoring versus rushing. One morning, Fonz and I were having coffee and jazz was playing in the background and I realized I wasn’t actually there. Physically, yes. Mentally, I was hours ahead, thinking about meetings, to-do list, what was next. And I caught myself. I was like, “This right here is my life. I have this amazing man right in front of me, the man I had dreamt of for years, and I’m not even with him.” That’s not elegance. That’s distraction. It’s being pulled away from what truly matters in the moment.

Most people aren’t living their lives. They’re rushing through them to get to some imaginary finish line. They rush through breakfast to get to work, through work to get home, through the week to get to the weekend, and then they rush through the weekend too. Savoring is slowing down enough to actually experience what’s happening. It’s really tasting your food. It’s listening when someone speaks. It’s feeling the texture of your clothes instead of just throwing them on. And I know the objection. People say, “I don’t have time to slow down.” But rushing doesn’t save time. It just activates anxiety. And worse, it steals the very moments you’re supposedly rushing to enjoy. Savoring doesn’t mean life is in slow motion. It means you’re actually there for it. Elegance lives in the present moment, and you can’t experience it if you’re always three steps ahead.

Enough vs. More

Now, choice number four, enough versus more. My most inelegant years were the years where I was always chasing more. More success, more growth, more visibility. And those were the years I felt the most depleted. Because when nothing ever feels like enough, you’re running on scarcity. Now, I’m not anti-ambition. I love expansion. But here’s the truth. You can’t create more when you’re operating from not enough.

Enoughness creates space. And from space, expansion happens naturally. When you start noticing enough, enough effort, enough beauty, enough connection, your nervous system settles. And from that grounded place, more becomes possible. There’s a massive difference between chasing more from lack and creating more from fullness. One feels frantic. The other one is elegant.

Creating vs. Consuming

Now, the final choice is choice number five, creating versus consuming. I’ve noticed something about my most elegant days. They’re the days when I create more than I consume. When I show up for what I say is important instead of avoiding it because of an uncomfortable emotion. When I’m actively making something, whether it’s a meal or a piece of content or a beautiful moment, instead of just passively taking things in.

Yes, I consume. But my desire is to consume what aligns with my values, what supports my vision, what makes me have that, I don’t know, morning jazz feel that we talked about in the beginning. That’s what I want to consume. And that feels very different than our modern day addiction. Let’s talk about addiction. And I’m not talking about alcohol or food or shopping. Those are real. But I’m talking about the addiction that’s quietly running more lives than people realize. It’s screen consumption. We are constantly consuming, scrolling, watching, reading, listening, taking in, taking in, taking in. And the worst part, we don’t even realize we’re doing it. It’s just become this default state of existence.

We want a dopamine hit. Or we’re avoiding things that matter because they’re uncomfortable. So what do we do? We pick up our phones and we start scrolling like robots. And listen, I’ve been guilty and I don’t like the feeling. So it’s something I’m very mindful of and I want to get even better at. Now, here’s the irony. You’re consuming right now from a screen. You’re listening to this. You’re watching the video on YouTube or listening to this on a podcast. You’re consuming what I’m saying. So let me be very clear. I am not anti-consumption. I consume content all the time. I read, I watch films, I listen to music, I read books.

But here’s the distinction. I consume what inspires me, what nourishes me, what I can actually use to make my life richer, deeper, and more beautiful. And here’s the most important part. My intention is to turn many of the things that I consume into creation. Not all. Because sometimes, I just want to do things for the joy of it with no strings attached. But for example, when it comes to educational material, I’m always asking, “How does this apply to my life? How can I use this for me? What action can I take from what I’m learning?” That’s a very different approach than just mindless scrolling, from numbing out with your phone because you don’t want to feel what you’re feeling, from spending three hours watching other people live their lives instead of you creating your own.

Because here’s the thing, the best artists, designers, writers, creators, they all consume. They have to. You need input to create output. You need inspiration. You need to see what’s possible. But when your consumption outweighs your creation, that’s when you start to feel stagnant, stuck, like you’re just living other people’s lives instead of your own. I see this all the time. Women who spend hours a day on Instagram looking at beautiful homes, beautiful outfits, beautiful lives, and then they look around at their own life and feel empty because they’re consuming all this beauty, but they’re not creating any of it for themselves. They’re watching other people’s dreams instead of building their own.

And here’s what that does to your self-image. When you spend your time scrolling instead of taking action on your dreams, you reinforce an identity of a woman who watches rather than someone who does. You become the audience instead of the artist. You start to believe unconsciously that you’re the kind of person who consumes other people’s creativity rather than creates your own. And that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Or think about it like this. When you choose to numb out with your phone instead of actually feeling your life, maybe it’s the boredom, the discomfort, the quiet moments, you disconnect from yourself. You avoid the very feelings and thoughts that are trying to reveal to you what stands in the way of the life that you want.

Because creation requires presence. It requires feeling. It requires being with yourself long enough to know what’s trying to come through for you. But if you’re constantly consuming, constantly filling every quiet moment with someone else’s content, when you do that, you don’t get to hear your own voice. When do you ever create anything? I’m not saying you need to become some content creation machine. That’s not the point here. Creating doesn’t mean you have to post on social media or start a business or write a book. Those things you can do if you want. But creating just means making something, anything, a beautiful meal, a styled corner of your home, decluttering, a thoughtful email, a conversation, a moment. It means you’re actively shaping your life instead of passively consuming other people’s.

And here’s what I’ve noticed. The days that I create more than I consume, those are my most elegant days, the days that I feel most alive, most myself and most satisfied. Because I’m not just taking in, I’m putting out, I’m contributing, I’m making something that didn’t exist before, even if it’s just a perfectly curated breakfast or a journal entry or a styled outfit that makes me feel incredible. That’s creation. That’s living as the author of your life instead of the audience. So this is the fifth choice. Will you consume more than you create? Or will you balance what you take in with what you put out?

Because elegance isn’t about how you look or what you have. It’s about how you show up in your life. It’s about being the person who creates beauty instead of just consuming it. That jazz filled morning that I mentioned at the beginning, that feeling doesn’t come from doing more or necessarily achieving more. It comes from these shifts. And here’s the practice. Don’t try to do them all at once. Pick one. Just one. The one thing that made you think, “Oh, that’s what I need to focus on. That’s what’s missing.” Maybe it’s restraint before responding. Maybe it’s savoring one moment of your day. Maybe it’s asking yourself, “What’s enough?” before adding one more thing. That’s how elegance works. One intentional choice at a time.

And if you want help clarifying what you truly desire and aligning your choices with your values, I created the Sweet Spot Playbook for exactly that. It is a much loved tool that has been shared with over 25,000 women to help them turn their grandest vision into actionable steps for today. You can download it at schoolofselfimage.com/sweetspot. All one word. So pick one shift, practice it, let it change how your day feels. Let’s make it elegant. Have a beautiful week, and I’ll see you next time. Cheers.