Tiffanny Junee

This morning I was officially Inside Out.

I’d managed to get Mini Me dressed and fed. Do my own hair and makeup (not always a given these days), answer some new client enquiries, get casually caffeinated and have a smiling child at school drop off.

I was feeling very proud of my calm yet productive morning routine when I realised…

…my dress was inside out!

When the teacher at school told me my dress was inside out, I simply shrugged.

“I guess that sums up my morning’ I said proud of myself for getting a lot of stuff done so early, but knowing I’d also tried to do too much.

Too much?

Yes. Too much to be able to get the basics right.

Irrespective of how many self-help, time-management, efficiency reviews we undertake the baseline comms is always: make a list, prioritise that list and tick things off as you go.

If you work in ‘corporate’ certain dress codes are expected to be maintained. Something, sadly nurtured through business schools the world over and reiterated by the marketplace hellbent on maintaining ‘best practice’ norms.

Yes that’s right gentlemen, you will not be able to present professionally without your 20th century noose, sorry I mean silk tie.

Best practice has meant conditioning ourselves and our peers into roles. Roles for which we are not always best suited for the simple reason that throughout the course of the days, weeks, months and years our ability to ‘do’ ebbs and flows.

This is neither a criticism nor a fact. Merely an observation that ‘life’ kicks through at variant speeds.

Like the seas, we too are impacted by the conditions of the world around us – be it naturally occurring phenomenon or man-made and shrouded in company policy/ community norms.

People’s gut response to a quick glimpse at my list is (rightfully) incredulously laughter.

And that pretty much sums up life.

Just when we think we’ve got it together, we realise we’re still toddler-like in our silent struggle to get the basics right.

More often than not, we’re Inside Out and (when brave enough to admit it Upside Down.

Life – at the best of times – is nothing short of crazy.

That’s our fault.

We’ve conditioned ourselves to be these dynamic ‘dooers’ of ‘stuff’ – whether for ourselves or by corporate command.

We actually pride (and dare I say define) ourselves by the stuff we (and others) do.

We can’t help ourselves and (sub)consciously rate our (and others) success and failure on the ‘stuff’ we ‘do’.

Why is that?

Today’s lesson: Get Inside Out more often.

Why? By acknowledging that I was inside out, I was able to take the time to stop and breathe.

This enabled me to laugh (releasing much-needed healing pheromones), centre and refocus my efforts for the day.