Too Busy to Be Me …

I have had many conversations recently with friends and colleagues and realised that I need to seriously work on being less grown up!

No! You might argue … how will you ever be credible if you are less grown up? Surely, in business, with your clients, in the board roles you’ve performed and will again, it’s important to be the most serious and gritty person there is to be taken seriously, to be listened to?

Maybe, I would reply. However, what I’m not being when I am being totally grown up is myself. A slightly irreverent, fun, jokey, version of the Tania you might meet today.

I’ve had WAAAAY too much time to reflect across the past 8 months about what I want to do, where I will place my energy and focus and why in the future; and today, as I was talking to one friend and sometimes colleague, countering the lack of paid work with my enjoyment of the enormously rewarding creativity that has had time to emerge for the first time in years – drawing, painting, writing - speaking of how it all makes me feel connected to myself, to who I am, he said: “So, what you’re saying is that in the past you’ve been too busy to be yourself?” (Thanks Ian!). Yes. That’s exactly it. In my busyness I have somehow forgotten to be less grown up, less tight, more myself and been a version of what I think I ‘ought’ to be to be ‘professional’.

I’m not intending to be any less professional, just saying. What I see though is that it is OK to be fully myself – the more playful version of Tania that emerges socially – so that I can bring me into all my interactions and feel more comfortable, more at home, more at peace as I do my work; whatever work that is (which will surely be more balanced now between creative pursuits and business outputs). And this is not about pure authenticity – because in my more serious self- mode, I am authentic, this is about getting back to what being human is for me – a playful curiosity, a lack of judgement, an ability to accept and a preparedness to watch and learn, to prod, to poke, to laugh, to cry with an openness that tells you exactly who I am.

It’s a call out from my younger Tania, my childhood Tania, to let that part of me be free again.

It could be great fun if we all did that – which to some extent is being forced a little as our pets walk across our screens unexpectedly, the kids barge into an important board meeting, our partner passes us a cuppa across the lens of the camera in this virtual working from home space … to be it intentionally, with purpose and passion and have more FUN in our work would be just the ticket!

Who wants to play that work game instead?

Please feel free to contact me at tania@twcreativecoaching.com.

Posted on Wed, December 02, 2020 in General Leadership Personal Development
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