Trainers with everything

One of the most liberating things to happen in my adult lifetime has been the shift in the perception of what makes a ‘proper’ outfit, and specifically the licence to wear trainers with anything, on any occasion.

We could have done it before, but it would have looked inappropriate or sloppy. It might have caused offence. And so we wore formal shoes because they made an outfit look ‘right’.

I wore heels at work every day for decades. They were rarely comfortable and they limited my movement, but they did put me (literally) head and shoulders above the rest and gave me a sense – and probably appearance – of being in charge. They felt like an essential part of my work identity.

And then the pandemic shook things up. Feet which had been allowed to splay in flipflops or slippers for months on end were reluctant to be shoehorned back into the unforgiving space of a formal shoe, particularly a heel.

We questioned why we’d been wearing these constraining shoes in the first place, and thought about what we actually wanted rather than what was expected.

We redefined ‘being in charge’ – it now meant being able to move with comfort, freedom and certainty, which brings its own kind of power.

Now trainers don’t mean disrespect; they mean paying attention to the right things. What do I want? What works for me? What am I all about?

The parallels with post-pandemic career rethinking are pretty obvious, but that’s not my point here today.

What I want to say is that, prior to the pandemic, and in my former work life, I was a version of me that was constructed by environment, convention, requirements, but also by fear of being wrong, going against the flow, standing out for the wrong reasons, and so on.

Whereas now I choose not to fit into a shape. Instead, I allow my shape to settle into its own idiosyncratic form. Sometimes this comes out as posting on topics that seem to have nothing to do with work or careers (yet always do). Or having a soft rant or rail, or a wry smile, about something that’s happening to me or to others in relation to work, careers or age.

I’m working from the inside out, not the outside in. So what you see is what you get.

If you’re looking for a coach, you should want to know the real person you could be working with. And if posting here is my way of reaching you, there’s no point in me turning up here in heels if I’m a trainers person.

Photo: Viacheslav Volodin on Unsplash