22

of 120

120 Days to Christmas

Day 22: You Can't Be Serious and Silly at the Same Time

They're two different gears. Most of us just forget the second one exists.

Here's an unqualified, non peer reviewed, deeply scientific observation: your brain can't run serious and silly at the same time. They're different gears entirely, and if you've spent all day stuck in serious, your stress hormones have had a completely uninterrupted run of the place. Today's tip is embarrassingly simple. Flip the switch. Take the mick out of yourself before anyone else gets the chance to.

Cortisol cannot survive in a gear change. It needs you to stay serious to keep working.

I'm fairly sure that's not an actual medical fact, but it feels true, and honestly that's the energy this whole post is running on.

EXHIBIT A

You can be brilliant at your job and still laugh at yourself

Being serious about your work, your goals, your macros, whatever it is, doesn't mean you have to stay in that gear all day. Colour coded spreadsheet in the morning, howling at your own nonsense by the afternoon, both can exist in the same person. The trick is actually switching, not staying parked in one lane.

EXHIBIT B

Nobody has ever died of laughing at their own reflection

Catch yourself pulling a face in the mirror mid morning routine, hair doing something ambitious, one sock on, and just laugh at the state of yourself. That's the switch flipping. This is not a personal attack, this is comic relief, and your nervous system genuinely thanks you for it.

EXHIBIT C

The people who switch gears the most tend to last the longest

Not scientifically proven by me, but proven by basically every grandparent who's ever lived, the ones cackling at their own jokes at ninety are not, generally speaking, the ones who spent their forties stuck permanently in serious mode, gripping the steering wheel over nothing.

So today's challenge, and I use the word challenge loosely because it should feel like the opposite of one, find one moment to flip the switch. Properly. Out loud, if you can manage it without alarming the neighbours.

98 days left. Stay serious about the goal, not about yourself.

Love, Vikki