I am not a sporty person - I love watching sport and can explain the rules of football, rugby and cricket...but I'm not a naturally sporty person. I'm the one at the back of the Zumba class, red faced (through embarrassment and exhaustion), falling left when everyone else is dancing right, clapping when I should be stamping...you get the drift.
So does my ineptitude at sport leave me disadvantaged when it comes to dealing with curveballs? Apparently not!
We've had a few this week, which have been caught or hit for six or kicked into touch.
This was going to be THE week...after many months of work, we were definitely going to launch the new website - come hell or high water, I think I said.
I didn't put in enough contingency plans for curveballs.
Of course, we had contingency plans and we had scheduled in time for 'what ifs' - just didn't quite plan on having so many 'what ifs'!
It never occurred to me to factor in those little extras like...
What if our school, where I am Chair of Governors, has an Ofsted inspection this week?
What if the payment platform we have been working with for months mistakenly emails our members to tell them their subscription has been cancelled?
What if my mother in law gets taken into hospital unexpectedly (its OK, she's back home now)?
What happens when we find ourselves spending a great deal of time focused on things we weren't even anticipating at the start of the week? In order to stay sane, we have to be flexible...
I know Robert Burns says the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry...and he is right (although I'm still not sure what the mouse has to do with it?)
All the planning in the world didn't allow for these little extra curveballs that had to be dealt with, in the moment...and which took up hours of time! So, with all the contingency used up, we have to be flexible and delay the launch of the website, even though this was going to be THE week.
Whilst I can choose to beat myself up a bit, with all the things I 'should' have done to avoid this delay, I think I can also say we are doing the very best we can with the resources we have available at the time....so it is time to breathe, be grateful, regroup and take the next step because every step is a step closer and we are so nearly there now...