Some women have lots of handbags and shoes, some others have lots trainers (me), and some others have lots of nice jewellery and designer things.

I was having a virtual chat the other day, with someone in work, and I was sort of a little embarrassed to say that I’ve got 4 watches.

I sort of uncomfortably explained my reasons…

1 – my Apple Watch as my cool every day watch, that connects to my phone and plays my music, tracks my activist and motivate me to achieve my activity goals. It also syncs to Apple fitness and has lots of different straps to suit my mood / outfit / activity.

2 – my garmin 645 music, for on runs and cycles, and the track my walks, and other activities. I’ve had a Garmin since 2008, since before Apple had watches, and I think their superior for exercise. So I wouldn’t drop them for an Apple Watch. It shows so many measures to enable me to track and measure my fitness and progress – vo2 max, training performance, workouts, training calendar.

I also have all my data in Garmin, showing Ive run over 10,000 miles, nearly 6,000 activities and over 28 million steps since I’ve had a Garmin. My Garmin running watches have motivated me and help me to track and compare my fitness and training. I’ve had about 7 different ones, and this one is great for almost everything I need exercise wise.

3 – which leads me onto my third watch, which I wear all the time. My Garmin Vivosmart fitness tracker. It’s on all the time, and before Apple Watch came along and before it tracked sleep, my vivosmart tracks sleep, stress, body battery, steps and can actually as a fitness tracker if I need it to. But wearing it has enabled me to track my 26 million steps. 😂

4 – I recently bought a Garmin swim 2 watch. If I had a triathlon Garmin – a 745 or a 945, I wouldn’t need the swim watch… but my 645 running watch doesn’t track open water swimming or heart rate during swimming. And the Garmin swim 2 goes exactly that plus a bit more in the pool. Plus I won £117 on the lotto that month, so decided it was a sign to get me to buy the watch. And it’s been great so far.

Anyway, I didn’t need to explain any of that… to my colleague, or on here – but it all makes sense to me. Why shouldn’t I have 4 watches?

The nice colleague that she is, liked the fact I had 4 watches and saw it as a part of me that might be a bit eccentric, but it was a part she was keen to get to know.

Most of the time I wear my Garmin vivosmart fitness tracker all the time, plus my Apple Watch. But when I run, I wear my Garmin 645 on my left arm, and (in order to track my calories / totals on apple) I wear my Apple watch on my right arm, under a long sleeve or under a sweat band.

I’m happy with that. But when I swim, I just use the Garmin swim. Maybe too many gadgets and watches would weigh me down to the bottom. 😂 only kidding.

And then as my good friend Gill said, it’s par of who I am, it’s part of my idiosyncrasies, my character. Who I am.

So I’m embracing my multiple watches and my multiple Apple watch straps. I probably don’t NEED them all, but I use them for different things, and it suits me.

And what my colleague did right there with a warm and welcoming acceptance of my gadgets habit, was inclusion much more than any attempt to include people because of their more well known characteristics.

I’m able to talk about my exercise and training and gadgets openly on our coffee breaks, and my colleagues are genuinely interested in that part of me. I’m bringing my whole self to work, and I love it.

Embrace your eccentricities and the bits that makes you you. Be you. You’re magic.