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Let's have a moment of honesty. You opened your drawer this morning, reached past everything else, and pulled out the same black leggings you wear every single day. Again.

There's nothing wrong with black leggings. They're the toast of the activewear world. Reliable, goes with everything, never causes a scene. But toast every day for the rest of your life? At some point you want the works.

If you've been feeling a quiet little itch every time you get dressed, this list is for you. Here are 11 signs you've well and truly outgrown boring black leggings, and what your legs would much rather be doing instead.

1. You own six pairs and genuinely can't tell them apart

You did a wash, folded them, and stood there holding two identical black pairs trying to work out if they were the same leggings or different ones. They were different. Allegedly.

When your entire bottom half has become a spot-the-difference puzzle you keep losing, that's the first sign. Your wardrobe should not require a forensics team. A drawer full of near-identical black means you've stopped choosing your clothes and started defaulting to them. Big difference.

2. Getting dressed makes you feel absolutely nothing

Remember when picking an outfit was fun? When you put something on and felt a little spark of yes?

If pulling on your leggings now feels about as exciting as filling out a parking infringement form, your clothes have stopped doing their job. Activewear is supposed to make you want to move. Not file paperwork. The right pair gives you a tiny hit of right, let's go before you've even left the house, and you deserve that on a random Wednesday just as much as on a good day.

3. You've got "good" leggings you're saving for never

Be honest. Is there a fun pair tucked in the back, still with the tags, that you're saving for a special occasion that never quite arrives?

Here's the thing nobody tells you. There is no special occasion coming to rescue your good leggings. Tuesday is the occasion. The school run is the occasion. You, standing in your kitchen at 7am, are the occasion. Clothes saved for "best" just become clothes you never wore, and that's a sad little ending for a perfectly good pair of leggings.

4. You keep mentally undressing other women at the gym

Not like that. I mean you've started clocking other women's leggings with naked envy. The leopard print on the treadmill. The skulls in the weights area. The galaxy print doing downward dog.

You think I could never, then you spend the rest of your workout thinking about it. Spoiler. You absolutely could. The women wearing the fun ones aren't braver than you or built differently. They just got tired of waiting for permission and bought the bloody leggings.

5. Your gym leggings and your "going out" leggings are the same leggings

There's no line anymore. The pair you wear to sweat is the pair you wear to brunch is the pair you wear to the shops is the pair you slept in once when you couldn't be bothered.

One pair of black leggings doing the work of an entire wardrobe is not versatility. It's a hostage situation. A bold pair can pull exactly the same double duty, except people compliment you at the shops instead of quietly wondering if you've slept in them.

6. You think you have to "earn" the right to wear something fun

Somewhere along the line you picked up the idea that bold prints are for other bodies. Smaller ones, younger ones, ones that don't have opinions about waistbands.

That's rubbish, and I'll say it as many times as it takes. You do not need to shrink, tone, firm up, or wait until summer to wear print. Confidence is not a clothing size. Our full length leggings come in sizes 6 to 26 for exactly this reason, because the right to feel good in your clothes was never something you had to qualify for.

7. You've used the words "but I'm over 40" as an excuse

Who made the rule? Point them out, I'd love a word.

The idea that there's an age where you're meant to switch to beige and quietly disappear is the most boring thing I've ever heard. The most stylish women I know are in their 40s, 50s and 60s, and they wear what makes them feel good. Loudly. Age is the reason to wear the fun ones, not the reason to skip them. You've spent decades being told what's "appropriate." This is the bit where you get to ignore all of it.

8. Your leggings don't have pockets and you've just... accepted it

You shove your phone in your waistband. It falls out mid lunge. You carry your keys in your hand on every walk. You've made peace with a deeply pocketless existence and you shouldn't have.

Real pockets are not a luxury. They're the bare minimum. Pockets that hold an actual phone, not a stick of gum. Once you've worn leggings with proper pockets, the plain black pair feels like a betrayal. Every pair worth owning should let you carry your phone, your keys and your cards without holding any of them in your hand like it's 1995.

9. Black "hides everything," and that's exactly the problem

We've all been sold the line that black is slimming, black is safe, black hides everything. And sure. But ask yourself what you're hiding for.

Dressing to disappear is a habit, not a personality. The point of getting dressed isn't to take up less space. It's to feel like yourself. Hard to do that in a colour chosen specifically so nobody notices you. There's a quiet kind of freedom in deciding you'd actually rather be seen.

10. You feel more "you" in literally everything else you own

Your jewellery has personality. Your mug collection has personality. Your phone case has more going on than your entire activewear drawer.

When the most boring thing you own is the thing you wear most days, something's gone sideways. Your leggings should be at least as interesting as your mug. They're on your body for hours, doing more living than almost anything else you own, so it's a bit mad that they're the one thing with no opinion at all.

11. You felt something just reading this list

A little flicker of recognition. A yeah, actually. Maybe a slightly guilty glance at the drawer.

That feeling is the sign. You've outgrown boring black leggings. The only question left is what you wear instead.

What to wear instead (the fun part)

You don't have to go from zero to full galaxy print overnight, though you absolutely can. Here's how to ease your legs out of the beige witness protection program.

• Start with one bold pair. Pick a print that makes you grin and build from there. Animal prints are the gateway. Leopard goes with more than you'd think, and it behaves like a neutral once you commit.
• Go for the prints that are properly you. If you're a bit dark and cheeky, the skulls and skeletons are calling. If you're whimsical, fantasy and whimsy has your name on it. Feeling brave? The anatomical prints are for the gloriously weird.
• Demand pockets. Non negotiable. Deep ones, on the side, that hold a phone without flapping about.
• Mind the waistband. High, wide, and stays put through a squat. No rolling, no digging, no readjusting every five minutes.
• Pair loud with quiet. Wild leggings, plain top. Done. It's the easiest formula in the world and it works every single time.

You've got one body and a frankly limited number of Tuesdays. Spending them in leggings that bore you is a choice, and it's one you're allowed to stop making. Nobody's coming to hand you a permission slip, so consider this it.

Have a proper look through what's new, find the pair that makes you feel like yourself again, and let the black ones get demoted to leg day. They've had a good run.