Sample a chapter from Go Slow to Grow

Chapter 6

What happens when you slow down?

“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds blow their own freshness into you, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves” John Muir

This chapter is all about understanding why it is so difficult for those of us who are used to pushing ourselves on a daily basis, at work and at home, to give ourselves a break.

Only once you can recognise what is stopping you from slowing down, can you begin to make the necessary changes.

Ask yourself

• Can you give yourself permission just to be?

Slowing down

Remember that feeling on holiday when you can finally relax completely, allowing yourself just to ‘be’, to potter without an agenda, to just do whatever you feel like doing? You can let go of your normal programme and rules. It is such a good feeling. And then what usually happens when you get back to work? It can be hard to get yourself going again, to switch back on.

I remember when I came back from walking 400 miles on the Portuguese Camino. I allowed myself to step away completely from my normal life for over three weeks; all I had to think about was to ‘Walk, Eat, Sleep’ . . . repeatedly! It was difficult to imagine going back to work, force-feeding information into my brain, asking it to make difficult decisions. All I wanted was the simplicity of walking, just thinking about where I had to get to each day, appreciating my natural surroundings.

I felt like an alien from another planet when I returned home and entered my office for the first time to start dealing with ‘work’ things!

Slowing down on the Camino had given me a taste of what it can be like when you allow yourself to live life simply. When you slow everything down. It was like going back to being like a native in many respects, moving from place to place every day. The challenge was to bring back the lessons and apply them to normal life.

Getting going again

So, it can be hard to get going again when you slow down; is this one of the main reasons why we can be afraid to slow down?

When you take a break, and go and do something completely different, you may have noticed that time does seem to naturally slow down. A week on holiday feels like a much longer time than a week at work because your brain focuses on new experiences rather than sticking to its usual unconscious habits. It is good for you to break these patterns of behaviours from time to time; by doing so, you gain different perspectives.

The fear of slowing down

Many people worry about slowing down. I know, because I have been one of them. Worries can be because of a belief that by admitting you want to go slower, you have failed in some way. Or it could be that you worry that by letting anyone know the ‘pace’ is too fast for you, you will be considered stupid or incapable? It could be that you fear falling behind if you don’t keep up with the pace of others. I have experienced all these fears at different times and in different circumstances.

On the other hand, some people are so used to racing through life that they fear slowing down will mean they become bored, that their life will lack the stimulation they need to survive. For some people doing nothing for a week is almost impossible. I know many high-flying business colleagues who fear going on holiday because they think that they can’t just do ‘nothing’. I wonder why not?

Some people live their lives at breakneck speed because it prevents them from thinking too much and questioning what they are doing. If they did, then maybe they would have to admit that everything was not quite right and once admitted, they would not be able to hold things together in the same way. So, instead, they just keep on doing more and more.

Rushing and speeding through life can mask deeper psychological issues. In some cases, keeping busy acts as an anti-depressant. This is OK, as long as it does not reach an unhealthy level and you fail to give yourself a break.

If you never truly free yourself up and allow yourself to go slower in your life, you will never know how much you could accomplish and how much happier you could be.

In the past, I have gone to great extremes to hold on to the pressure, to keep doing. I remember going to look after my mother after she had had a hip replacement operation. She lives in a small house and space is at a premium. It was hard for me to carry on with my work whilst looking after her in her house. I really struggled with doing very little work for a week. However, instead of just submitting to the task and giving her my full attention, my head was half in ‘I should be working’ mode. I remember my mother asking me why I couldn’t just give myself a break. I asked myself the same question. I was scared of stopping, even just for a week.

Fear of delegation

I work with many people who are growing businesses. It can be tough for them as they expand and need to take on more and more tasks themselves, often things that they are not that good at because they can’t afford to spend money on the extra resources or skill sets required. After a while, they get used to doing it all and find it hard to let go of these tasks and delegate even when they can afford to do so, fearing a loss of control. When it is your own business, being protective in this manner is perfectly normal, believing that you are the only one capable of doing everything.

A business owner admitted to me the other day that he just couldn’t be the driver of the bus, the passengers, and the mechanic, all at the same time. He needed help to get to the destination. He recognised he couldn’t grow a bigger business if he couldn’t delegate.

Getting too used to the load you carry

If you continue to overload yourself, keep trying to go faster, or work longer hours to cope with the ever-increasing work burden, you will end up putting more and more pressure on yourself. The problem is that the heavier the load you carry, the harder it will be to be effective and accomplish everything you desire. This is where resentment creeps in.

Do you feel like the load you are carrying on your shoulders is at times too much?

What would it be like if you could delegate some of the load you are carrying?

Fear of ‘letting’ go to go slow

When I walked the Camino de Santiago, I had to carry all my belongings on my back in a rucksack. When I packed for my first trip, I completely overloaded myself. There were things that I just thought could not do without; make-up bag, extra clothes, gadgets, books, and bottles of stuff! I was afraid of letting go. The result was I found myself walking with a load so heavy that I found myself struggling to see the beauty of the places I was walking through.

It wasn’t until I realised that having taken time out to walk the Camino to simplify my life, all I had done was to create an exact reflection of what was going on in my business life at the time. I was holding on to things that I really needed to let go of. I had got too used to the load I was carrying. It was only when I realised this, that I was able to do something about it. I ended up giving away all the things in my rucksack that were not absolutely essential to my journey. In fact, I gave most to an old man whose need was far greater than mine.

We all have things that can hold us back and make our journey through life heavy-going. You sometimes need to go slower to be able to recognise these things and to realise what may be holding you back.

What are you still holding on to that is getting in the way of you moving freely on your journey through life or in business? Is there anything in particular which is weighing you down?

What would it be like if you could simply let go? What is stopping you . . . fear of what would happen, or what you might lose if you did let go?

But think what you might gain?

Too many options

Sometimes, the huge number of options available to us in our lives can make decision-making far more difficult. With less choice, it is easier to focus. It could even be a case of asking yourself if you really need or want the thing that you were just about to purchase or the decision you were just about to make? By slowing down, you will have the opportunity to be more aware and this awareness creates an opening to either do something different or, to do nothing at all.

Being afraid to focus solely on one thing

I think back to the number of balls I have juggled in my business life, the number of opportunities I have created for myself, the different hats I have had to put on or take off. All because I was afraid of fully committing to one thing. Maybe I didn’t have the conviction or confidence in myself or in the thing that I was doing at the time?

What I do know, is that the number of options I had to keep open at all times was exhausting! I kept switching my focus from one to the other, with nothing ever getting my full and complete attention. I wanted to see the signs that something was going to work before I made it the ‘front-runner option’. The problem was that because nothing ever received my full attention and focus, nothing ever stood out!

Are you able to focus in your life or are you spreading yourself too thin?

When you do slow down, you allow yourself a chance to properly explore your options and to decide what might be the best one to focus on, rather than juggling everything at once.

Distractions from being alone with ourselves

Today, our high-tech lives mean that we are never alone. Most of us have a mobile phone or a tablet by our side on a continual basis. Our lives are filled with communication and information. Technology naturally speeds things up. We always have some form of distraction from ourselves available.

The younger generation has never known it any different. Six and seven-year-olds (and often younger!) sit glued to games on phones or tablets when years ago, they would have been making up stories or playing hide and seek. Technology affects our ability to just to ‘be’ with ourselves. The word SLOW to many is a dirty word. We live in a society that is being taught that FAST is always better than SLOW.

The effect of this way of living over time will make it difficult to people to remember how to go slow – continuous distractions and interruptions will become the new norm.

When my two lovely nieces came to visit me in the summer, they would sit in the lounge both watching their own programmes on their iPad, or texting on their phones. Gone were the days of simply sitting around talking, or just enjoying a book. There just seems to be too much distraction. I hardly ever see someone just sitting doing nothing at all.

Is it hard for you to just sit and do nothing? What happens when you do?

Connecting with the silence of your Soul

I go to a regular meditation class as I recognise the value of being guided to pay attention, in a different way, to myself. By that, I mean my inner self, as opposed to my external self; the inner part of me that wants to be silent and still. When I arrive at the class straight from work, it often takes a while to clear my mind of the thoughts that jostle and crowd it. Others at my class have said they feel the same. We need that sense of doing it together, of having allocated the time to focus on ourselves without distractions, to spend a few hours enriching ourselves as our leader guides us to our inner selves.

The feeling I get when I finally manage to allow the internal chatter and random thoughts to float away and connect with the great silence and peace beyond is worth the ‘letting go’. I always feel better afterwards. A sense of peace and clarity descends that is hard to describe.

Keeping hold of that feeling can be a challenge. Those who regularly meditate will know what I am talking about. A daily routine is important, and when I allocate the time to it, I reap the positive benefits.

Your mind needs rest as much as your body

I know when my mind is getting tired and needs to be refreshed. You may be familiar with the feeling of trying to go to bed when you haven’t quite managed to turn down the noise in your head. It is as if you are still at work. The mind fails to realise the difference between a real and imagined event; it responds in the same way as if you were still at your desk.

Taking time to meditate before you go to bed, or when you wake up, can have a profound impact on your mental and emotional well-being.

It has required some discipline for me to learn to meditate and to give myself time to practice. I am still work in progress. I do look forward to those little pockets of space that I create for myself. It is always possible to have a special place in your mind that you can take yourself off to in order to relax.

Meditation gives you a sense of being connected rather than being distracted from yourself.

Re-training your brain

I can remember back to when I worked in a Corporate Training manager’s role – we used to handwrite our training notes and hand them to our secretary to type them up. I could only plan my training properly if I had written my notes by hand, as that was what I was used to. When I first started using a PC, I couldn’t think in the same way. Now, I notice that many people find it hard to write anything at all because they are so used to typing or, even worse, just using their thumbs to swipe a screen!

I also notice that I now often cannot write quick enough to keep up with my thoughts, and that, when I try to do so, my handwriting is a mess. Ideas come to me so quickly that I sometimes find it hard to capture them all at once. When I feel like this I realise that I need to do something to calm myself down and enable me to get the best out of my mind. It is as if nowadays, with the advent of technology, the pace at which our bodies are expected to move is too fast for our Souls to keep up.

This makes complete sense to me. If I just stop and take a moment of quiet time to meditate, I can reset myself. However, if I don’t do this and stay in 6th gear, eventually I become muddled and stressed.

You never know the benefits of something if you don’t try it out first.

The gains of SLOW

What happens when you go slower? Once you allow yourself the time and space to take a pause, to refresh your mind and to allow your Soul to breathe, wonderful things will start to happen.

You will find yourself enjoying a new sense of clarity, your energy will return, and you will find yourself with a new sense of purpose. Your decision-making will improve, you will know why you are doing what you are doing. It will all make sense.

Taking time out to think is as vital in your life as a good night’s sleep. Everything is better when you can face the day with fresh eyes and a light spirit.

Reflections from the Voice of Slow

During this section allow your Voice of Slow to come forward

The Voice of Slow wants the best for you. It knows you are enough, just as you are. Listen to this gentle voice and trust in its intentions.

So, what can you do to go slower?

The first thing is to recognise that you need to take time out to think. Time to do nothing, time to relax.

Learning to meditate will help you to gain control of your butterfly mind and harness the natural energy of your Soul.

Take yourself out of your normal day-to-day routine and do something different. Give your brain a holiday, a rest from what it normally thinks about.

Practice going a bit slower. Slow down the number of things that you pack into a day. Stop talking as much. Listen more.

Give yourself some silent time every day.

What can you let go of that is no longer serving you in your life or business?

What is weighing you down?

Where could you go slower and be more effective?

Giving yourself permission to go slower, to let go of those things that are no longer serving you and give yourself some time is important. You will not only feel better but will accomplish so much more of what is important to you.

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