“Today, my intuition decided to bring in the message of slowing down … double timing me to get the point across. The first message came when I was doing my ab workout. Throughout the workout, the message of slowing down the moves to get to the deep core of the workout was consistent. Then, upon opening my emails, one email in particular stood out … DailyOM “Doing Things Slowly”.

Right away, I knew the message of slowing down was my message for the day and I’m sharing it with you.

Often, we are told to slow down. But what does that actually mean? Why is it so important? And how do you go about doing it in a world of instant gratification and constant connectivity? Let’s take a look at the first question: why should we slow down?  This blog post will explore some of the benefits of slowing down, as well as methods for achieving this goal.

Benefits:

• Creates awareness to be in the present moment … allowing yourself to slow down makes you fully (and sometimes painfully) aware of each moment in your life. You finally notice exactly what your partner is saying to you as you go about eating your breakfast (intentional listening). You, also, begin to notice what you are putting into your body and how long it takes you to do that (intentional consuming). By creating this awareness, you have become more intention in the way you do life. Not a bad thing to do. This intentionality has you establishing better communication skills as you are really listening. This has you becoming a better leader as you are not listening to what is really being said. How cool is that? Then, this intentionality can have you losing weight as you have suddenly decided to slow down your eating and really listen to when your body says … I’m full! How fun to become healthier.
• Establishes a pattern of quality behaviors … zipping through activities at lightning speed may have you feeling productive. And it really can create stress, inaccuracies in your work, along with the potential of never completing a full task (more than likely you are multi-tasking). By slowing down the speed of your activities, you are establishing better quality work patterns. That overload of tasks you need to accomplish, break them down into small bites of activity so you can be more accomplished … check it off your list (Yippee!). Having established these quality behaviors transforms the way you view the work you do (potentially enjoying it more) and becoming more creative in the way you do this life thing with more ease.
• Designs a sustainable lifestyle … practicing the method of slowing down takes effort. It is a discipline to choose and become, not do one time and never again. Embodying this new way is more sustainable than pushing to work as fast as possible. For you to do your best work, slowing down allows you to make better decisions, connect deeper with community, have more meaningful experiences/relationships and improves your overall well-being … mentally and physically. It may feel as if you are going too slow and you will go further when you do go slower.   

Is it possible to live a life that is both successful and relaxed? If you’re like me, the answer is yes. Here are some tips for slowing down:

• Set a timer on your phone or watch for 10 minutes of rest every hour
• Don’t schedule any appointments during lunch and don’t work during this time
• Fully connect when listening to any & all conversations (stop multi-tasking)
• Take your weekend as what it truly is … rest and play for you … not work
• Disconnect from social media & technology after 8 pm

Slowing down in the midst of a fast-paced world is not always easy, but it does have its benefits. Consider what slowing down could do for you by thinking about these five ways to slow down so that you can be more productive at work, home, or life. What will you do today or this week? Pick one thing from the above list — pick anything or choose your own! Don’t you owe it to yourself and your loved ones who depend on you? Remember, quality over quantity will never go out of style.

“If you watched the 90’s hit sitcom Friends, you know that the character Joey was famous for his line “How you doin’?” His flirtatious quip was cute and cut to the chase. So, how you doin’? How’s life? Are you feeling fulfilled and intentional with how things are going?

Sometimes life feels off. It’s not that you want to abandon things and move on, but sometimes there is an unsettled feeling. If you find that you resonate with that, it might be time to do an assessment. Some people don’t take the time to truly assess their satisfaction with life and go about the day-to-day underwhelmed, going through the motions. Before long, what was a little off becomes something way off.

Life never stays the same. It’s not meant to. It is meant to be an evolution that morphs from one status to the next. A series of changes that create opportunities and options.

Q: How do you assess your personal fulfillment?

A: Sometimes you don’t have to assess much to know that you are unfulfilled. You already know that you feel like something is missing or you want something more. If you’ve known that you desire more, it’s likely time to pay attention to that feeling.

A: Ask yourself, “How you doin’?” There’s nothing wrong with intentionally assessing the areas of life that stand out most. Spending time contemplating your life and assessing if you’re content or if there is more you’d like to explore in your career, relationships, nutrition, and other areas is healthy. 

A: Ask someone else, “How am I doin’?” Those closest to you know you better than you may think. Sometimes it’s great to get someone else’s perspective and thoughts. Having a meaningful conversation with someone you trust can help you see yourself through another person’s eyes. Have they noticed a sense of discontent or unrest?

A: Explore. From trying new food to a new hobby, exploring something new is a wonderful way to alert your conscious of what your subconscious may be trying to tell you – you’ve got some fulfillment issues. Trying new things regularly helps inspire and ignite new options throughout your life.

Q: What do you do if you feel unfulfilled?

A: First off, don’t panic. Feeling unfulfilled doesn’t mean there’s been a failure or things need to radically change – or do they? Becoming aware of unfulfillment makes it possible to make a plan and do something to ease the feeling and make positive changes.

A: Take some action. Similar to exploring, looking at what might raise your personal satisfaction is easier than you may realize. Start small and try new things and see what resonates with you and sparks your interest. You may discover something that excites you that you never knew existed.

Life is not supposed to stay the same. It’s meant to be explored, experienced, and lived. If you are feeling like things aren’t thrilling, it might be time to find a new and better reason to get excited. Assess your current status and consider making some changes that take life from unfulfilled to truly satisfying.

PS … If you’d like to gp deeper, come coach with me …

“It’s summer time.  The sun is beating down on your head and you have ‘California Girls’ running through your head … The southern girls with the way they talk, they knock me out when I’m down there … then it happens! The sticky sound you hear when you realize that you have stepped in gum!

Someone has carelessly spit their gum out onto the pavement leaving it behind for some unsuspecting soul to step in it! And that soul was you! You scrape your shoe on the pavement, on the grass. You even take a stick to it trying desperately to get it OFF … only to find that some of it comes off and the rest is just there quickly turning dirty brown as you continue on your way … even sometimes still feeling the stick-stick-stick to the pavement.”

I heard this phrase from a friend of mine recently. It suddenly made so much more sense beyond the irritation of the literal … gum on your shoe.

How often do you go through life with ‘gum on your shoe’ only to find out that it wasn’t your gum? It was other people’s … their thoughts, their voice, their behaviors that you decided over the years to make your own. All of those conditioned thoughts and behaviors that you don’t know what to do with and you don’t want … yet you still have them stuck to you! Your mother’s voice, your teacher who said you wouldn’t amount to anything, your boss who decided that you were ‘just fine in the position that you are in’ … all of that ‘gum’ stuck to your shoe and getting dirtier by the minute.

You go to retreats and walk on fire. You attend leadership courses and sales training. You do lodge sweats. You change jobs. You move. All of these things you do so you can get the ‘gum’ off your shoe.

Get new shoes!

These shoes with the gum on it are no longer the shoes you want to wear. They are not your shoes.  They used to be as you can remember the shoes without ‘gum’ on them. Then one summer day, you stepped right in it and have kept going with those gummy shoes accepting them as yours sticking to the ground and getting dirtier with each step.

This is what happens when you decide that other people’s stories of how things are supposed to be … for them and for you … become your own. I did this when I was very young. I decided that my grandmother and my best friend had to be right about me being ‘fat’ as they told me enough times. Or my boss who complained (in a constructive manner) that I was too sensitive and needed to be more corporate.

These have been my ‘gum’ moments that have stuck with me most of my life. I’ve worked on getting those new shoes so no GUM is stuck to  me. 

What about you? What ‘gum’ do you have stuck to your shoe? Are you ready to get rid of that ‘gum’? I got rid of mine and am loving the summer days where I sidestep the gum on the pavement … as it is not my ‘gum’.

PS … If you’d like to learn more about getting gum off your shoes of life, come coach with me!