How Slow Living Made Me Happy & A Better Leader

I hear every day from our Breakthrough Community that life is overly hectic, ‘busy-being-busy’, draining, juggling too many ‘priorities’. This article shares how I’ve achieved more balance in my life and how you can do the same. 

Time is our most precious, non-renewable resource

Over the last 12 months I’ve embraced the concept of Slow Living and it’s had a profound impact on my mental, physical and emotional state. The results have made me a more effective leader and family member. 

I already believed in the power of the Full-On No. Saying no more often, being choiceful in what we do, and focusing on what’s most important, is a success secret. I’ve gone a step further. Thanks to external factors (no travel) I found myself with freed up time. I’ve had to stay close to home. Given the increased level of change and adaptation that we are all managing right now, it would have been easy to fall into a spiral of more and more work.  

However, rather than fill this space with more work, I’ve filled it with a combination of caring or calming activities. Caring for family or calming for me. I’ve been relentless about protecting my time. Time is our most precious, non-renewable resource. I could have used that time by building more in - but I held back. Now, the important time that I spend working is more focused, productive and delivering quality outcomes, yet I feel like I’m working less than ever before!

“Time is our most precious, non-renewable resource”

It makes me sad to hear that people struggle even more post-2020 with ‘busy-being-busy’. We are emotionally and physically drained, and juggle too many professional and personal ‘priorities’. Many of us are now looking for ways to restore the balance in our lives. This is easier said-than-done when crisis management or home-schooling are thrown in the mix.

Alongside this desire for balance, we want to contribute to an organisation with purpose. A role where we are challenged, stretched and encouraged to grow, without being pushed into overload and overwhelm. Time moves faster and faster and we want to regain our mastery of time, our most precious, non-renewable resource, to feel present in an ever-changing world. 

The questions we need to ask ourselves are:  

Why am I going so fast?  

How can I slow down?  

 Understanding our intentions and where our intentionality is directed can help us to find the answers. We know that there is a better way of living and performing, where pride evolves from delivering quality over quantity, consistently and sustainably.

 Why are we going so fast? 

The pace of technological change means that communication is instantaneous. The rate of change is exponential, but as human beings we think linearly. This leads to a state of tension and stress.  

Demands and expectations of faster and faster delivery from leaders and shareholders alike have become normalised. Rapid growth (without considering the cost) is displayed as a badge of honour. A conflation has emerged between efficiency and competition rather than progress. These approaches lead to a greater sense of uncertainty and prevent lessons from the past being learned. 

To generate sustainable transformation and growth, to grow in a way that benefits ourselves, our consumers, our communities, and our planet, we can’t measure success quarterly. Long term approaches that build over time are critical. The world may be changing exponentially but that doesn’t mean that we should be swept up in the rush and find ourselves in a swirl of chaos. The cost of this exponential change has been the destruction of our environment, increased social and economic disparity, and has negatively impacted our mental and physical wellbeing. Leaders and individuals need to shift against this tide, and must recognise that it starts with each of us.

The structure of the family and the ‘designated roles’ within that family have also changed. The way that our cities and towns were designed over the last 150 years does not account for these changes. Where both men and women work, there are added pressures of caregiving for parents or children, running back and forth from a city, to stores, schools, and doctors. Until recently, the added exhaustion of international travel to meetings meant that people have had less time to unwind, less quality time with loved ones. Statistically this disproportionately affects women, but everyone feels the impact.  

The shift to working remotely has the potential, if managed effectively, to alleviate some of these challenges. This is a key moment, an opportunity to evolve the way we live and work, to slow down. The risk is that if not managed effectively, the working day from home will become a 24-hour-work-day-never-ending-cycle where we are expected to always be at work when we are at home.

Finally, fast can feel exciting! Our adrenaline is heightened, our sense of movement is confused with momentum, motion feels like progress, when we succeed in the short term we celebrate quick wins, giving us endorphins. But the long-term impact hits when excitement turns to fatigue, and these physiological responses negatively impact our health.

Why being slow leads to success

There is a paradox at the heart of consistent high performance. Sometimes we have to go slow to go fast. We have to empty our minds to provide the space to think, create, invent, and solve.

Silence, time to think, and meditation are habits that the world’s modern billionaires embrace daily. Over the past decade, huge amounts of research have proved the impact of mindset and wellbeing on performance. Exercising to energise our bodies and our minds, and practicing gratitude to ground ourselves how far we have come and to appreciate the here and now, are well known. And yet, how many of us practice them daily? How many of us allow ourselves ‘white space’ weekly or daily to contemplate our current situation, prioritise our outcomes, and visualise our future?

All of these habits are practiced by highly successful people. However, our limiting beliefs continue to constrain us; we think that by working harder, being busier, being fast, we will reach new heights and fulfilment.

Calm, joy, and contentment are our natural state. Yet we feel like we visit these emotions rarely. We let external factors disrupt us and spend a lot of effort ‘trying to get back’ to our natural state. This makes us even more stressed! A good definition of stress is “when the perceived demands are greater than the perceived resources”.  

When we take on too much it affects our judgement and our perception of what we can and can’t cope with. And taking on more can become a vicious cycle. The more we manage, the more we feel we ought to be able to manage, this affects our decision-making and will to set boundaries. We can end up overwhelmed, stressed, and, in severe cases, reach burnout. Therefore, taking on more becomes a false economy. Ultimately we have to ‘pay back’ the excess. The cost is to our health and relationships.

“Definition of Stress: When the perceived demands are greater than the perceived resources”

Slowing down ensures that you take care of your health. You are less likely to suffer anxiety, stroke, and heart attack. Slowing down helps you to gain clarity and make better decisions. Human beings struggle to see problems or to generate solutions when they are in a state of stress. However, when we are calm and happy, our brain opens up solutions, becoming far more creative, innovative, collaborative and productive.

Remember, everyone is different. Some people can naturally take on far more than others. There is no right or wrong. We need to raise our self-awareness and learn where the boundaries of our stretch zone lie. Become aware of how you can monitor and adjust your stretch zone so that you can enjoy challenges, learn and grow, rather than flip into overload.

The ‘in stretch, happy and inspired you’ is far more likely to generate growth, happiness and inspiration in those around you. Collected responses, clear decision-making, effective communication, and a motivated mindset have helped me to be a better leader and family member. I guarantee it will do the same for you.

How can I slow down?

The Slow Living Movement could be a solution to our fast lives. The Slow Living Movement is a lifestyle that emphasises slower approaches to everyday life. This includes our attitude towards fashion, food, work, business and money.

The roots of the Slow Living Movement began with the Slow Food Movement which started in Italy. It’s founder, Carl Honore wrote, 

“It’s a cultural revolution against the notion that faster is always better. The Slow philosophy is not about doing everything at a snail’s pace/ It’s about seeking to do everything at the right speed. Savouring the hours and minutes rather than just counting them. Doing everything as well as possible, instead of as fast as possible. It’s about quality over quantity in everything from work to food to parenting.”

As Honore explains, the Slow Living Movement isn’t about slowing down to a static place without progress, it’s about slowing down enough to move through your day and life with purpose. Physically slowing down improves and expands our experience of the world and makes us feel like we have more, rather than less, time. Slow also stands for Sustainable, Local, Organic, and Whole - ensuring that we minimise our impact on the environment while we help to better manage ourselves.

We can all learn from the principles of the Slow Living Movement:

1. Reject the modern belief that faster is always better
2. Value quality over quantity
3. Make space for what matters
4. Be intentional with our attention
5. Embrace imperfection

The Power of the 1-Degree Shift

For me, the concept that time is relative has taken on new meaning. Time spent working on Breakthrough Programmes I’m inspired by, with clients I respect and champion, and a team that lives the Line of One values generates a sense of pace and purpose. Time spent as ‘white space’ has made everything else clearer and calmer. And time spent with loved ones, growing vegetables, dog-walking, talking, reading, t.v., shopping for parents… it’s created a total shift in time. I feel like I have so much more of it and that each minute has value. It is a constant work in progress! Am I meditating every day? no. Do I sometimes have to work late? yes. Yet, it’s the power of the 1-degree shift that is building slow living into my habits one day at a time with powerful results.

What 1-degree shift can you make today that will help you to slow down in one area of your life? Here are some suggestions to spark your imagination:

• Create a 30-minute window of ‘white space’ in your schedule, where you have no plan or agenda
• Be present and listen fully in your conversations and interactions
• Disconnect from your devices once a day by switching them off
• Appreciate nature by going outside, or even spend time looking out of the window
• Cook your own meals, eat them slowly, and notice how you chew your food
• Avoid multitasking and focus on one thing at a time
• Breathe deeply
• Be grateful
• Let go of something that you don’t have to do, give it a Full On No
• Write a Not To Do List
• Embrace the Italian sentiment of la dolce far niente - the sweetness of doing nothing, to appreciate the simple pleasures in life

Do you agree that you need to slow down? Or do you think that fast is the best route to progress?  

Do you want to generate balance in your life? Contact me to schedule a free exploration call to find out how my 1-2-1 coaching can help you at [email protected]

At the time of publishing this many parents are home-schooling their children due to national lockdowns, and statistically women are more likely to be impacted than men. Much of this advice becomes significantly harder to take on when you have to add ‘teacher’ to your already vast list of activities. So, as I say to the leaders I coach: be kind to yourself, remember it isn’t forever, and I guarantee you are doing far better than you may think you are. Appreciate the small wins, celebrate them, and when you start to feel overwhelmed take one minute away and breathe, move, or have a glass of water.