Pursuing any growth in your life is a worthy cause. To spend time each day working on becoming a little better than you were yesterday is a feat that should be celebrated. I love helping people get better at chasing growth. It is why I started my own business and I believe one of my main callings in life. As I continue to study, embrace, and think about growth, I find there is one facet that seems to bring about a lot of confusion and misunderstanding. What I am referring to is pace.
Pace is a hidden aspect in the pursuit of goals, betterment, and a more enjoyable life. Well, maybe it’s not hidden, but it seems to be something that is not consciously considered. In today’s society, the typical pace people go with is what society has set for us, and that is top speed. If a person can accomplish their goal in less time with less effort then we always go for that. Who can blame that person? We live in a world where instant gratification has become king. Now, that is not to say it is all necessarily wrong. I commend a person who seeks to be efficient and get things done in a timely matter, but I think there is a great asset we miss out on when we embrace this full tilt lifestyle. We end up missing out on long term, lifestyle change within ourselves.
How do we give ourselves the best chance to get this long term change? We must slow our pace down.
“Noah, are you crazy? Slow down! I can’t slow down! I’ve got books to read, weight to lose, and ladders to climb! I can’t just slow down if I want all these to happen!”
The above statements are what I would imagine would be some common responses I would get from people if I brought up this idea of slowing down. I don’t blame you either. Remember, society has been preaching over and over these ideas of speed and instant gratification for years now. Starting to think differently than that won’t be easy, but I believe it’s necessary and important. Let me explain. If you are like me, multiple times during the year (not just January 1) I come across a challenge or habit that I would find worthy to embark on. Let’s say this habit I want to start involves going through a stretching routine every night for 30 minutes. I start this journey, feeling motivated and excited to see what growth will come from it. A couple weeks in motivation starts wearing off and due to circumstances maybe a day or two gets skipped. One month in and I have totally lost the energy to work on this habit and have most likely given up on it altogether. This has been part of my story for many years. Maybe it has been some of your story too. What can we do to not keep reliving this type of experience over and over?
This is where slowing down works its magic.
What if instead of shooting to stretch every night, I shot for 2-3 nights a week? Or what if instead of 30 minutes of stretching, I made it only 5? This process of slowing down may push the end result I am seeking farther down the calendar, but I believe my chance to actually make it there is much higher and more realistic too. It also builds the habit into you daily life. If I went down that first path of stretching every night for 30 minutes and did that for one month and accomplished the goal I set for myself, there’s a good chance I just quit after that and eventually I would end up back where I was or maybe even worse. On the other side, if I take my time, and really work to build this habit into my life, I am giving myself the opportunity to make this habit long lasting. That is where real change occurs!
When you start to slow the pace down, you actually start learning more about yourself too. When these habits start to build over months and years you are getting opportunities to learn things about yourself that you would never get the chance to if you only have a lot of short, quickly lived habits. I would also argue that slowing down gives you a better grasp on learning about the habit itself. A good example would be reading. I think reading 100 books sounds like a cool goal to shoot for, but what if instead I read 30 books and really spent time taking notes and diligently tried to apply the principles I learned from them? Or better yet, maybe I made it more process oriented and just shot for 10 pages of reading per day? Which one am I going to learn the most from? Which one will I actually stick with over the long term? I know what my answer would be.
As you get started re-evaluating your pace of growth, a change of mindset will be necessary. You will be headed in a direction different from what current culture is telling us. You will have to change your ideas on achievement and timelines. I challenge you to find achievement in the growth you make, no matter how slow. Look at achievement as a continued building block being added and not just a finish line that needs to be crossed. Each block you add, you are growing into that person you desired to become when you set that goal in the first place. Isn’t that what you wanted to begin with?
A last dose of encouragement. I think this pursuit in working on pace of growth can be seen through a spiritual lens. Teaching ourselves to live this out can help our walk with Christ, because that relationship never has an endgame. It is on going much like building lifelong habits. Focus on being slow and steady and you will naturally experience growth. You can even look to the life of Jesus and his pace. Did you ever see him in a rush to accomplish anything? What you did see was habits and rhythms in his life that he purposely chose and pursued for years, preparing him for his ultimate mission and task. Living with a slower, more deliberate pace is modeling a life after Jesus.
Life in the fast lane has it’s advantages for a season, but slowing down can last a lifetime. Find the right pace for yourself and experience growth for the long term.
