Photo by Naja Bertolt Jensen on Unsplash

Do you ever have revelations when you say to yourself: “Oh, now I know why that is a saying!”

I do. In fact, despite having a revelation about a saying, I seem to forget that I’ve already had that revelation because I feel like I’m constantly having “revelations.”  

The revelation that I have time and time again revolves around the saying, “slow and steady wins the race.” 

Many of my prior posts revolve around this theme of time and balance: Say Yes? Balance, Finding Happiness…

The definition of revelation is a surprising and previously unknown fact, especially one that is made known dramatically. 

So, why does slow and steady always feel like a revelation to me? After all, I spout the mantra “slow and steady” to a client, friend or family member daily (just ask anyone who knows me – it’s true!). 

  • If you’re training to become a runner, the tried and true methodology slowly increases mileage and speed over time. 
  • If you’re saving for the future, consistent additions to your savings account over time is the recommended investment strategy. 
  • If you’re trying to change any habit to improve your life, consistent small change for a specified period is the way to go. 

My career is helping people change how they do things to have a better life that works for them. 

Slow and steady, I repeat to my clients and myself. 

Yet, I continue to witness the destructive impact of my clients trying to speed through change, and I also (ahem) notice that I don’t practice what I preach. 

And then I realize why mantras exist. Our societal structures are opposite to the mantra which leads them to become revelatory mantras!

Our world does not support the slow and steady mantra but instead encourages us to race through our lives – we are deadline driven and overwhelmed with our life’s to-do lists! We fall back on the mantra and somehow think that if we keep repeating it to ourselves, we will start to follow it. 

While repeating a mantra is a slow and steady approach, it doesn’t work because everything else compels us to speed up. 

What’s that other saying? Ah, yes, a Catch-22: a dilemma or difficult circumstance from which there is no escape because of mutually conflicting or dependent conditions.

So…what…to…do? 

The only thing to do is to use the current systems and MAKE oneself slow down and go steady on. When we’re forced to do something, we tend to do it – our society has trained us to operate that way. Tax deadlines anyone?  

I’ll use myself as an example. I want to build systems to help more people who are navigating life change, but I never can because I’m always helping one person at a time (and then there is tax season, which makes me go faster than the speed of light, or at least it feels that way). That is my catch-22. When I finish helping one person, someone new always needs help because our world operates in high-speed crash mode and many people have just had a high-impact life circumstance that they need help navigating. COVID-19 exacerbated the number of people who need help.

So, I’m going to force myself to go slow and steady. I am putting a block on my consultation calendar for the summer. You see, I always wanted to have something for my clients to do so they could make efficient use of their time if I couldn’t meet with them in the near future – but there’s that catch-22 operating again – another item on my to-do list before I can slow down. So, there’s nothing for it; I’ll have to block my calendar for the summer and not take on any new clients. 

Stay tuned – will the slow and steady experiment work?