Tortoise days

Some days you just need to go slow, and remind yourself that this is totally ok.  I’m sure you all know the Aesop’s fable of the tortoise and the hare. Eager and enthusiastic, the hare challenges the tortoise to a race, confident that he will easily win without any effort.  As the story unfolds, the hare becomes distracted, gets held up and ultimately the tortoise wins the race - slow and steady gets him across the finish line first.  This is true in change, though sometimes it can be hard to remember that.  

I’ve always struggled with down time.  I blame it on a couple of things, but perhaps the one that will resonate most with you is that I was raised to always do my best and that makes it hard to slow down.  My parents are both hard working and achieved a lot - both in their working worlds and in the wider communities.  They raised their three daughters to always do their best.  We often heard my mum say ‘if a job is worth doing, it’s worth doing well’.  The very clear implication was, unless you’re all in, don’t bother.  And that ethos can be, and has been, a gift.  Each of the three of us has a strong work ethic, we’re all successful in our careers and have achieved a lot in our lives.  And each of us has had to learn our own way, the other side to the equation - that sometimes you also need to slow down, or even stop.  That doing your best on one day, may not be the same as on another day.  And that it’s not only ok, it’s a requirement to have time off to rest and recuperate.  Only through recently studying with bestselling author Beth Kempton did I ever even stop to think about putting ‘recovery’ as part of a project plan after meeting a big deadline!  Let me share with you what difference slowing down can make in the context of change and then let’s look at where you might be needing to slow down, or pause.  

A couple of years ago I started to work with a personal trainer.  I realised that, in my early forties now, I was starting to really not take care of my body the way I felt I needed to.  I also knew that, left to my own devices, I can have as many gym membership cards as you like - it doesn’t make me actually cross the threshold!  I know that I work best in partnership, with someone else to support me.  So I arranged my first session with my personal trainer.  All the way there I was having a conversation with myself in my head.  It went something like this

‘I don’t want to go.’

‘I know, but you need to do something different.’

‘I still don’t want to go though.’

‘I get it.  But you have the appointment, you need to show up.’

‘I know, but I still don’t want to go’.

‘Yes, but you need to.’

‘I’m so unfit, I won’t be able to do anything anyway.’

‘Why don’t you just show up and start from there? You can go in third gear, it doesn’t have to be top gear every time.’ 

That final piece of wisdom from myself to myself (my internal conversations are sometimes more interesting, I promise!) was the pivotal piece.  I stopped short.  What if that was true? What if I could just focus on showing up and not have to go at top gear in every session? I entered the gym, full of confidence and trepidation in equal measure and met my new personal trainer.  The first things I said to her were to explain what I had just realised about myself and to ask if we could start really slowly.  She responded with a smile and guided me over to the mats area of the gym.  Of course we could start slow - and that’s what we did.  For half an hour we basically just did some stretching exercises, almost to the point where I got bored!  Eventually she asked me if I was ready to do a little more - and, to my surprise, I was. 

In the six months that followed we built on the basics, every session starting with ‘how are you feeling today?’ And the session was shaped from there.  In 2020 I set myself the challenge of 100 personal training sessions in the year.  It took me 14 months - let’s allow for the pandemic - but I finally achieved my goal in February 2021.  The end result is that I’m now stronger than I’ve ever been, and I’ve lifted weights that have astonished me, but way more importantly I have learned that I can give myself permission to slow down, to pause, to give what I can today.  And I’ve re-learned that, in the end, the tortoise does win the race, because it takes the journey one step at a time.

So for today, where do you need to rest?

Where is it time for a slower pace or a pause?

How might that serve your change journey?

What might become possible?