For quite a while, I’ve been wanting to write a post about pacing. Not the nervous, back and forth kind, but the kind that has to do with tempo, the rate at which we move and live and get things done.
A friend told me (diplomatically) that she admired my frantic ways, but she needed to move at a slower, more deliberate pace, with fewer people involved (meaning she had no intention of blogging her plans). We were on the subject because we’d been toying with a collaborative project and she had concerns about our different approaches. We decided to table the idea for the time being, but it got me thinking about how different we all are and how, despite what the experts might have you believe, there isn’t one right way to be.
Some of us want to play big, do more, commit to crazy deadlines so we know we’ll do the work. Others want to slow the hell down, breathe, focus on one major project at a time. Some of us are a little uncomfortable with stillness, while others are learning how to listen to it, lean into it, get quiet. And realistically, we’re probably all shifting between the two extremes all the time.
I’m going to write more posts on this because it interests me and because I think that all too often our stresses about pacing come less from ourselves than from our perception that others expect us to do more or less than we’re doing. We’re urged to think big, to take risks, to put our work out there and not let perfection be the enemy of done. But we’re also urged to take our time, be mindful, get quiet enough to hear our inner voice, focus on the journey. The truth is, whatever we feel we need to do for the sake of our careers or sanity, there’s always (a hugely successful, admirable) someone advising us to do the opposite.
It’s stressful. Or can be. Especially when you’re stretching yourself, trying a new art form, starting a new project or business or relationship. Figuring out what your most comfortable, optimal pace is feels critical to me. And powerful. And worthy of exploration in future posts.
In the meantime, I want to share a cool pacing trick I learned a few weeks ago during a conversation with my friend, Annika Martins (who is, conveniently, a kickass life-business coach). I was telling her that while I thrive on being busy, juggling multiple projects with multiple deadlines and having always a little more to do than feels manageable, I do periodically hit a wall. Overwhelm becomes panic, panic becomes burnout. I was asking her about time off, how often she thought I should take it, whether unplugging for a week each quarter seemed like too much to her, and she said, “I think you should take time off every day.”
I laughed. She wasn’t kidding.
She said I should set aside time every day that is absolutely just for me. “It might be 5 minutes or it might be 4 hours, but however long or short it is, that time is for you to fill however you want to.” I asked her, “What if I want to fill that time with work?” and she said, “The only rule is that it has to be a conscious decision, driven by nothing other than what you most want to do right now.” (Translation: I see your resistance, j, and I raise you my totally rational, inarguable logic.)
So I did it. That day, I read Yoga Journal for twenty minutes. The next day, I wrote about my childhood. The one after that, I planted padron pepper seeds in the backyard. Every day, I’ve done something in a block of time that is just for me, and I feel better, more grounded, less frustrated and, oddly, more productive.
I don’t think the important thing is how I fill the time, it’s how I go into it – fully conscious that it’s mine, that for 5 minutes, or 20 minutes, or an hour, I’m doing exactly what I want to do, no justification necessary.
It’s a tiny thing, really. So tiny and simple that I can’t imagine why I didn’t think of it on my own before this, but I didn’t. I wanted to share it in case you hadn’t thought of it either.
Got thoughts on pacing? A suggestion for my daily block of j-time? Sanity-saving tricks of your own? I’d love to hear them.
