Abstract:

"I now meditate for 20 minutes every day," my friend told me. I said: "Great! And how do you like it?" She looked a little puzzled: "It's okay, I guess."

Somehow, it didn't sound enthusiastic. But then, this particular friend is always on the go and she says herself that she never stops long enough to smell the proverbial flowers.

Your mission today is to prevent slowing down from becoming yet another thing to win at.

Join the community of wild spirits! You’ll get one email per week (100% spam free!) with insider info, extra articles & offers I only share by email. Simply fill in the form:

Background: Paradigm versus actions

Coaches such as myself often talk about going from thought to action. And that is indeed important, but what also matters is the mindset, the paradigm in which you operate.

The modern world keeps us busy and distracted 24/7. We're brainwashed into filling every minute with activity. And we'd better be good at it, or we'll get a bad grade!

If you apply the same mindset to slowing down or doing things you love, these things will become yet another thing to cross off your to-do list and do perfectly. And then, the beneficial effect will get lost.

Task: The slowing-down paradigm

The whole point of slowing down is to escape the constant go-go-go of our time. If you approach things like self care from the same paradigm, you'll end up stressing yourself more, not less.

A paradigm shift isn't easy, but it's doable. To achieve it, I suggest starting with any or all of the following:

• Do absolutely nothing for 10 minutes a day. Don't even meditate! Set a timer and watch your mind drive itself crazy. After a few days, it'll start to calm down.

• Schedule blocks of at least two hours for doing whatever you feel like at the time. Anything goes, as long as it isn't work or a chore! Stick with it; eventually, you'll discover things you love.

• Regularly meet up with people who share a passion or hobby. Yes, it requires effort. Do it, and you'll be amazed at the effect.

Transkript

Here follows the exact transcript of everything that’s said in the video. The same text is available as subtitles in the video itself, which you can activate using the buttons on the bottom right.

Pro tip: Slowing down is not something to win at.

Hello, welcome to this week's Wild Spirits News. My name is Sibylle, and I help women between 40 and 60 to do lots of what they love and find their life purpose. If that sounds interesting, check out my website, wildspiritscoaching.com.

Today's topic is ‘Don't make slowing down a competition’. I have this very busy friend who came to me recently and said: “I now meditate 20 minutes every day!” So I said: “Great! And how do you like it? How is it?” And she looked a little puzzled and then went: “Oh, it's okay, I guess.” But then this is a friend who is always on the go and by her own admission never slows down enough to smell the proverbial flowers.

And this gave me the idea to today's topic. Your mission today is to prevent slowing down from becoming another thing to win at.

Background

The background to this is ‘Paradigm versus actions’. Now, coaches such as myself like to talk about putting thoughts and ideas into action, and that is indeed very important. What is equally important, though, is the mindset behind those actions, the paradigm from which we operate. Our world is designed to have us on the go 24/7.

We are brainwashed into thinking that we need to fill every minute of every day with activity, and if you apply that same mindset to slowing down, then it becomes just another thing to tick off your to-do list and to do perfectly. And if you do that, you lose the benefits of slowing down.

Task

The task is ‘The slowing-down paradigm’. Now, the whole point of slowing down is to escape the constant go go go of our time. And like I said in the Background: If you apply the same mindset to slowing down that got you to be stressed in the first place, then you'll end up more stressed, because you'll have even more to do, so you’ll have more stress, rather than less. It's not very easy to break this paradigm because it's so omnipresent in our world, but it is absolutely possible. I've written down a couple of steps that you can take.

1. The first is to do absolutely nothing for 10 minutes every day. Don't even meditate. Set yourself a timer and sit there and do nothing - and watch your brain drive you crazy. I promise, after some days of this, it'll get better. You'll come-, your racing thoughts will calm down a little bit, and that is the idea behind this exercise.

2. The second thing is to schedule blocks of at least 2 hours at a time, to do whatever it is you feel like doing at that time. It'll be very uncomfortable at first to just be there and not have a plan or anything. Just do whatever you like, even if it's again nothing. Do whatever you feel like doing for at least two hours, and do that regularly, because if you do that regularly and just really hold that space for yourself, that space in the sense of that time, you will eventually find something that you really love doing. And it's doesn't matter whether that's useful for anything, what matters is that this is what you feel like doing, and therefore it'll have a value in itself.

3. And the third and last is, regularly meet up with people who share a passion or a hobby of yours. Now this is effort, and in our day and age, it's not very common anymore. So, yes, it is an effort, but I strongly encourage you to make that effort, because you'll be absolutely astonished at what this does to you and how much you will benefit.

And all these steps, these three steps that I've just listed will serve to change that mindset, to step into the paradigm that helps you to slow down - and actually slow down and not try and be good again at something, or do something else in your already busy schedule.

Let me know

And that brings me to the last point, which is as usual ‘Let me know’. Leave a comment below the video or reply to the email that you got the link to the video with and let me know what you think. Have you got a problem with that? Do you slow down, is your life maybe already slow? I would love to hear that, and I'll reply to every comment, I promise.

If you would like some more, check out my website, like I said, wildspiritscoaching.com. You can also join the community of Wild Spirits there by signing up for the 100% spam free Wild Spirits newsletter - one email a week, and I always include really useful information that'll make it worth it signing up for the newsletter. I'd love to have you. Have a beautiful week, and I'll talk to you soon. Bye!