A pregnant client called me frustrated that her side project wasn’t developing fast enough. By the way, I reminded her, you’re really busy creating a human. And she hasn’t had a smooth sailing pregnancy. But she’s moving forward. More slowly than she’d like, but she’s doing it.
I’m from a long line of over functioners. We go fast, we go hard, we go intensely. When our fear is palpable, we keep going. This is such our deeply rooted culture too. So it’s no surprise many of the people I work with are the same.
Here’s the thing: just because you’re a good swimmer doesn’t mean you have to swim in the deep end all the time. There’s something wonderfully healing about choosing to play in the shallow end. You get to be gentle, and you get to go slow. You even get to stop. You get to float and you’re still in the pool.
In the moments of overwhelm, frustration and feeling stuck, you have to relearn what movement needs to look like right now. You move to the shallow end so that you don’t drown OR completely get out of the dang pool.
Last year in my year of upheaval and rebirth, it looked like stopping work at 5pm, eating dinner with roommates, and going to my room at 8:30pm so I could meditate and sleep.
I said this mantra on repeat: You can do more than you think. A reminder that whatever doubt and fear crept into my head, I could still do more than I feared. I’m not stuck, because there are options for movement.
Owner of Fyte Jessika Ramie shared talking about how you have to dance off the cliff of life and jump. Resilience comes from the Latin word Salire… which means to jump.
My darling, my dear, you can do more than you think. You are doing more than you know ;-).
Allow yourself to move as gently as you need, and keep going.
JESS
Here’s a few tools to help you keep swimming:
- Track Your Achievements: Sheryl Sandburg in Option B references the power of writing down what you’ve accomplished, especially if you’ve been grieving. You might not remember at the end of the day all that you’ve done, or be aware of the momentum you are creating.
- Make a Rejection Tracker: This works for some. A friend of mine suggested this and then a client took to it while applying for jobs. “I laugh at my rejections now. I eat them for breakfast. Muahahaha.” You get to play with your process of moving forward. This is also a great way to track how long it takes you to see movement. In coaching, it takes about 200 coaching hours before you see your first real paying client. If your change happens in less, GO YOU!!
- Remember, that you are here for the long haul. You might not need to quit, you might just need a break. Go slow. Remember, that going slow is still getting it done.
Photo by Angelina Litvin on Unsplash
2 comments. Leave new
“Just because you’re a good swimmer doesn’t mean you have to swim in the deep end all the time.”
Girl that resonated with me SO hard. :::Just because we can doesn’t mean we have to:::
My new mantra.
Thanks for that!! <3
This really hit home this last year… the idea that you can slow down in order to stay in the water. Slowing down is a perfectly acceptable (and dare I say, preferred) way of moving forward.