The Importance of Slowing Down…to Speed Up…

As personal development coaches we are often talking all systems go! (Setting goals, morning routines, creating productivity hacks, motivation etc.) This is great may I add… but sometimes we also have to just slow down and make sure all of this good work is sustainable. The standard student practice of burning the candle at both ends can only be sustained for so long without mental breakdown! So…to find out how best to avoid burnout, read on to discover the benefits of slowing down…to speed up.

We have included this as one of our essential #GrowthHacks in our product for good reason. As founders of a business we can be guilty of sometimes over working ourselves and we talked about the risks of this in our previous ‘Balance Vs Burnout’ blog and the truth is doing too much can be detrimental to our health and wellbeing.

Let us be honest, there is no substitute for hard work and sometimes tasks simply need completing…that dissertation deadline is not going away! And you will not achieve your goals without dedication and hard work.

However, who on earth wants to go to University only to work hard on endless academic tasks (that we sometimes hate) without getting the benefits of the social life and enjoyment that uni life brings. You’ve got to make sure that you sometimes stop to enjoy your studies as well, whether this be by creating a more enjoyable and happy experience in the process of studying or giving yourself plenty of opportunities to slow down and gain enjoyment from other areas of the student life.

Slowing Down Step 1…

This is the first key. Once you have completed an assignment or any task that takes a lot of effort, make sure you reward yourself. Enjoy a moment with your friends whether it be in your halls or at your favourite watering hole. Go do something enjoyable or take a day off to recuperate. Take moment to reflect and to slow down a little. This can all be made a whole lot easier by including these breaks and rewards as part of your goal setting at the beginning of the year…

“When I achieve “x” I will allow myself to “y”. Create this space in the way you work and you will instantly feel the benefit.

The inverse to doing this is living in a constant state of urgency and worry to get everything done. I once heard this constant state of urgency referred to as the ‘Hurry Disease’. We often rush from task to task, appointment to appointment, or perhaps assignment to assignment in your case, but this is not just in work but in life. More ‘time’ would not necessarily make us less busy, we would just have more time to be busy…

“Slowing Down is Sometimes the best way to speed up.”

Mike Vance

Stop Over Filling your Bucket…

Do not get me wrong sometimes there is a place for urgency and hard work, but there also needs to be a place for adequate rest and recovery and taking time off to unwind.

Think of it like a bucket of water. Each one of your tasks or assignments fills up the bucket, drop by drop. If you keep on filling your bucket, at some point it is going to reach it’s limit and overflow. When the bucket overflows mess and damage is created. Now here is the truth…This bucket of water is your mind! When you fill yourself up with endless tasks, jumping from one assignment to the next without adequate rest, you are essentially filling up your bucket without letting any water (or stress in our instance) out. Slowing down opens the outlet and lets the contents of your bucket pour out, creating space for you to recharge and build greater capacity for your next task or assignment.

Slowing down can boost creativity and you may just have some of your most thought provoking moments. You will likely come back refocused and more motivated.

We love productivity, we love personal growth, but please do not forget to enjoy your student life.

I hope this helped you in some way and if it did be sure to let us know in the comments or share it with someone who needs to hear this.

#LetsGrowTogether