It is super difficult to find someone who matches our own pace. There are times we want to go faster and someone else wants to go slower. There are times that is reversed and we’re the ones poking along holding the other up. That perfect sync of movement and action though when it clicks connects our energy. Finding the partner, friend, collaborator and mentor who is aligned with our own pace is challenging though. It can present conflict in our relationships because I think we often don’t even understand our own pace needs.
We live in a world where everything is super fast. If you’re not pushing against the crowd in the direction everyone thinks you should be going then you are obviously ill informed in how the world should work. Run, push, work, do are all necessities of life but they also prevent us from recognizing our own needs, specifically how fast we should be doing all these things. More importantly they prevent us from assessing if we even need to be doing them at all. As an example, when was the last time you set a goal purely because you wanted something? Not something you thought was expected of you or that you thought you should do because everyone else is doing it. How about in your job? Do you write your own performance goals? Most of our goals are pre-written for us it seems under the guise of them empowering us to be our best and have success. While they may be encouraging and motivating, I personally find this limiting and constraining but then again maybe I am just a rebel trying to move at my own pace.
In July of this year, I realized an incredible month of business for Dragonspit. Sales were off the charts and things were moving and shaking faster than they had in a while. It was awesome to be honest. I was busy, there were new customers to serve and things were booking fast. My partners were also feeling this energy and realizing how fast things were happening. At the end of the month, we debriefed and celebrated. We also however acknowledged that while this was a super great month and it’d be awesome to have more like it, we needed to make sure we were doing things right. We want things to be solid and secure so as more growth happens we can keep up with it and it can be counted on long term. This paved the way for some realistic goal setting and work to shore up our wins for longer term rewards.
This was a great conversation because normally on a high like that many of us would just push on even harder to get those kind of results again in the next month and try to make it consistent month after month thereafter. If those results didn’t transpire though in the next month we’d say what happened was a fluke that one time, it’s too hard to do again and our disappointment would crash that incredible high we had experienced. The pace felt good and energizing but without it having purpose and a solid foundation it can crumble as fast as it occurred. A lot of things in our life are like that though. We live in a world of want it now, instant gratification sensations and if we don’t have that we move on quickly to something else that does seem to provide that. Yet doing so often prevents us from learning, experiencing and enriching our lives at a different pace that is even more deeply felt.
I admit when my partners and I talked about moving into August intentionally and more slowly than we saw July’s actions I was at first a little disappointed. Didn’t they want to repeat what we just experienced? Wasn’t that fun? We all agreed it was but it was also a fast speed that prevented the details from being perfect and the journey enjoyed. We wanted this to be what felt great to us all the time and not a roller coaster of ups and downs because we didn’t take the time to make it right from the start and set a pace that was right for us. Even I understood and realized my disappointment was because of the high feeling I had experienced from a great single month. I know it would feel even better long term if we took the time to make sure everything was solid right now. Big picture thinking and long term goals that met our individual and business needs is what needed to prevail.
Being willing to acknowledge we need a different pace and to step off the roller coaster of thrills is tough. It means we are moving in a way that is true to ourselves however. We can do things in our own way that maybe isn’t what everyone else is doing but it is right for us individually. Recognizing and honoring our own individual needs is the basis of living more naturally that leads us to the courage we need to break the mainstream following to the next thrill. We all know thrills are exciting but often don’t come with that long term gratification that is fulfilling and satisfying.
Setting a pace in all areas of our life to honor what we need requires us to take that deep look at who we are and what we want in life. It means letting go of the expectations, pressures and labels society puts on us and letting our own voice come through. That is probably the hardest part of living naturally because it often means going against the grain we are taught to follow. Some may call it marching to your own drum or some other label but the truth is doing anything less than this is limiting what is possible in your own life and how quickly we can realize see it transpire.
Finding the people to come along side you who are also seeking that different way of life is where we can see how fast or slow we get to the destination no longer matters. There is support encouraging us where we need it, but when we get there is not anymore important than what we learn along the way and who we meet. Those true relationships with people who get us and want us to genuinely succeed while we also encourage them is were we see pace become flexible and less competitive too. It all comes down to knowing ourselves and being brave enough to pursue those dreams. We will find it is not a lonely road after all and the right people will be there when we need them the most to make it count.
Are you ready to travel the road of natural living?
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