Photo by Max van den Oetelaar
Sometimes, you need to call yourself out.
Do you ever catch yourself doing something, and have no idea when it started?
That’s the thing about habits, they start quickly, quietly and at times are hard to break.
I remember having a conversation with my partner not too long ago, and thinking: I wish this could go faster….
Now before I’m painted as the inconsiderate, non-active listening sone of a gun you may think I am, I’d like to clarify a few things.
I was interested in what he had to say. I wanted to hear the story. I simply wanted the story to move quicker.
Now as a self-proclaimed storyteller, I know that rushing anyone’s story is a big no-no. Timing is, well, everything.
Luckily, I am with the type of person who will absolutely call me out on my BS.
”Do you wish this conversation were on YouTube?” he asked. Meaning: you wish you could adjust the speed to your liking, huh?
Then it hit me like a bag of bricks to the gut: I’ve been living my life on 1.25x.
“Ok, Danni, what does that even mean though?”
I have a few clients that produce media that I of course, need to watch and listen to in order to write copy.
I watch on 1.25x
My team uses Slack often, and sends voice notes.
I listen on 1.25x
Living in Europe means my main form of communication is via Whatsapp.
I play all my voice notes on 1.5x
If I miss a meeting and need to watch a recording…
Again, 1.25x
—
Youtube: 1.25x
Loom: 1.25x
Apple Podcasts: 1.25x
In my mind, I justified this behavior because this is one way to optimize my time.
In reality, I was rushing, getting bits and pieces of information all the while feeling my heart rate increase, and straining my ears to hear the essentials.
“What’s the point of doing something if you’re not 100% present?”
I knew it was a problem when I started wanting to speed up reality.
It began affecting me in other, more insidious ways. I felt jittery. I felt impatient. I felt jumpy.
I always had this thought in the back of my mind of: okay, what’s next?
I had to get real with myself and ask the hard questions like:
How much can you really absorb when listening at this unnatural speed?
You’re hearing sounds, but are you actually listening?
Did people create this content to be listened to at this speed?
What if you miss something vital?
Why are you in such a hurry?
“A time management flex is doing things efficiently and well, and knowing how to prioritize, not quickly, half-ass and constantly scrambling.”
I wasn’t making mistakes, so I thought that was reason enough to keep this pace.
But, I did feel hyped-up constantly, and not in a red solo cup induced pre-game with your BFFs kinda hyped-up. Just straight skittish.
So I forced myself to find activities that obligated me to slow down.
3 Activities I cannot rush which helped me slow-the-f-down:
Yoga: Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that I’ve reached enlightenment through yoga, and took a couple deep breaths so I’m cured.
Yoga helped me slow down because a) there’s no speed-up feature, b) I’m not leading the class, so I can’t predict the next sequence and move ahead and c) I can only move as fast as my body and the (virtual) teacher allow, so I have no choice.
Cooking: I can’t bake this cake faster, or cream this sugar more quickly. I can’t caramelize these onions any faster than I am at the moment.
When cooking or baking, it simply takes the time it takes. Rush, and make mistakes. Take shortcuts, and get sub-par results. Speed-through, and your food tastes like workarounds and cheat codes. O sea, basura.
Unless I wanna eat icky food, I must respect the process and let it take its time.
Coloring: Yeah, I have a few coloring books, and a whole art set. Why? Because I need to slow down, I thought we’d established that?! I read that adult coloring books, especially Mandalas, are great for anxiety. And since I have both anxiety and OCD, I thought: whew, issa party! I quite literally cancel myself out when I color.
Here’s how it (usually) goes:
* thinks * Wow, there’ are a lot of tiny spaces on this Mandala.
anxiety: intimidated
ocd: intrigued
* thinks * okay, start with what seems manageable first.
* spends 25 minutes coloring, and realizes how much is still left to do *
anxiety: dis tew much. Either give up, or go faster. You can’t spend all day on this. There’s some dust in the corner for you to fixate on, and a streak on the glass coffee table to complain about…
ocd: but, you can’t leave this half-finished can you? I dare you! See? I knew you weren’t about that partially-finished task life!! Come on, just do it. It’ll be so satisfying when it’s all completed. And don’t even think about rushing it because anywhere outside of that bold black line is freaking lava. If you go over the lines, well, you’ll mentally send yourself back to kindergarten. Shame spiral much? Come on, Danni, get your ish together!
So I color. In the lines. Until it’s done.
I can’t rush coloring unless I want it to suck. And if I am going to do something that sucks, I may as well not do it.
This is Danni logic. Welcome to my brain.
My lessons learned:
Nuffin’. I’mma keep doing me.
JKJKJK
There’s no prize for doing things quickly, but there are usually consequences for doing things poorly.
When you see a pattern of behavior forming that gives you pause, you have two choices: ignore it, or question it. Always question it.
I realized that what I thought was a flex, was actually another ugly head of anxiety telling me that I didn’t have enough time to complete everything I wanted to in a day.
Now, not only have I changed that negative self-talk and replaced with: you have enough time to do what needs to be done…I’ve also made daily to-do lists a habit with markers like “important, urgent, can wait” so I can measure my reaction and my speed.
Lastly, the biggest flex of all is being as present as possible, and that, friends, should be the goal.
