Do you ever feel like you’re running non-stop on the proverbial hamster wheel? And that you can’t get off? I know that many people I coach do. An interesting thing about humans is that the busier we get, the more we feel that if we just simply keep going, we’ll eventually catch up and everything will be fine. It’s easy for me to tell when people I’m coaching get stuck in this rut: coaching assignment deadlines are missed, sessions canceled and I can hear the stress in the person’s voice when we do meet. Often, the person I’m coaching will ask me for advice on what to do. And they’re usually surprised when I respond by saying, “Stop. Just stop.” Although it seems paradoxical, the thing I’ve found that helps the most is setting aside three or four hours to ‘get off the wheel’, slow down, and sort things out. Shut your door, turn off your phone and dedicate yourself to prioritizing. Then make a plan for what needs to get done, how it will get done and who will do it. Soon you’ll find yourself back on track and realize that “slowing down really does help us speed up.”
