160: Slow Down to Speed Up

Welcome to Fit for your Mind Friday, where I share an insight from me to you. I'm a recovering quick start, hustler, personality, a workaholic, an idea person, Energizer bunny, whatever you want to call it. I mean, speed was always my thing. I moved fast. Like, so fast. Maybe that's you, or maybe, you know, someone else that's doing that. I mean, I thought that fast was the way to be. I thought fast, I acted fast, and I felt like I had to always stay in motion. In fact, I would look at people relaxing on the beach and I would judge them in my head as lazy. Oh my gosh, I can't even believe I'm saying that. But I did. I had no idea how to ever do that, how to turn my brain off. Now diagnosed as ADHD decades ago, I wore that like a badge of honor. I mean, it was my reason. It was my reason to keep moving and my excuse. I knew it made me creative and it let me take action fast. And I thought it was something to be proud of. It explained why I would miss details. It would justify any time I was distracted. It would explain why I didn't do great in every subject in school. And it also, you know, gave me a reason of why I always wanted to create, create, create. And it was my excuse not. Not to do the work, to figure out why exactly. I couldn't slow down. And let me tell you why it needed to be figured out. Because speed kills, you see, yes, a body in motion stays in motion. This is definitely true. But let me warn you, when you never slow down, never slow down, it will damage you. It damages your health, your business and your relationships. You see, staying fast paced and busy, busy, busy, and always on the go. It's a drug. It's another way to numb out from feeling and it's a way to avoid doing the work. When you move 100 miles per hour all the time, it will age you. It will show up in your body. It'll have important people in your life feel unseen and not important. It will keep you on edge. It will create bad decisions. It's an environment for mistakes and it can do a lot of damage. Let me tell you all, life is a lot more than just getting stuff done. Now when you add stimulants on top of that, like many people that have these symptoms or ADHD do, like meds or a lot of coffee or caffeine, that's when you're setting yourself up for head on collision. Now hear me out here. Your body keeps that score. So all those injuries, ailments, fatigues, migraines, weight gain and more, that might be your body acting out and asking you to slow the heck down. Now I used to think that was nonsense and I would challenge anyone that brought it up to my attention. But I now know in my soul that this is the truth. When you slow down and create boundaries around time, energy, health, our to do list doesn't actually grow. It actually becomes more impactful. Only important things that will actually benefit us and move us forward in our business and our life and our relationships. Those things remain important priorities. They still happen. But the rest, the waste of time, busy work, it starts to go away. Now what happens as a result? Well, more energy. Believe it or not. More focus. Authentic, deep, connected relationships. We see people and they actually see us. This is where the healing, the growth, the creativity all starts to really, really shine. And then aging actually slows down and joy becomes available. So if you're feeling overwhelmed like you just can't slow down, this message today was especially for you. Let this post be your sign before something happens to force you to to see this.