Like many high-achieving women entrepreneurs, I have struggled (and still sometimes do!) with taking too much on, doing too many things, moving too fast, and over-committing!
Our search for external validation to prove our worth (to ourselves) has been guided by judgment and mistaken assumptions and fueled by striving – an incessant drive to push forward, compete, and aim for results that focus on the future.
But the road to more only leads to greater feelings of inadequacy and worthlessness because there’s never enough. The farther along this road you are, the farther you are from imagining life without striving, and the more distant you become from knowing your inner worth.
I’ve learned that I must move, quite simply, at the pace of what is real. While this pace may vary, life always seems vacant and diminished when I accelerate beyond my capacity to feel what is before me. It seems we run our lives like trains, speeding along a track laid down by others, going so fast that what we pass blurs on by.
Sometimes, you have to go slow to go fast. This is a good reminder to perform activities with a proper balance of urgency and diligence.
When we start to move too fast, we often need help seeing what we need to see.
As we near the winter solstice, the shortest and darkest day of the year (in the Northern Hemisphere), while the diminished daylight draws us inward, our cultural norms encourage us outward.
Parties, food and advertising bombard the senses and hustle culture quotes like “finish strong” keep us striving and pushing through a season that is perhaps better aligned to slowing down, and tuning into what our physical and emotional bodies need right now, so we can integrate e ups and downs of this past year, and prepare ourselves for the new year ahead.
As the sun appears to stand still on December 21, may you find a stillness within to acknowledge who you’ve become and what you’ve accomplished this past year.
It takes courage and leadership to be the one to make a difference inside what you are committed to, and I celebrate you for that.
Wishing you a peaceful and joy-filled holiday season,
