As I’m guessing was the case with many of you, I woke up on December 1st with a tiny geyser of hope in my heart, “Hurray! 2020 is almost over!”
Not so fast…
Although it is tempting to think that the trials and tribulations of 2020 will magically disappear on January 1, 2021, I worry that this mindset—this rush to resolution—will not serve us.
It’s possible we need to slow things down.
Why am I writing about this while showing you the pictures above?
Well, since August I have spent five days every week attempting to lower myself down from the pose on the left hand side of the picture, above, into the pose on the right hand side without having any part of my body touch the floor: no knees, no toes, no face plants…
I accomplished this glitch-free for the first time yesterday after I told myself that I had to lower myself down on a 20-count: in other words, so microscopically, so incrementally, soooooo slooooooowly…
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I could not rush—no matter how much I wanted it to be over.
And while I get that it’s tempting to think—at the tail end of any project—“The end is in sight! Go, go, go!”
This doesn’t always serve us.
But sometimes we imagine urgency because we have project-fatigue, or deal-fatigue, or calendar-fatigue.
It is also when we make it hard for colleagues and teammates to speak up and say, “Hang on… I think it’s important to double check X.”
In that moment, we don’t want to hear it.
But this is when mistakes occur.
I’ve written in the past about how July 1st is a great time to make New Year’s resolutions as it gives you six months to get them ‘in the can’.
I am thinking that this is the year it might make sense to move New Year’s celebrations to July 1st.
Because there is no actual urgency; we’re just tired.
But rushing can lead to mistakes— these days, life and death ones—and I’d like us all to be here July 1st so we can raise a glass together.
For more on the value of slowing things down, take a look at “Work is Worship: Slowly, Slowly All is Coming”
