Slow down before you are slowed down
It’s not the “go hard or go home”-mindset that gets you ahead, but knowing when to push and when to rest.
I used to ignore the boundaries of my body, and I pushed it to its limits and further. At that time, I was deeply identified with my ego. I was completely consumed by my mind, and I was completely disconnected from my body and its needs. I didn't care about my health. Until it became so poor that I had to care.
Every injury and illness is a sign the body uses to signal us to rest. It’s the way our body communicates with us. If we ignore its signals, the symptoms will get worse. Until they reach a point where we can’t oversee them any longer.
The reason for why we keep going even when we realise that we are not in the best of health is that we refuse to rest. We refuse to allow us a time-out from our routines that keep us busy and distracted. Because we confuse productivity with self-worth.
We avoid silence, because with that our mind becomes loud. Then suddenly what we’ve been trying to suppress all the time comes to the surface. Silence confronts us with what we deny. And it confronts us with ourselves. Honestly, this is a massive chance - it’s a chance to grab our problems at their roots. But we don’t see that chance, we only see the discomfort it brings. And discomfort is what we absolutely try to avoid.
So we make no room for silence. For sitting still. Instead, we stay in hustle mode, and we continue to be productive. Even when our body tells us to stop. But playing this game is a miscalculation. With every break we skip, we actually extend the time we need to recover. So we achieve the exact opposite of what we actually want. Our unwillingness to rest forces us to rest even longer. It’s like charging a phone: When you charge it with the battery being at 1%, it takes much longer to reach 100% than when you charge it at 80%.
At one point, we have to rest anyway. Take this break of your own free will and not just when you can no longer do otherwise. Don’t wait until you are sick. Don’t let it get that far. You would only unnecessarily slow yourself down.
Your worth doesn’t depend on your productivity. It doesn’t depend on the hours you’ve spent in front of your laptop or at the gym. Instead, it depends on how you treat yourself. Punishing yourself for not functioning 100% is not strength. Pushing yourself when you obviously need rest is also not strength. But taking care of yourself is. It’s not the “go hard or go home”-mindset that gets you ahead, but knowing when to push and when to rest.
When you’ve failed – care for yourself.
When you’ve lost control – care for yourself.
When you feel not enough – care for yourself.
When you feel unwell in your body – care for yourself.
Fuel your body. Fuel your soul. Take a rest. Recharge. Restart.
When you schedule your day, create room for life. Leave gaps to rest. And get comfortable feeling bored. The best ideas come in silence.
I think 99 times and find nothing. I stop thinking, swim in the silence and the truth comes to me. - Albert Einstein
If you want to intensify this topic and take a deeper dive into it, I have two recommendations for you:
I’ve recently wrote an article about life in the fast lane which highlights the reasons for our restlessness. Read more about that here.
- , another writer here on substack, has published a great episode about how and why to embrace rest on Spotify - I can really recommend to listen to this one:
With that, I’d like to end my post and wish you all a wonderful start into the weekend! I’m happy about every new subscriber, so enter your mail if you haven’t done already! :)
Thank you Jana, great post