The Power of Slow

My five year old came up to me the other day and asked if he could have a motorcycle.

“Um, let’s see if you can figure out how to work the scooter you got for Christmas first, honey.”

Seems logical, right? But in the moment of watching his mini-tirade about wanting to “go fast” and “sit up high” I was reminded of my own tirades against “paying my dues” in the various professions and industries I’ve served over the years.

With few exceptions (my husband being one of them – isn’t it funny how God seems to know just what He’s doing in moments like that?), people don’t like slow.

We love the results of slow – slow roasted barbecue, fine wine, beautiful artwork – but we don’t like the waiting around for it to become a masterpiece.

We just want the masterpiece right now, thankyouverymuch.

As I stood watching my son, I saw my thirty-something self reflected back. How I wanted to “have, do, be” things at breakneck speed so I could “arrive” at some destination that I thought was a foregone conclusion already.

In a flash, I thought about daVinci, and how he studied for years before he was seen as a true master of his craft. Then my brain flashes to the 10,000 hours concept from Malcom Gladwell. And it occurs to me that slow may suck, but it’s an important step in marinating the creative juices.

And even when I appear to be going fast to the onlooker, it feels painfully slow to me.

The learning, unlearning, and do-overs. The late nights of fixing something I thought was ready for public consumption.

I. Hate. Slow.

But there’s a beautiful power in slow, too.

Slow-Twitch Power

When I was working with a personal trainer back in the day, the one exercise I hated was designed to focus on my shoulders. My shoulders were so weak, I couldn’t lift a 5 pound dumbell up to shoulder height with my arm fully extended without complaining. After about three lifts, my shoulders were searing. I was calling him all kinds of names by the fifth lift. My form would start slipping, and I would go as fast as I could just to get the damn reps over with.

Finally, my personal Marquis de Sade would “congratulate” me for completing the reps. ”Just keep practicing.” he would say. “It gets easier as you keep lifting. Then, we’ll up the weight, and do this all over again.”

So when he wasn’t around, I would practice – without weights, flapping my arms like a bird – but in very slow motion. It’s easy to hold something out to your sides for a second or two, but try holding nothing for a minute. It’ll hurt like hell if you’ve never practiced it.

I started reading up on weight training, so I didn’t sound like a dolt whenI was working out. Apparently we have muscles designed for slow and fast movements (something my “trainer” never told me – which is why I fired him). Slow-twitch muscles are where your stamina is built. Slow-twitch is where your endurance is.

Slow-twitch is about power. Fast-twitch is about explosive movement.

Fast-twitch gets you running from the bear. Slow twitch keeps you running.

Fast-twitch muscles fatigue rapidly.

When I read that, I thought about the tortoise and the hare, and how the hare took a nap after sprinting away from the starting line.

Insert evil grin here.

So as I practiced very slowly, with virtually no weight, it became easier to lift my arms to shoulder height for ten or twelve repetitions.

Then, of course, my “trainer” wanted to add more weight, because to him, it looked like the workout was getting too easy.

And I guess, in a way, it was. I had learned the power of slow, and just like that tortoise, I could win the race if I stayed at it.

Slow and Steady

Flash back to my son, who is now done with his mini-tirade, and working on getting his balance on the scooter. He’s spending a lot more time pumping with his foot than I would, but I can’t do this for him. He’s spending maybe two seconds coasting, and 37 seconds with one foot on the ground, trying to create enough speed to coast in the first place.

And he’s loving it. Sure, he’d still rather be on the motorcycle, “up high” and “going fast”, but he has a clear goal to master. Pretty soon, he’s got both feet on the deck of the scooter, and he’s coasting around like a pro. Well, as much as a five year old can be a professional scooter-er.

Again, I’m reminded of my own struggle. Guys like Les McKeown talk about how it typically takes upwards of 3 years for a start-up to get out of what he calls “early struggle” - to get profitable and stay there – because they’re learning the mechanics of doing business in their industry. Sure, many companies get there sooner, and many take much longer (or never get there), but the average seems to be about 3 years, according to Les.

No one wants it to take three (or more) years, but if we normalized that, perhaps we wouldn’t be so cavalier about mortgaging our homes and maxing our credit cards to launch our businesses.

Lately, my path has crossed, Godly enough, with various articles on the topic of taking things slowly. Kelly Kingman offers a great post about slow blogging in conjunction with her latest project with Pace Smith for peaceful entrepreneurs. Mitch Joel writes at length about how we have misinterpreted the habits of successful people as sacrifices we have to make in order to see success. The reality, says Joel, is that they’ve been honing their craft for years, have a natural proclivity for it, and thus, it appears much more effortless for them. He says those folks consider their work part of their habits – who they are - and not so much a sacrifice they had to make in order to become the successful people they are today.

What are you practicing?

So what about you? What comes naturally to you? What comes naturally because you’ve been practicing it for years? This includes not only the stuff you enjoy, but perhaps the stuff you “had to get good at” in order to do your work effectively. Can you see how those hours of “practice” have led you to where you are today.

This includes the mindset stuff you’ve been “practicing” for years. When I work with clients on raising their threshold of belief, we have to get a clear baseline. We have to know what they already believe in their core before we can start moving them toward a new goal, because a new goal often requires a shift in thinking, otherwise, you’d be there by now.

Practice makes habit, and if you’ve been practicing “being broke” for fifteen years, it’s going to take more than a day or two of positive thinking to shift that habit. You’re going to need to take teeny tiny steps away from “being broke” to build the slow-twitch “muscle” of having plenty. It’s why affirmations don’t work for many many people – myself included. If I can’t see the truth in the statement, it doesn’t pass my BS filter (or if it does, there’s so much self-talk thwarting it, that it won’t do much good)!

Instead, we have to look at what we do believe to be true, and “flex” that muscle slowly, to build our stamina, and our power in a way that builds us up and gives us the power to keep adding more weight to the stack – until that “thing” we’ve been working on becomes effortless.

This year, I’ve made a commitment to eliminate white flour from my diet for the next 90 days. It’s not easy, but it’s a LOT easier for me than giving up dairy, white flour, sugar, and “all the other stuff I love” all at one time in an effort to “eat healthier” in the new year. One thing. Slow and steady. And we’ll see what happens.

What one thing  - something doable, believable, achievable (even a little bit easy at first) – can you do today to help you move closer to where you want to be?