What Does Slow Cooking have to Do with Business Goals?
The best tasting food is slow cooked. If you cook food too fast it's often not as savory.
The best success is also slow cooked. Building success slowly over time allows you to do things right the first time, allows time for reflection, time to enjoy the process, and time to enjoy your life. In the rare cases when success happens fast it can be an exhilarating and heady time, but also extremely stressful.
Let's say your business takes off like a rocket. Squeezing a lot of success into a small amount of time will put enormous stress on everything in your life. It's like trying to force fire hydrant water pressure through a garden hose. Some things are going to crack and burst. During your fervent success you'll be so busy on damage control that you won't have time to savor or celebrate your success.
On the other hand, if you slow cook your success, you will have time to enjoy your success along the way as well as enjoy your life. This is not to say that we shouldn't be determined to succeed or that we should become lazy. Rather, slow cooking your business goals is about leaving impatience and frustration behind. It's about determining a pace that is healthy for you and your life, and being happy with that pace.
How I Discovered This the Hard Way
This past spring and early summer I was working 8-10 hours per day on my blog and my writing business. The rest of my waking time was taken up with parenting, cooking, grocery shopping, cleaning, and more parenting. I had very little time off. I was very focused on growing my blog and my business. Both were growing fast and I felt like I couldn't slow down. I was becoming exhausted and irritable.
Then, one day, a family member suggested slowing down. I got angry thinking that person wasn't supporting me. But I was going too fast to see that she was just trying to help me. I took some quiet, slow time to process her suggestion. After much internal turmoil, I realized that it was a good suggestion. I didn't need to grow my blog and business that fast, especially not at the cost of not enjoying life.
At the pace I was going, I was never going to be satisfied. I just wanted more and more growth. And so, even though I was having great success, I was not enjoying it. I was on a treadmill, and didn't know how to slow it down.
Nowadays, since I have readjusted my work goals and have included more time for enjoying life, I have become much more contented. I enjoy the slower success more than I enjoyed the faster success.
How You Can Slow Cook Your Business Goals for Success
If you feel that you are trying to move too fast on your goals and it is hurting your quality of life, consider these steps:
1. Review Your Current Goals. What are you trying to accomplish right now?
2. Identify the Goals with which You Feel Frustrated. Where do you think things are not moving fast enough?
What is the exact goal? (Specific, Measure, Timeframe)
3. Ask Yourself: "Why Do I Want This Much This Soon?"
4. Ask Yourself:
- "Can I afford to take things a little slower?"
- "What can I cut back on?"
- "How can I feel good about slower growth?"
What are your thoughts on this? Have you experienced this? And what was the outcome? Thanks for sharing in the comments!
Written for Dumb Little Man by K. Stone, author of Life Learning Today, a blog about daily life improvements. Popular articles are 7 Easy Ways to Improve Your Financial Life and Simplifying Your Goals.
