Slow Down to Speed Up: The Secret to Sustainable Success

Leanna Laskey McGrath  0:04  

Welcome to The Executive Coach for Moms Podcast where we support women who are attempting to find balance and joy while simultaneously leading people at work and at home. I'm your host, Leanna Laskey McGrath, former tech exec turned full time mom, recovering perfectionist and workaholic and certified executive coach. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  0:24  

Hi everyone. Welcome back to the show. Thank you so much for being here and for joining me in the month of March, my favorite month of the year. It's my birth month, and also it's Women's History Month. So I love this month. I feel so empowered in the month of March, and that's why I have been sharing some really empowering episodes and wisdom to hopefully help you feel more empowered. And that continues, because today I want to talk about a concept that is so crucial. When I step back and look at my success and what are the contributing factors, this is really a huge one for me, and it shows up in so many different ways, on macro level, on a micro level. And so I want to talk about this concept, talk about where it shows up, and give you some ideas of where you might be able to apply it. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  1:29  

So are you ready for the concept? It is slow down to speed up. So as high achieving women who have a lot on our plates, our tendency tends to be to look at our to do list and then just put our heads down and go and to just, as more and more things come on our plate, we just want to go, go, go, and we might step back every once in a while and kind of strategize, but really we just go, right. This is our tendency, and it's a stress response. Our stress response is generally just get it done. You know, we are great at overworking and adding in more work to the hours that we have, finding those hours wherever we can, and just getting it done. We get shit done. That's what we do. And so the idea of slow down to speed up, I think, is so important, because if you think about this analogy, I heard this analogy the other day that I thought was so poignant to this topic. And it was about the idea that when you are late, or you have, like, a certain amount of time to get somewhere, and you're like, oh, man, I don't know if I'm gonna make it in that time. You're like, Okay, well, let me just get in the car and start driving so I can get there faster, sooner. If you have not plugged in the coordinates to your GPS, then you're just like, going, you're just like, wasting all this energy driving and time driving, because it's like, where are you even going? Right? Like, we wouldn't even think to not put those coordinates in, to not put where we're going into the GPS and make sure that we know which way we're headed. Of course, that takes only a tiny bit of time, but even if it took a lot more time, you know, maybe we need time to figure out where we want to go, then it would still be worth it, because what is the point of driving? What is the point of getting in the car and driving when we don't know where we're going? 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  3:36  

So I think similarly, whenever we just go, go, go, sometimes we lose track of why we're doing it. We lose track of where we're going, and we end up doing a lot more than we actually might need to, and it ends up feeling a lot more stressful and a lot more heavy than maybe it needs to for us to be able to get it done. So I'm going to give you just a couple examples of where I see slow down to speed up being helpful for me. I think if you're thinking about a macro level, if we think about our lives, if we are just going, if we're just running the rat race and just going and going and going, then we're going to get to the end of our lives and be like, what were we doing, what were we working towards? What were we headed and am I happy about where I ended up? Am I happy about what I worked towards, what I spent so much of my time and energy and life doing? And so if we don't take time to stop and check in with ourselves and ask ourselves, What is my big picture vision? What is my mission in my life? What are my goals? Then we're going to do a whole lot of work for nothing. We're going to do a whole lot of work, and maybe not even like where it gets us. This is why we see people in careers where part way through their career they're like, what am I even doing here? And that might even be you. I've coached so many people who have gotten to 10 or 20 years into their career, and they say, this isn't actually what I want to be doing. I want to be doing something totally different.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  5:18  

And so taking that time to step back, look around, look forward, and think about, what do I want? And really planning, I think, is so important. So that's kind of a big picture way that it applies. If we look on a micro day to day, you know, if I'm approaching my day, like, I get up and I just pick up my phone immediately and just start going, like, check my email and then get the kids ready and just like, go, go, go through the motions of the day, then usually for me, at least, those are the days that I feel most exhausted. Those are the days where I am quickest to anger, where I am not really the best version of myself. The days where I get up and take a little bit of time for myself, maybe at a workout in maybe I get, you know, meditation, or some yoga or some journaling time, when I get something at the beginning of my day and start off my day with a little bit of a slower approach than just jumping right into it, I like those days a whole lot more. Those days end up so much better for me. I end up showing up more how I want to. I end up being able to be more present with my family. I make better decisions at work. And so I think that is an example where that concept of slowing down to speed up is so important just our daily habits of kind of what we do as soon as we wake up. Is it that way for you? I think it would be interesting to kind of check in and look at, okay on those days where I jump right into it, pick up my phone, immediately start going, versus those days where I give myself a little bit of time to transition into the day, or take a little bit of time for myself. What do those days look like for me? 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  7:10  

I see this show up in parenting, especially with a toddler. I remember those toddler years. They weren't that long ago with my daughter being six, but those toddler years, it's kind of like, if we are constantly in reactionary mode, and our toddler is constantly in reactionary mode, those days are really, really hard. And what I found was that when I would try and rush my daughter and say, like, Come on, we gotta go. You know, it's usually, it's the morning that can be most stressful for so many people. If I were just like, just go, let's just go. Let's do it. Let's, you know, get in the car. Get your clothes on. Let's get in the car. You know, do go through the motions of the day. Then those were usually the days that felt more stressful for me, and a lot of times, would end up with my daughter having a tantrum, a meltdown. You know, it's just not going well. And what's so interesting is that it would end up taking so much more time. My brain would tell me, like, we need to go, we need to go. We need to get out of here, and then I would end up having to deal with some big emotions, refusal to get in the car. And I'm taking all this time, whereas, on the other hand, if I took some time first to connect, to create some space, to really just spend a little bit of time with her and be there with her, and, you know, just really connect with her on an emotional level, our mornings will go so much more smoothly. We would work together. We would be collaborating, working together instead of against each other. And I never timed it. I probably should have, but I always thought, you know, reflecting on it, it probably took the same amount of time for me to invest that time up front, right, that connection time up front as it took for me to manage the emotions on the back end. But I felt so much more empowered. I felt so much more in control. I felt so much more connected whenever I did that, versus her getting all upset, me feeling stressed, me trying to manage my emotions, manage her emotions. And it was just like I haven't even barely started this day, and I already feel depleted. So I think that's another great example of where slowing down to speed up really helps, because then you know, if I slow down and take a few minutes to connect with her before we have to start doing the tasks, have to get out the door, then my day goes so much better. The morning goes so much better. Then I can get her off to daycare or school, and then I can show up better at work, because I don't feel like I've already run a marathon before I even get to my desk. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  10:17  

I think another example is when we are making decisions, whether that's at work or at home, but when we take some time to slow down, to review our options, to review the pros and cons, and to check in with ourselves and really think about, what do I want here? What's the best decision here? We're able to make better decisions, much better decisions when we slow it down a little bit, rather than just go, go, go, boom, boom, boom. Let's make these decisions so fast and feels like, you know, super rushed. I think another example is just in our day to day, when we are able to slow down our response to another person or to an incoming project when something comes in or someone says something to us, and we might feel like that, like that immediate trigger reaction, and when we slow that down a little bit, we can decide how we want to respond rather than just reacting, and we have so much more power from that place. I mean, I'm sure we have all experienced where we react to something that someone says or does, and then we regret it. We regret the way we reacted. Because, you know, it was just like a split second we we didn't take the time to slow down and think about what we wanted to say. We just said it. It came right out of our mouths before we even really gave it any thought. And those are usually the things that we say that we're like, Oh, definitely could have said that better, or wish I hadn't said that. So when we slow down our reactions to things, we are able to have better reactions. We're able to then feel more empowered, and then usually speed up progress. Right? Because, for example, if I'm in a meeting in the boardroom and emotions are high and I am able to respond rather than react, we're going to be able to get to a resolution much more quickly, especially if everyone in the room is able to do that. But that's not always the case, but when we slow down a little bit, when we check in with ourselves in so many different aspects of how we approach our lives and our careers, we're able to then move faster, or maybe in the same pace, but without all of the drama, without all of the anxiety that we feel, the negative emotions that we feel, the guilt and the shame, and carrying all of it with us. We don't have to take all of that with us whenever we slow things down and decide how we want to respond, or we slow things down to make a major life decision or career decision, or we slow things down and connect with our children rather than, you know, yelling or pushing them, we're able to feel so much better about how we're showing up. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  13:33  

So one thing I would encourage you to do if you have a to do list that feels really overwhelming. Or whenever you think about all the things you have to do, it's like you just feel stuck, because there's so much I would encourage you to just for a minute, like just step back and notice what you're feeling. Notice that feeling of overwhelm or anxiety or stuckness, or whatever it is. Because what is happening is that whenever we do this, whenever that emotion comes on, whether it's that we're thinking about it, whether it's that we're looking at our to do list, whether it's that we think we have a good handle on it, and then our boss comes and gives us a new project, whatever it might be that causes that anxiety to kind of rise up, or that feeling of just dread of all the things that we have to do, or stuckness, or whatever it is for you, it's important that we resist the urge to take action from that place, from those feelings, because, if you notice, when you are really activated, because you've just looked at your to do list and you're feeling all this anxiety and like, Ah, I gotta, I gotta go. I gotta go do this, then a lot of times we'll kind of approach our work with that urgency and that anxiety, and then it shows up in our work, and it shows up in our interactions with other people, and it also exhausts us. This is why we feel so it's one of the reasons we feel so exhausted and depleted all the time. And so instead of taking action from that place, I think it's important to notice it. I think it's important to allow it and remember that an emotion is just a vibration in our body, and it isn't going to stay there, unless we try and keep it there, unless we try to buffer it or ignore it or try to push it down. So all we need to do is notice it. I'm feeling anxiety right now. I'm feeling anxious right now. Let it rise up and then it will dissipate. But sit with it for a few minutes and then check in and ask, How do I want to approach this? Whatever it is my to do list, my morning with my child, my conversation with my partner, my meeting with the executive team, my one on one with my underperforming employee. Check in before you go and do it, check in with yourself about what's present for you, and then decide how you want to show up. And when we do this, we feel so much more empowered, and it doesn't take as long as what our brains tell us it will take. It's not going to take us an hour to decide how we want to show up, it just takes a couple of seconds or minutes to put those coordinates in the GPS, figuratively speaking, and then go into the work in a much more calm and confident and aligned way. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  16:50  

So I hope this has been helpful for you. I would just invite you to try it out next time you're feeling really frantic, next time you're feeling like, I gotta do this, I gotta go and you know you're feeling that anxiety, and if you're feeling that and noticing that, that is showing up for you all the time, you have some really great opportunities to step back, to check in, and to slow things down a little bit. And I promise you, when you slow things down, it will help you to speed back up. It will help you to do it in a much more enjoyable way and a much less heavy way. All right, my friends, thank you so much for tuning in this week. I hope we'll see you next week. Thanks so much.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  17:40  

If you're loving what you're learning on this podcast, I'd love to invite you to check out The Executive Mom Reset. It's my six month coaching program for ambitious, success driven, career focused women who are ready to stop surviving and start thriving. Together, we'll tackle the stress, guilt and overwhelm that come with being a high achieving executive mom. You'll learn how to set boundaries, prioritize what truly matters, and build the confidence to show up powerfully at work, at home, and for yourself. Head on over to coachleanna.com right now to schedule a free discovery call. We'll spend an hour talking about where you are now, what you want to create, and how I can help you get there, because every woman deserves to live the life of her dreams. Let's create yours together.