Slow is Smooth. Smooth is Fast.

“Slow is smooth.  Smooth is fast.”

When I was going through training to become a Special Forces Medic, this is a phrase that the instructors repeated often.  When tasked to deal with someone having a medical emergency the high stakes can produce adrenaline that, if unchecked, may cause a medic to rush through steps and make potentially grave errors that have to be corrected and waste precious time.  I learned fairly quickly that the best way to work through a tactical situation in training or on the battlefield, is to slow down and thoughtfully work through the steps I’ve been trained to respond with, given the situation. 

It’s something I wish I would have understood better earlier in life.  When I first started working out at 10 years old, I thought that the more I did then the bigger, faster, and stronger I would grow.  3-5 hour workouts 6 days a week were common during the summertime when I was off from school.  I didn’t understand that my willingness to exert myself had to be balanced with the patience to rest and allow my body to recover.  I would have gotten much further, much quicker by doing much less.

The same thought process could have been applied to my time in college.  I pushed hard academically and forced myself to finish in 5 years.  That was the allotted timeline that my degree plan for Electrical Engineering laid out.  At one point I had the opportunity to participate in a Co-Op.  This is where you alternate working one semester and going to school the next semester until you graduate.  I turned down the offer because I was convinced that by taking longer to finish I would somehow be damaging my overall prospects for my career in the future.  I was also afraid I would lose the partial scholarships that were helping me pay for school.  I didn’t stop to think about the financials, the benefit of developing a relationship with a large local company, or the value of getting some time away from school to let my mind cool off.  I was just pushing hard because I thought I had to push hard.  Insisting upon that aggressive pace was a large part of what caused me to crash and burn, ultimately quitting engineering a year after I worked so ferociously hard to get the degree.

Since I started writing and making videos about personal development, I’ve met so many people who were exhausted and/or struggling in life and many times it seems to me like they’re doing so many things or they’re trying to do something big, really fast.  Couples homeschooling kids, renovating their house, working full time jobs, and starting businesses.  Individuals working out like crazy to lose weight, working full time, buying houses as single people, and trying to go back to school.  Inevitably, the things that aren’t immediately pressing go to the back burner like exercise, sleep, proper diet, fun.  Ultimately, those big goals and processes that people get so heavily invested in, often don’t get done properly or don’t make sustainable progress.  I shake my head because just like I couldn’t be convinced in college to take the Co-Op, I have trouble convincing people to slow down some.

Sometimes we start projects or processes and we get fixed into a mindset that says we can’t quit or slow down.  I remember the idea of graduating late being a prime reason for pushing myself so hard in college.  I didn’t want to be behind.  Culturally, our society lionizes hard work but I think our definition of hard work is narrow and doesn’t always speak to the importance of rest and leisure as a fundamental component of progress in anything.  Having self discipline applies to the will to exert one’s self and the awareness to know when to rest.

The other day I was at the gym working out with a buddy and after about 35-40 minutes I told him I was done.  He was like, “Man, that’s it?!”  I told him, “Man I’ve learned… We just got in a solid half hour of high quality work.  I got a good sweat, I’m not injured, and I can easily recover from this.  Trust me I’m not going to go backwards by stopping early, but if I push too hard for too long, I’ll go backwards!”

Slow is smooth.  Smooth is fast.