– If you are in rush you forget that direction matters just as much as speed

Time and again, I have found myself rushing too fast. Mostly, I have little patience and too much energy. I think lot of us share this nature.

But over time, I came to the realisation that ‘rushing’ had become my personality trait. May be, ‘procrastination’ was somehow not in my nature. Ha-ha…! In fact, either extreme is bad.

Now, there is no way to know if YOU are at the right pace or moving a bit too fast. So, let me share a few things that I noticed about me when I was rushing during my naval career. Maybe you will relate to a few or all of them:

1. I was obsessed with the need to do something or the other all the time.
2. I was mostly impatient with things/people, demanded quick results and was willing to do whatever was needed to get to them.
3. I found it really hard to plan because of the compulsive need to ‘do’.
4. I was sometimes lost in my thoughts and missed out things/conversations around me.
5. I used to forget a lot of things and it caused a lot of problems.
6. I was often tripping over something or bumping into stuff/people while moving. I once fell and twisted my ankle badly.
7. Despite working so hard, things were mostly messed up and falling apart.

That was perhaps during my commands of Missile Boats and later Air Squadron. I don’t know if any of the above things apply to you. But even if a few of them do, maybe you are also caught by the same bug of ‘lack of patience’. By the way this also results in STRESS.

If you are always in a rush to get somewhere, you miss out on enjoying the ride. If you are always in a rush, you forget that direction matters just as much as speed.

But so many of us don’t get that. I didn’t… now it’s too late.

Why do some of us rush so much? And can we do anything to avoid that? Here are a few reasons and suggested solutions from Shreya Dalela, co-Founder at Speaking Walls, who shares my concerns:

1. We feel that we can make results come out faster

Maybe you got the wrong idea that you can control the timing of the outcome completely through your actions. The problem with this line of thought is that your actions become ‘result-oriented’ and not ‘process-oriented’.

This means that you are not comfortable unless you reach the finish line and that causes a sense of rush.

Guess what, you will never reach the finish line if you don’t take time to do things well. It is of utmost importance to enjoy the process. If you don’t enjoy the process and you are only into something for ‘winning’, chances are that you will eventually lose.

2. We feel we have limited time

Yes, of course we have limited time on this planet. That’s precisely why you need to stop rushing. When you rush, everything passes in a blur. You are never where you really are and you don’t do things quite as well as you should.

To live a meaningful life, you just need to commit to a few things and do them well. Think about it, if you are always in a hurry, you are just impatiently watching your life pass by. What good is that?

3. You don’t understand that some things take time

There is this quote by Warren Buffet-

“No matter how great the talent or efforts, some things just take time. You can’t produce a baby in a month by making nine women pregnant.”

That makes sense to us but in most cases even though we refer to our big projects/startups as our babies, we tend to underestimate the time it takes to grow and nurture anything.

4. We feel that our purpose is to serve

Some of us are deeply driven by this philanthropic need to do things to serve a bigger purpose. The closest example to this might be the parents who work day in and out to make the lives of their children complete in all sense. “मैं अपने बच्चों के भविष्य के लिए कर रहा हूँ”..!

But in extreme cases, people overwork and exhaust themselves which is not a good state to be in.

The point is that even if you intend to serve, you cannot ignore your own needs for peace and rest. You must not live a life in which you feel guilty or cautious about taking a break.

Taking a break is your right and the only way you will be able to get back at work with even greater force. That’s the only way to give your best.

Yes, your purpose is to serve. But a dried-up river can’t satiate thirst of even one person.

5. We suffer from an anxiety disorder

Some minds are anxious. And I have seen two kinds of anxious people in my life.

The kind who are so overwhelmed by the enormity of tasks and the number of tasks that they can’t bring themselves to act. And the others who can’t stop doing things because they fear being overwhelmed by thoughts and anxiety if they stop.

You can turn your anxiety into a form of strength rather than being driven into a constant state of frenzy because of it.

6. We have too much on our plate

When we must get a lot of things done quickly, we might think there is no other way than rushing to complete it all. Right?

Wrong…!

If you have too much on your plate, there is a slight chance that you don’t know how to delegate. Or maybe you like doing most of the things on your own because you are too impatient to tell others how to get things done. Or maybe you don’t trust the way others function. Or maybe you are just too shy to ask for help.

So, if you have just too much on your plate, it might also mean that you are not optimising your task list for the best results. Either ways, rushing is never a solution. It will do you well to attend to fewer things in a better manner.

7. We feel too competitive and ambitious

We think we are in a race all the time. It is a conditioning that most of us are raised with considering how the examination system is such an integral part of our education system.

We are not taught enough about the thoughts of abundance — About how there is enough room and opportunity for everyone. So, we think in terms of constraints and scarcity rather than thinking in terms of opportunities.

We are driven by fear rather than confidence.

Friends, all of this gets in the way of enjoying the wonderful process of working. Work should be a meditative process. It shouldn’t drain you. It should fill you up with energy.

I guess that is what work should feel like.

No matter what our form of work is we must not rush. Instead, we must strive to enjoy the process and devote ourselves completely to it.

 

“Be creative. Don’t be worried about what you are doing — one must do many things — but do everything creatively, with devotion. When your work becomes worship, whatsoever you do is a prayer. And whatsoever you do is an offering at the altar.” —  Osho

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