As humans living in a capitalist society, we’re trained to think that moving quickly and hustling is the key to success. If we get work done faster, the margin is bigger. If we build our company more quickly than the competition, we beat them to potential clients. Not working over a weekend brings about a wave of guilt when we have way too much work to do. The mantra of this mindset is “I can rest when I’m dead.” Is this way of merely existing really what you want?

I have been guilty of doing this in the past. On work days, only closing my laptop to shovel in a quick dinner, and resume sitting in front of that screen until I finally collapsed into bed. Missing life events with family and friends because, to me, that time was sacrificing forward trajectory in my business. Seeing rest as selfish. And most scarily, fantasizing about an illness or injury that would give me an acceptable excuse to unplug and not have anyone bother me-how f’d up is that?

Of course this all came to a head, and I was forced to make a change. Because I learned the hard way that if you don’t make time to rest and recharge, your body will make time for you-and typically at an inconvenient time. For me, part of that change was scheduling and actually taking time for things that recharged me. And the other part was making boundaries around work time. Because if I’m being honest, when I was working for hours on end, it was definitely a case of diminishing returns. The time I spent working around midnight was probably 1/8th as productive as my early morning work when I was fresh. When I looked at things objectively, I was straight up wasting time when I was pushing through and doing those marathon work sessions. And when I was working weekends, I was missing out on the things that bring me energy and joy.

What I really needed to do was go slow to go fast.

To illustrate, I love this classic story of two lumberjacks: 

Two lumberjacks decide to compete to see who can chop down the most trees in a day. The first one works nonstop, chopping tree after tree without a break. The second one works steadily but frequently stops to sharpen his ax. At the end of the day, despite taking breaks, the second lumberjack had chopped more trees. When asked how, he explained that stopping to sharpen his ax made it easier and quicker to slice through the trees with a sharp blade. Meanwhile, the other lumberjack found increasing difficulty as his blade got duller and duller, which took more and more effort and time with each tree. 

This story holds a key lesson: pushing through without taking time to rest, reflect, and/or regroup can lead to burnout and inefficiency. On the other hand, pausing to “sharpen your ax”—whether that’s through self-care, boundaries around work, or reassessing your business strategy—can lead to greater long-term well-being. Contrary to society’s beliefs, slowing down to do these things will make life so uch richer in the long run.

So now it’s your turn. Here are a few journal prompts to dig into areas where you can go slow to go fast:

1. When was the last time I paused to reflect or reassess my goals?
2. In what ways could I create boundaries around my working time so I am being most productive and honoring the life I want to live?
3. How can I create more time to do things that recharge me?

Still need help figuring out how you can ‘sharpen your ax’ so that life is more balanced? Schedule a call with me here.