Go Slow
Go Slow...
There is a new way in how business is being done. A push back. No more hustle. No more hurry. No more pressure. Work with your energy, your flow, the seasons and cycles of life. It's called Slow Business.
You can still create, produce and achieve but rest and well-being are also just as “productive” and planned into your week.
Slow, seasonal, mindful bespoke business. Where you create rhythm, and ritual, ease and focus, softness and joy, within a life well lived that focuses on your business and your well-being. Your life is the centre of your business not the other way around.
Slow business is good for your business because:
1. It allows you to be strategic for the long-game. This is not about mega money quickly but about long-term legacy building wealth.
2. It takes the pressure off and reduces overwhelm thereby reducing stress, anxiety and keeping your body in flight/fright/fight mode (also reduce health issues caused by stress, anxiety etc). Which will also reduce the risk of burnout.
3. It thinks about our impact over the long term as well. What can we do to be regenerative?
4. It's way more nourishing in a deeper way building quality to your life. No more shallow success metrics. And more time to nourish your body more deeply.
5. It's about removing human constructs such as months - you don't have to have monthly sales targets if you don't want to.
6. It allows you to see your business as a bigger journey so that taking time off, spending more time on one process or project will not affect the business negatively, it will actually be better for your business.
7. You get to be strategic and intentional. You create a plan that can change over time but has a bigger goal that you are working towards. So you can build and stretch into your capabilities. I think of it like "could I handle 100 new customers at my front door right now? No, but 2-10 yes". And then you build up frameworks and structures to handle 100 new customers (e.g. moving from 1:1 coaching to an online DIY e-course) to move you into that capacity.
8. Slow food is about connecting to place, to earth, to seasons and tastes of food and slow business is the same. It's about pushing back on the hyper productive way of working for bigger, bigger, bigger but fewer, better instead. Sit down at your table, engage with your community, drink in the goodness from those clients and relationships, taste and savour the work you have done.
9. It means you can focus more on purpose, planet and people, not just profit. And in our climate breakdown world this is what is needed above all else.
If you're at all feeling stuck right now in your business try this - Find a Tree, Sit down, lean against the trunk, feel the roots under your feet, the saplings around you, the mother tree against you, the bark on your skin, the insects crawling around, the air in the leaves, the micro organisms holding all together, the quiet but deep communication between the trees underneath, the birds in the trees. You are nature too. We are apart of this deep ancient system so be with the tree and tap into the knowledge that comes. This is why we are here.
If anything this will be able welcome let go for your central nervous system. Sigh, stretch, fall asleep. Wake up and the path or first step may have been shown to you. All we need to do is slow down and remember.
Remember why we started our businesses in the first place.
Remember what we want our legacy to be.
Remember who we are helping and how.
Slow business is masculine and feminine, soft and strong, gentle and courageous. It is everything we need right now. But, if you're not sure what this might look like in your business then get in touch.
Photo Credit - Francine Boer