87. Slow is Smooth...and Smooth is Fast

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If you find you are in a hurry, it is time to slow down so you can go fast! This episode tells you how it can be done.

Transcript

“Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.” I originally heard this as a military phrase, and the idea in the Navy that going slowly gives you a better edge and you're more competitive. And I started doing a little more research, and Napoleon was quoted as telling his valet. Something along these lines. Dress me slowly. I'm in a hurry. This slow is smooth and smooth is fast. Starts us off on today's podcast all about pace, timing and moving at a speed that is sustainable. 

Welcome to the Modern Creative Woman podcast. And this is for women like you who want to elevate their creativity and start applying creative thinking in their everyday life. I'm your hostess and creativity expert, Doctor Amy Backos, through our conversations and creative insights. I'll provide simple, science backed tricks and proven creative practices that will help take the mystery out of the creative process so that you can start each day feeling empowered, creative, and ready to take on whatever comes your way. Let's get started. When we're learning something new, it often feels okay to go slow because we're learning. And as kids, no problem. We're learning all the time. But as adults, we often feel frustrated at the pace of learning. 

I've taught hundreds of women to knit. It was always my side job. And some women were patient with themselves and allowed themselves to make mistakes and be frustrated. And I always advise everyone at the beginning of every individual lesson or at the beginning of every class. Please don't rip out what you're working on. Just leave it be. I can help you. I can correct the stitch for you. I can show you how to correct your stitch at the end of the hour. We want to have a document of what you did, and most of the time women were able to do this. Some women couldn't stand that there was an error in their first knitting project, and they're just making a swatch. It's not going to become anything yet. And I would teach them how to cast on. They would knit a few rows, make a mistake, rip it all out, and I just couldn't get there fast enough to stop women who were really quite bent on making a perfect swatch their very first time. And these women became really good at casting on. They did not become good or proficient at the knit and purl stitch, and they never learned to bind off because all they were doing was knitting a few and ripping it out and starting over. And later in psychology, I learned about the emotional cycle of change and what happens as we pursue something new. We're optimistic. We're naive. We begin. We might begin a knitting swatch or something like a business, and then we realize we don't know what we're doing and we become frustrated. And the research calls that the valley of despair, the valley of despair is a place we have to get to when we undertake any new project or any kind of personal change or growth. It is where we lose our naivete. We recognize what mistakes are. We learn how to move around them. There's no way we would know how to finish a knitting swatch if we didn't make mistakes, and then keep going. The upside of moving through that valley of despair is informed optimism, where we believe in what we're doing, but we're informed we're no longer the naive one. 

I hope you think about my knitting example as a way for you to be able to tolerate the discomfort of going through that valley of despair with any change that you're making here at the beginning of the New year. And if you are excited about making some changes for the new Year, I would love to see you by my in-person event January 25th. It's in San Francisco. I will drop the link into the show notes and it will be a powerful community event. It's a smaller group, so we'll have time to enjoy each other's company, make art, share who it is that we're becoming in a more intimate kind of way. I'm so excited for this event. It's going to be incredible. I want to personally invite you to the New Year retreat so that you can understand more fully what your values are and how to take action on them. I'll be teaching you some really important psychological concepts and have you apply them right then and there, so that you leave with a plan you feel really good about. So check that link in the show notes. You can of course message me through the podcast or find me on Instagram @drAmyBackos and I look forward to seeing you there. 

When we think about fast and slow and smooth and all the ways that we want to be. Generally we want to work efficiently, have things go smoothly, and we want it to happen right now. Or better yet, yesterday. So many women that I've worked with used to try and change everything all at once. They wanted to focus on all of their values at once. Health and work and relationship and community and, and, and and they found themselves like they were spinning a whole bunch of plates on a stick. It was just too much. And they couldn't get anywhere. The plates were just falling constantly, and they'd try and put all the plates back up on the stick and spin them. And part of the process we do inside the modern Creative Woman workshops include slowing things down to a pace that's manageable, and that means focusing on one value at a time. Now, it doesn't mean that I don't focus on all of my values. I'm still a parent and a business owner and a significant other and a community member, but in one month, I can choose to focus on one priority, one value, and make progress on it. And I'll keep working on those other ones. But I'm only measuring, focusing on, and attending to one. And I feel like that's made a huge difference for me in being able to move forward. You've probably already heard of slow fashion, or slow food, or slow art movement, and all of these used to be the way things were. We used to cook meals regularly from Whole Foods. We would cut the vegetables, cook them, eat them. Fashion really did used to be slow. My mom made almost all our clothes when we were young. I've already mentioned knitting. I love to knit. It takes so many hours to make a sweater. So many. It is a slow process. I mentioned over on Instagram and I included some photos of a kimono. I made a lace kimono and then I'm almost done with the matching dress and the kimono I got done over my holiday break. It took about three days. I wasn't working, I was just relaxing at home. And it didn't take three whole days. It just took a couple hours over those three days. But before that, starting maybe a month ago, I sketched out what I wanted. I measured examples of my own clothes so I could get an estimate on how I wanted to make the pattern. I went to the fabric store I measured. We discussed how much I would need. It was a very slow process, and that allowed me to make my pattern very quickly and sew together very quickly. But I moved slowly in the preparation, in the measurement making of the pattern, and then the sewing moved rather quickly. If I tried to hurry all that up and I guessed about how much yardage I would need, I might get home and realize I had not enough to make the jacket as long as I wanted to. If I had failed to measure my fabric multiple times before I made a cut, I might have wasted a lot of fabric. And this is the idea that slow is smooth. There were no mistakes. I have a lot of, um, confidence. By the time I made the first cut into my lace fabric. That made the sewing part go fast. Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast. In Artmaking you can type in a couple sentences and I will make a picture for you. But the point of artmaking is not to finish the piece of art. The point in making art is the process of learning, discovering. Making mistakes. Painting over it. Starting over. The slow part of making art is so good for us. And the neuropsychology backs this up. A little bit of art making every single day can change your brain in incredibly powerful ways. How else can you use the idea of slow is smooth, and smooth is fast. If you have yet to listen to episode 85 Back to Basics, I want to encourage you to listen to that. It's the ever present. Now, a powerful way of engaging your mind to go slow so that it is fast is by making full contact with the present moment. There have been plenty of times where I have been out of contact with the present moment and made foolish mistakes. I was hurrying, not so much physically hurrying, but my mind was hurrying and I failed to pay attention. If you've ever thrown a dark sock into your white laundry with the bleach, you know what I'm talking about. It's a mistake that is developing right in front of our eyes, but we're not paying attention to it. That dark sock goes in with the whites and we add the bleach. We can make these kinds of mistakes by hitting reply to an email and asking a question that was answered in the email. We can make this happen when we lose contact with the present moment. While we're engaged in a conversation, we've suddenly turned the camera in. We're thinking about ourselves or something else, and we miss the conversation in front of us. That does not make a smooth conversation. If you're trying to communicate something with your work partner in a business meeting, it looks terrible. If you're trying to communicate something with your partner at home, it just looks like you're not paying attention. And we've all done this. So zero judgment really. When it happens, the worst thing you can do is throw negative self-criticism on top of it. The best thing to do is say, oh, wait, I'm back. I just missed what you said. Can you repeat it? Just be honest that you missed something. Come back to the present moment. Celebrate yourself that you came back to it instead of remaining disengaged with the present moment. Appreciate that your mind drew you back. The ever present now is especially important for women. And as women, we juggle a lot. There's labor in and or out of the home. There is relationships. Sometimes there's parenting, caring for elderly parents. Maybe you gotta feed the dog. Maybe you're the person who makes the holidays happen or always remembers to get gifts for teachers or friends. The emotional labor in a relationship. The emotional labor of running a household. And women are incredibly talented at juggling lots of things, putting a lot of plates up on that stick and letting them spin. We're good at that until we're not. What happens is we start trying to spin too many plates. And one of the mistakes I often make is, oh, I can do it myself, no problem. Mine, myself. That people would rather help me than watch me burn out. And I can be better for the people around me, for my family and my neighbors and my community, my friends. If I'm taking really good care of myself, if I ask for help, if I say no to things that will compromise my sleep, my health, and my other priority. If we want things to go smooth, we need to go slow. One gift you could give yourself this year is to make a list of all the things you do. It might take you a month to make this list. Set a piece of paper on your desk and write down all the things you do on a regular basis. You could start with laundry, making food back, you mean, but put everything down. Driving. Volunteering. Helping out all over town. Whatever it is you do. Just write it down. And commit to removing maybe just 10% of what's on that list. If you're bold, try and remove half of it. There are so many things we women do because we think others will be upset if we don't. And to free yourself from that kind of internal expectation that exhausts you and the people around you. Give yourself that gift to say no to some things this year. One strategy I adopted at the beginning of 2024 was to break my projects down into quarters, and my project would then be spread out over the course of three months. And I worked on three different projects, and each week I would work on one aspect of each project. I was blown away how much I got done. It was incredible. The idea of going slow. Made it so smooth. And at the end of the three months, I had three complete projects. You may want to focus more on one project each month, or one small task each week. For me, the quarter system works really well so I can accomplish bigger tasks. Before we wrap things up, today I want to give you a little insight from my work as a psychologist about how time can really trip us up in our mind. And one anxiety symptom that I noticed over and over in my three decades of working is that time is often a subject of anxiety, and anxiety shows up when people are unable to relax. They have too many worries on their mind. And these are things that interfere with their day to day life. And we all experience anxiety and stress. It's okay. It's when it interferes with our day to day functioning that it starts to become problematic and really damaging. I noticed a theme that seemed to be so common among women is that the subject of their anxiety, the content of their worries was often related to time. I don't have enough time. There's too many things and not enough time. I can't get everything done. There's too much. And all of that may be true. We may have created a situation that we've agreed to take on. Too many things or work has become unmanageable. Too many people have left work and we're getting added responsibilities. There are times when it is too much and there's not enough time to complete tasks either. It has been put upon us or we've created that situation. However, when it's the subject of anxiety, that thought interferes with the ability to do anything. I don't have enough time. Turns into time wasting rumination. And so if that's your experience, that your relationship to time causes you a lot of distress and interferes with how you want to live your life and interferes with your relationships and your dreams. And I definitely want to encourage you to get support. Time can be used really constructively. The first thing for any of us is to stop saying, I don't have enough time. It's simply not true. You can say I'm unable to budget my time that way. Time is what it is. It's really quite neutral. You can say I'm unavailable. I've allotted my time to other things. Those other things might be rest and sleep. Other value based priorities. You don't owe anyone an explanation. But being honest with yourself about. Oh, I agreed to all these things I don't want to do. And now I don't have time for the things I truly want to do. Another way that it shows up is focusing on what feels urgent. Oh, this has to get done first. This is really important. I'll wait to start my dream business, or I'll wait to start painting until I finish up. Until I get caught up. Until everything's in a row. And a mistake that we often make is prioritizing these sort of urgent things and neglecting the truly important things, like connecting with people we love, travel, making art, enjoying nature. Those things also need to be urgently on our list. That we can shift our relationship with time by adding in a few moments of what's most important. It's different for everyone. Our nature, quiet and solitude all of those are really important to me. I would love to hear about what you think you could do, like a fresh idea for yourself about how to go slowly so things go smoothly and ultimately move at a rapid pace. What's one thing you could do? And if you generate a few ideas, I would love to hear them and we can share and all learn together. Remember, slow is smooth and smooth is fast. Have a wonderful rest of your week. 

Now that you know about how to use your creativity, what will you create? Want more? Subscribe to the Modern Creative Woman digital magazine. It's absolutely free and it comes out once a month. And I know you can get a lot out of the podcast and the digital magazine. Yet when you're ready to take it to the next level, I want you to know you have options inside the membership. And if you're interested in a private consultation, Please feel free to book a call with me even if you just have some questions. Go ahead and book a call. My contact is in the show notes and you can always message me on Instagram. Do come find me in the Modern Creative Woman on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest @drAmyBackos. If you like what you're hearing on the Modern Creative Woman podcast, I want to give you the scoop on how you can support the podcast. You can be an ambassador and share the podcast link with three of your friends. You can be a community supporter by leaving a five star review. If you think it's worth the five stars, and you can become a Gold Star supporter for as little as $3 a month. All those links are in the show notes. Remember to grab your free copy of the 21 Day Gratitude Challenge. The link is in the show notes and you can find it at Modern Women. Com. Have a wonderful week and I cannot wait to talk with you in the next episode.