Slow down to speed up

I got the sentence that is used for the title of this article a couple of months back in “Become the Coach You Were Meant to be”, one of Paul J. Meyer’s many books. You might also have heard or read that sentence. Often than not in our life, the only way to speed up is to first slow down. The statement has made me think again about the importance of balance in successful living.

Everybody for sure wants to be successful in life and time management is one of the defining factors for successful living. Success is not a matter of luck. Success is not also coming as a random chance. Success is also not only for a fortunate few. Every one has the ability to be a successful person. As often said, success is a journey and not a destination. The journey needs time and the fact that we only have 24-hour a day so effective time usage is very important. Hence, the only way for effective time management is through creating plan of action in achieving goals in all the six areas of life.

We know that the use of period in any article enables easier understanding of what the writer would like the readers to grab from the sentences. The various plots and paragraphs in the article would be easier to follow then. Similar to that in our life, there will be time required to review all the actions taken. A break from all the routine activities is necessary to set plan of action. Unfortunately, quite often many people feel that they did not have enough time to do so. Many people feel that they have always been chased by deadlines to complete their tasks so they even considered break as wasting of their valuable time. Break or time-off that actually can be used to recover the energy required for next activities is often considered a waste of time. A simple analogy is about how good carpenters would always take time to sharpen the saws that they use. A sharp saw would not only make the cutting of woods easier. It would shorten the time required. It would also require less energy. It would also produce better quality result.

Being truly successful and being a real champion is through achieving balance in all the six areas of life. Many people would say that they were all too busy to take the break required even just to review their achievements in all the six areas of their life. It seemed impossible for them to stop from their routine activities to make goals in all those areas. During lunch time a couple weeks ago, at one of my clients office, the successful owner that has been living outside Indonesia was there for a visit. His appearance is much younger than his 80 years age. He shared us a story about the importance of an appropriate break. He said that once he told about this time off matter to one of his business colleagues because he saw that person gave no attention to his health. As expected, the answer given to him was that there will be not enough time to take that time off. Who will manage the business activities while he is away for that break was the rhetoric answer from his colleague. That wise man reminded that should a hospitalization be required some day because of ignorance of the required time off, the time needed for medical treatment will better be planned ahead as time off because by doing so it would actually prevent the hospitalization. Besides the medical treatment would probably require higher cost than a short break from business routines, diseases especially those that could reduce the ability of our body organs should be avoided. Health is one of the six areas of life that is defined by Paul J. Meyer in the Wheel of Life® Financial & Career, Mental & Educational, Family & Home, Physical & Health, Social & Cultural, and Spiritual & Ethical.

We need to be aware that the balance in all the six areas of life could not be achieved instantly. Balance would be achieved through a chain of repetitive some time painful processes. We need to constantly adjust but that is the reality in our journey of success to achieve balance in all six areas of life. Many people hope for instant success. There was no sustainable success from instant process. We could read and learn from the life of many people with true successful life that they have been through many ups and downs in their life, again and again, but they always rose again. If we carefully examine the journeys in their life, we can see that they did not focus only to certain areas of their life. They also have burning desire in achieving what they want. Though that burning desire is not the only factor in achieving their successful life but it is the most important one. That burning desire has made possible all the achievements in their life. Oprah Winfrey is one example of a truly successful person. From her life journey we could see how her successful life has not only through the repeatedly painful experiences and the test of time but also the fact that Oprah Winfrey has a burning desire. Difficulties and adversities in her childhood were not hindering factors at all. The Oprah Winfrey Show became the number one talk-show in 1986. Actually she started her career as a news reader at a radio station in Nashville in 1971. then as co-host at Baltimore Show from 1978 until 1984 when then she went to Chicago to host a struggling show named "AM Chicago." It was really not a short period of time, 15 years but with a progressive realization of goals that she wants to achieve. Oprah Winfrey is truly among the most remarkable personalities of this age. She was also aware that capability is important so she took Speech Communications and Performing Arts at Tennessee State University. She also has attention on education and social matters and in 2007 she accomplished a long-held goal, The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa.

There are many other examples of truly successful people and all of them have similar burning desire and went through same long process before they have successful life. As what Helen Keller said, "We can do anything we want to do if we stick to it long enough", they all have spent some long years and learnt in the School of Hard Knocks during their journey of success.

In order to retain that burning desire in the journey of success, we can do the following steps, anticipate rewards, learn everything you can about your goals, observe professionals, identify with an achiever, and constantly remind yourself of your dreams. The usage of period in both written and verbal sentences is common. It enables the readers besides have better understanding of what is written. It will also give chances to other people to give responses. Time off in the slow down to speed up is a period of time where we can sharpen our knowledge and know how through continuous learning and setting action plan for important steps required to ensure the journey of success.