Walk Before You Run

I used go for a jog at 6am every day. I took the exact same route every time. I knew where all the potholes are. I knew where all the alleyways and shortcuts are. I knew the commuters that I'll meet on the way every single morning. I could make the journey in my sleep because I knew it that well. Every morning I saw a man and a woman taking their two Bulldogs for a walk. The dogs are HUGE. I always stared at them every day as I'm jogging along.

The first few times I spotted them, the owners were being pulled along the pavement opposite me, and I mean pulled. Then as time went on, the dogs weren't so pushy but still tried their luck from time to time. Nowadays, the dogs are virtually unrecognisable in their behaviour. They walk calmly along the pavement taking time to really look at and smell their environment. Now, something I haven't mentioned yet is the fact that their side of the pavement leads onto a nice green open space. In this space, the owners actually run alongside their dogs across it, every single day. So, this got me thinking. The dogs used to pull their owners because they were so eager to get to this open space where they could race ahead. However, through training, the dogs had been taught how to walk properly along the road, the value of patience and actually enjoying the journey there too. This meant that when they finally got to run, it was an enhanced experience for them.

We always hear about the importance of walking before you can run, but are we actually patience enough to go through what we need to in order to access what we really want? Are you running before you've even learnt to walk?

Here are tell-tell signs that you are:

👉🏾 You make more mistakes than you do progress

This might be a hard pill to swallow. Even I talk about how making mistakes is probably the best thing that could probably happen to you because that gives you an opportunity to amend and try again. However, it's important not to glamourise failure. You should go into something intending to fail, or indeed set yourself up for failure. When you rush, you don't give yourself the best possible chance of success in the first place. Some would consider that as the biggest failure of all.

👉🏾 You're working to 'the pace' and not your pace

There are three considerations you need to take before you embark on anything. Passion, time and skill. I ask every single person that comes to me asking for help about these three things. It might turn out that you've got the passion for something, but not the skill or time to execute it properly. Or, you might have the passion and time, but you simply currently lack the skills you need to carry it out. It's important to be honest with yourself to be able to come to an accurate conclusion. A lot of people rush because they are living their lives by other people's timelines. The danger in this is that they might go hard at something, but it simply won't yield the results they're so desperate for.

👉🏾 You're doing 'more' but not doing the 'right more'

I can’t stress this enough. The work that you’re doing, how instrumental is it for the career that you’re trying to build for yourself? Whilst that might sound like a super cheeky question to ask during a global pandemic where people are losing their jobs left right and centre, the work that you do should be part of a bigger plan, as in, have some sense of direction. Otherwise, you’ll run the risk of building across but not actually building up. Is being on every social media platform beneficial for you? Do you actually like the sorts of clients you’re attracting? Do you really need to set up another website? Stop rushing and focus on the really important stuff.

Tips to slow yourself down: Be thorough, take time aside to check in with yourself, ask yourself what your real goals are and draw those all-important boundaries early on.

Listen, those Bulldogs got the hang of it, so you have absolutely no excuse! Be here for a good time and a long time.