Happy Sunday Everyone-
Might be an overshare on what goes through my head but thought it might be useful for others reading. Below is my morning journal entry from 1/22. I don’t think I’ve ever shared one of these. When I decided Friday, this is what I was going to write about, I originally thought I’d share the last few sentences, but the whole thing gives better context.
“Struggling right now on my worth at work. Staying organized and systematized is important to me, having email open is not one of the ways of being organized and systematized. Email is the root of all things inefficient. My typical best use and most joy is being in front of people. If my priorities are around loan officers, business partners, and clients, that’s who I should be in front of, not staring at emails. Growth comes from progress, progress from smart action. Smart action comes from intentional thought on priorities. It’s easy to feel like groundhogs’ day if I don’t focus on my personal priorities and progressing through them. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.”
Also, an interesting exercise breaking down something originally meant only for me and making sense of it for all of you. To be clear-first statement on struggling on my worth isn’t about questioning my abilities, just that my days can be spent doing things that are busy vs. useful, if I allow it, namely staring at emails. Growth comes from progress-DUH, progress comes from taking smart action-DUH. Smart action comes from intentional thought on my priorities-DUH. I’m fully aware how simple these statements are, but I need reminding of it. I know what my priorities are, I know my highest and best use, my day needs to reflect this, and I need to be reminded of not getting too far off track without a check point. The journal entry served as a check point for me.
“Slow is smooth, smooth is fast”, is a saying I’ve randomly heard a few different times in the past couple of weeks, and certainly a few more times in my more distant past. A great friend of mine is a retired Navy Seal, and was over last Sunday, we talked about the meaning and its origination coming from Navy Seals. When I google the meaning, this is what I get “Slow is smooth, smooth is fast” means that by taking your time to do things carefully and methodically, with a focus on precision and quality, you will ultimately achieve greater speed and efficiency than if you rush through tasks, potentially making mistakes along the way; essentially, prioritizing quality over immediate speed leads to better results in the long run.” For me, slow is being smart and disciplined enough to review what I’ve stated are my priorities, smooth is making sure my calendar and daily actions are in alignment with those priorities, fast is the execution of tasks that help me pursue and deliver on those priorities.
When I get off track, when I feel like its groundhog’s day on meaningless, purposeless work, my hope is to always trigger “slow is smooth, smooth is fast” to get back to my stated priorities. It worked on 1/22.
Have a great rest of your Sunday!