Moment: When Slowing Down Became a Way of Shrinking

I uncovered a pattern of slowing myself down to avoid making others uncomfortable, only to realise I was actually shrinking my own potential. This moment explores how high-achieving women often temper their natural pace and ambition out of fear of being "too much" or leaving others behind.

• The danger of learning early that moving too fast threatens others around you
• How slowing down can become a form of self-sabotage and protection
• The distinction between moving at your natural pace versus hustling from pressure
• Why adding unnecessary struggle to "earn" success diminishes your natural gifts
• Moving quickly while still bringing others along through clean energy and systems
• Embracing your natural pace without shrinking your dreams or intelligence
• Learning to trust your instincts and make decisions efficiently

Take our new quiz designed for high-achieving women who are outwardly holding it together but quietly running on empty. Visit the link in the show notes to discover your burnout archetype and unlock your hidden powerhouse potential.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Balance and Beyond Moments, your weekly
dose of insight, wisdom andmindset shifts, all in 10
minutes or less.
Whether it's a powerful truth,a fresh perspective or a spark
of inspiration, this is yourspace to pause, reflect and
reset.
Let's dive in.
I slowed down to avoid burningpeople out, but what I didn't

(00:27):
realize is I was shrinkingmyself too Before we dive in.
This moment is talking aboutslowing down and speed, but I
want to clarify this isn't aboutpushing or hustling.
If you are already depleted andon the verge of exhaustion, the
work is to restore your nervoussystem first.

(00:50):
However, if you are likesomebody like me, who perhaps
has slowed down out of fear orguilt, not truth, then this
moment is for you.
Truth, then this moment is foryou.
In today's moment, I want toshare a really big revelation I

(01:10):
have had lately, and what I'vecome to learn in time is that I
have uncovered something.
There's a pretty good chancethat people in my ecosystem are
also either struggling with thesame thing, need to realize the
same thing, or have somebody intheir life who is also stuck in
this pattern.
So if you have ever been calledtoo much or moving too quickly

(01:34):
or leaving everyone behind, thenyou might relate to this.
So I talk fast, I think fast, Imove fast, I pivot fast, and
for a long time, hurry up wasvery much my modality of the
world, because it felt likeeveryone else around me was
going too slow, that nobody elsecould keep up.

(01:57):
One of my life's work isimpatience, because nobody else
can or very few people, I shouldsay, can tend to evolve at the
speed I can.
Who can keep up with me.
And so I learned pretty young,as a child, that it's dangerous
to go too fast because otherpeople around you are threatened

(02:17):
.
They will say mean things toyou, you'll be accused of being
bossy or having a big head, oryou have to play small so that
you don't make other people feelbad.
I used to remember a moment asa child when I was going into a
family function and was told notto talk about a recent
achievement because it mightmake other people in the room

(02:38):
feel bad because they weren'tachieving as much as I was.
So what happens then, if youare somebody who is naturally
fast, is you end up slowingyourself down because you don't
believe that it's safe to gofast.
But here's the pattern I gottrapped in is, I would want to

(03:01):
go fast.
Things would come relativelyeasy to me, whether it was ideas
or concepts or you know, Idon't know take this step, or
working through fear, whateverit was.
But then, because it came easy,that was dangerous because I
would go too fast, so I wouldsabotage myself and then go and
do all this extra work and makeit look really, really hard, so

(03:25):
that it looked like I'd doneenough to earn it.
And then that doing it really,really hard would slow me down
and make my pace more palatableto others around me.
So slowing down almost became aprotective mechanism.
But what I didn't realize isthat slowing down so that I

(03:48):
didn't burn others out or Ididn't lose them actually became
a way of shrinking myself.
It became a way of playingsmall and staying safe, because
I was always told that if you gotoo fast, you will be alone.
If you leave everybody elsebehind, there'll be nobody
standing there beside you, andthat can really be soul crushing

(04:11):
if you are someone who wants tomove at pace.
Now there's a distinction I wantto make here, and that is that
there is a very big differencebetween moving quickly because
your brain moves fast or becauseyou're able to make fast
decisions, or because you don'tmull over things and hustling

(04:31):
and pushing and white knucklingand shoving and going because
you feel like you have to.
What I'm really talking abouthere is our let's call it our
natural speed.
Just like when we walk, we allwalk at different speeds.
When we move through life, weall move at different speeds and
that's okay.
There's no right or wrong here.

(04:52):
But this theme has played outnow, with the benefit of
hindsight, in so many differentways.
I found it's played outsometimes in client containers
where I've slowed things down orI've not moved on to something
when I wanted to, and this canbe just so, so soul crushing.

(05:16):
Now a few caveats I want tomake here.
When you are a leader, you needto make sure other people come
with you.
However, here's the thing youcan actually move fast and bring
people with you when you arenot sabotaging yourself, because
you will find other people willbe looking to rise to your

(05:38):
level or looking to move at yourspeed.
They can see your speed asinspiration when it's clean,
when it's not sabotaged, whenit's not dirty, when it's not
pushed, when it's not hustled.
So this habit that I know manyother women have fallen into.

(05:58):
Since I've discovered this, I'vehad some fascinating
conversations where we slow downto protect everyone else.
We slow down or we temper ourambition because we're worried
that it's too much.
We want too much.
I still remember the first timeI told a friend one of my
revenue goals and she went what?

(06:18):
That's a bit too much, isn't it?
I said why?
Why is it not too much?
Why can't I have that?
It doesn't mean that I'm goingto burn everything down in the
process.
It doesn't mean that I'm goingto push really hard.
But why can't I have big goalsand big dreams?
Why do I have to shrink themfor other people?

(06:40):
And so I really want toencourage you if this resonates
and it may not resonate for you,and that's okay but I know that
for myself, learning to movequickly, learning to trust my
instincts and then learning todo this in a safe way that means
I can bring others along thejourney at speed with me without

(07:03):
them kicking and screaming whenI am energetically clean, that
I can continue to move at thepace I want to, and put systems
and frameworks and layersbetween myself and others so
that I don't burn those thatperhaps can't move at the pace I
can, but I really encourage youto not slow yourself down.

(07:28):
Don't temper your ambition.
Don't add in extra work thatdoesn't need to be there if
something comes easily to you.
We need more women in thisworld stepping into their full
power.
When you start to run from aplace of empowerment, from a
place of intuition, you cancollapse time really easily.

(07:52):
You can move really fast, youcan make fast decisions and you
can execute on them.
You don't have to be bound byother people's rules and
timeframes, especially if thatmeans that you are going to
abandon part of who you are.

(08:13):
So if this resonates, I reallyencourage you to do some
reflection.
Are you slowing yourself down?
Are you playing small?
Are you shrinking your dreamsand ambitions because you're
worried that you will loseeveryone or everything you love
in the process?
Because I encourage you todream big.
Don't be too much.
Embrace that side of you andyes, there is a skill here in

(08:35):
learning how to move fastwithout leaving others behind.
But don't slow yourself down.
Don't dumb down yourintelligence.
Don't slow down yourintelligence.
Don't slow down your decisions.
If you are a naturally fastmover, let's embrace being too
much and we will see where thiscan take us.
If you have ever slowed yourselfdown to protect others, then I

(08:59):
want to make sure you take thisnew quiz I have created, very
much designed for high achievingwomen who are outwardly holding
it together but quietly runningon empty.
Let's name the burnout patternthat's shaping your pace, your
choices and even your leadership.
Chances are, if you resonatedwith this episode, with this

(09:20):
moment, then you're an untappedpowerhouse.
You have speed, you haveintelligence, you have capacity
buried in you, perhaps buriedunder exhaustion and burnout and
life is going to be better whenwe can unlock it for you.
Visit the link in the shownotes and let's see what your
archetype is.
Thanks for joining me today.
Thanks for taking this momentfor yourself.

(09:43):
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See you next time.