| I’ve been doing a few courses this year, and a few weeks ago, I realised I was 6 weeks ‘behind’ on one of the courses. Not that there is any behind, the course is not going anywhere, there’s no deadline. But I had fallen short of keeping up with the weekly work. I messaged the lady who runs the course, and she suggested (to my utter shock) skipping forward to the latest work and going back at the end to complete the other bits I’d missed. Hilariously, given permission to do this, I didn’t want to. I don’t want to miss anything! Aren’t humans hilarious? Anyway, I was in a facebook group for another course the following week, and someone had put up a message saying “I’m behind”. The reply that I most loved was: “You’re not behind, you’re doing it at your own pace.” How lovely is that? Going at your own pace with a course, or a project, or indeed, with life. No trying to meet arbitrary deadlines. No feeling like you’re at the back of the pack. No trying to catch up to the front runners. No stress. No anxiety. No shame. No self-criticism. Simply going at your own pace. Doing what you can with what you have with no need to give yourself a heart attack trying to keep up with someone else’s pace. Where in life are you trying to keep up? Maybe in a course, maybe with a project, maybe keeping up with the Jones’s or Kardashians? What if you could just relax and take it at your own pace? It may not work if you do have deadlines to meet…but if you don’t, maybe you could relax and stop trying to keep up? It’s exhausting to be constantly trying to keep up with a pace that’s a bit too fast for you. And it’s no fun. Now we’re adults we get to make choices about what we do, how we live, what we learn and what is important to us. Are you still working on outdated programming from your school days where you had to do everything by a certain time? Are you still thinking you should be further forward, keeping up, even ahead? Or have you decided that life is for enjoying, and making the choice to amble when you want to amble, to sprint when you feel like sprinting, and generally to take it totally at your own pace? I’ve realised my thoughts and beliefs about courses in particular are outdated (especially in a course with no deadlines), so I’m gonna chill out, relax, sit back and just enjoy what I’ve chosen to learn. There’ll be times when I have spare time and I can crack on with learning, being bang up to date. But there will be others when life is busy and I just can’t keep up. And that’s ok, because I’m not falling behind, I’m taking it at my own pace. |
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