Column 43 – Slow and Steady Wins the Race by The FlyLady, Marla Cilley

As a grandparent, I love going to my grandchildren’s school presentations. At the end of the year they sang songs, recited timelines and preformed skits. One skit was about the fable of the Tortoise and the Hare. At the end they yelled out the moral of the story, “Slow and steady wins the race!”

As we walked out the door, I explained to Ethan that The Tortoise and Hare Fable was one of my favorite stories and that I tell people about it all the time. That day I had mentioned “Slow and Steady” on my radio show and that I had a song written to help my ladies understand this lesson. He already understands how music helps us to remember things. Their timeline was to music with actions to represent significant events in history.

We are a lot like that Hare. We take pride in ourselves because we think we work well under pressure. We think we are so good at getting things done! We have two speeds like the Hare too! As fast as we can possibly go and dead stop; that is our crash and burn!

In our haste we forget that “Slow and Steady” does win the race! The race is not about the finish line. It is our journey through life. Are we going to be so exhausted at the end of our day that we can’t enjoy a story with our children? What about in our retirement years? Are we going to dealing with major health issues because we pushed ourselves with adrenalin? Adrenalin is our drug of choice!

We have always been in such a hurry. This is because we have waited till the last minute to start. Our perfectionism is what causes us to procrastinate. We wait till we think we will have enough time to do it all at once. None of us has huge blocks of time any longer. When we learn to break things down into babysteps we can accomplish even the most mundane tasks without going into “Crash and Burn” high speed gear!

Adrenalin is “speed”! It kicks us into hyper drive to handle emergencies! This is how women can pick up a car to save the baby. Our bodies were not meant to have a continuous intravenous drip of adrenalin just to get through a day. Cleaning house is not a reason to put our bodies into overdrive! Daily routines can help us get our homes clean without putting stress on our bodies.

Whenever you supercharge an engine something has to pay. Just ask a guy who put mothballs in a gas tank to make his car go faster. The car will run real fast till it doesn’t. I want you to stop burning out your engine and let “Slow and Steady” become the moral of your story!

For more help getting rid of your CHAOS, check out her website and join her free mentoring group at www.FlyLady.net or her book, Sink Reflections published by Random House and her New York Times Best Selling book, Body Clutter published by Simon and Schuster. Copyright 2011 Marla Cilley Used by permission in this publication.

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