Sharing is caring!

I’ve been consciously working towards a slower lifestyle for the past 8 years. It began one gloomy winter night as I lay in bed, pregnant with our second baby, and feeling the weight of everything. 

At 35 I was still holding onto the idea that faster, better, and more would help me achieve the life I thought I wanted. Except all that did was leave me battered, bruised and bone-weary. I googled ‘how to live a slower life’ (or something similar), and this lit a fire within me. 

I didn’t have to conform to society’s expectations about going faster, doing more and always striving for better. It seemed all society had to show for that way of living was addiction, chronic pain and illness and relationship breakdowns. All things that I’d brushed up against before.

That night was my metaphorical line in the sand. And I’ve been talking and writing about it for the last five years (it’s my fifth blog-o-versary this month!).

I do this for two reasons;

1. I love to write about things I’m passionate about.
2. I want to spread the goodness that’s available when we slow our lives down.

So without further ado, I want to share with you the 10 essentials I think you need to build a slower pace of life.

1. Less stuff

I’ll literally bang on about this till I die folks. The less stuff you have, the less work you’ll have to do maintaining it, and the simpler your life will likely be. I’ll be damned if I want to spend every Saturday dusting a bunch of knick-knacks or doing a dreaded garage cleanout. 

Get rid of some stuff. And then get rid of some more stuff. And then repeat until you are able to wake up on the weekends and do whatever tickles your fancy – or sweet nothing. 

READ: 9 Little Decluttering Habits to Master This Year

2. Less f*cks about what anyone thinks

If I were to put this list in order of most important, then this one would top it. Please, listen closely. If you are waking up every day busting your gut to do life the ‘right way’ or at least in a way that doesn’t piss people off, then stop. 

Most people will love you, some people won’t. And the sooner you get comfortable with that the better. 

I feel like I talk about this point with a tone that seems to lack empathy. I think this is because not caring what anyone thinks of me comes a bit easier to me. It’s part of my rebel nature. But when this occasionally nags at me – like when I wonder what other people think now that I don’t go to church anymore – I remind myself that a) that’s none of their business, and b) it’s my job to live my life in a way that upholds my own values and ethics. And that can be pretty much applied to anything I think. 

3. More curiosity and spontaneity

I love scheduling and planning, and my highly sensitive nature struggles a lot with spontaneity and changes of plans. But when I get curious about something and lean into it, that’s often when I find myself the most relaxed.

In fact, when I’m following a curiosity, especially when it’s spontaneous, time does this weird thing where it both slows down and speeds up at the same time. It feels slower when I’m in the moment, exploring whatever it is that’s piqued my curiosity, because I am usually going slower, being mindful and focussed. And then at the end, it feels like only minutes have passed!

If you are seeking a slower lifestyle I can highly recommend following things that you find curious when they crop up. Make time for it, you won’t be disappointed.

4. Regular access to nature 

Nothing gets me in the slow lane like spending time in nature. Everything in nature happens as it’s supposed to. There’s no rescheduling, or hurrying things along to get to the next thing. It unfolds outside of our understanding of time actually, so while the pace of nature feels slow, it also isn’t a pace at all. It just is.

If your to-do list is overwhelming you today, take 5 minutes to stand on the ground with bare feet and watch the clouds or the birds. 

Another way I love to connect with nature is to spend some time loving on my pets. I think cats are the perfect ‘slow animal’. They never seem to be in a hurry!

READ: 8 Ways to ground yourself when you are feeling overwhelmed and out of control

5. Regular mindfulness activity 

A lot of living a slower lifestyle comes with getting some longer-term hard work done, like decluttering or work to shift perfectionism and people-pleasing. But it really helps to have a regular mindfulness activity to go to every day. 

I am enjoying the odd bit of colouring with my 8-year-old at the moment, and have also joined the wordle club. It’s amazing what 5-10 minutes of focussing on one thing can do. I always feel more relaxed after a few minutes of colouring, and it fills our connection bucket too so it’s a win all around. 

6. A rebel spirit

I wanted to include this one – even though I know many of you won’t identify as a rebel at all. But hear me out. I think a little rebelliousness is good for everyone to embrace at some point. 

For example, I think it’s worth rebelling against society when society is telling us to work harder, so that we can earn more, to buy the newest thing. Or, it’s worth rebelling if those around us are doing something that will cause harm to others. And it’s always worth rebelling against anything that takes us away from who we are at our core. 

My rebellion led me to quit the expectations of having it all. In my pursuit of a slower lifestyle, I decided to quit trying to chase a career and raise a family. It was a bit weird at first, I often felt like I was skipping class and would therefore be issued detention, but it got easier, and I regained my mental health. 

7. An ability to do hard inner work

This one is a bit of a trick because it requires some extra work upfront. But the rewards of this work are that the slower lifestyle is more likely to stick. 

Much of my striving, doing, and busyness came from deep roots of unworthiness and fears of abandonment. Over many sessions of therapy, I’ve worked to chip away at and dislodge these roots. Some of them still hang on but after almost 15 months of focused therapy, I feel that life is simpler, and slower without many of these deep and stubborn roots. 

8. A healthy respect for the ‘season’ you are in

It’s all very well and good for me (or anyone else) to tell you that a slower lifestyle is possible. But, if you are drowning in small children, this might seem like an obnoxious and unrealistic statement. (If that’s you, feel free to flip me a virtual bird). But I feel I can speak to this because I’ve been there, to some extent. So, if you are that parent, it does get easier. And then it gets harder. And the one constant is that life will always be changing. 

The easiest way to deal with this is… not to. You have to learn to accept it. If you have kids, then life is absolutely going to be busy, and hectic. If you’ve just started a new job and need to put in more hours or transition from another job, that will probably mean a busy few months. If you are renovating or building a house, for a season, life will likely be a bit crazy. 

Accept and make peace with whatever season you are in, knowing it will change soon. 

9. Therapy

This is a bit of a repeat of number 7, but trust me, it bears repeating. If you are someone who struggles to relax – or just plain doesn’t – I get you. At 43 I still find myself unable to relax unless I use a tool, healthy or not, to help me.

This is part personality wiring, but also part trauma-based. I have some significant trauma from being adopted and some other things, and this is what drives me to be constantly on the go. I am always looking for the next thing to prove I’m worthy of being in the world. 

If you want to learn how to slow down, fork out the dosh and get yourself a therapist. Get the root cause of why you can’t relax. It might be similar to mine or it might be completely different. 

10. Sleep

I’m rounding things out with something practical that I firmly believe anyone wanting to go slower will benefit from. 

We are a sleep-deprived world. The average American gets less than seven hours of sleep a night (interestingly, we New Zealanders do quite well with one survey finding we get an average of 7.5 hours of sleep a night). This lack of sleep puts us into a stress cycle fueled by coffee, running late, constantly catching up, sugar, and alcohol to lull us into (false) relaxation at night.

Experiment with getting just 30 minutes more sleep at night and see if that makes a difference to how you manage the next day. 

READ: 7 Lessons on Bedtime from a Singing Five-Year-Old

You can live a slower pace of life. You don’t have to keep up with the Jones’s. One small step at a time you can ditch the status quo of ‘crazy-busy’, and embrace slowness and stillness.

Start now, and show your kids. The next generation needs this message too.