Is slow the new fast?

It’s January 2nd - I look at my Facebook feed and it is full of people making huge declarations, telling me how they are going to hustle, to make this year happen and all the exciting plans.

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Sarah Newton
Author, Speaker and Youth Coach
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I have to say I feel a tinge of jealously followed by resentment; my mojo seems to have taken a hike and the last thing I want to do this year is hustle more, in fact getting myself out of bed is probably the best I can hope for!

I know myself well enough to know that my engines don’t really kick into full gear until April time and that I only tend to wake up when the flowers and the plants do. I find it so difficult to muster any energy in these slow, dark months. I am a January baby; this year my birthday falls on the most depressing day of the year, which may have something to do with it. Or maybe I have just opted to live my own life and stop worrying about how everyone else is doing it, or someone else’s definition of success.

I’ve hustled for years, made resolutions, broken them and made big goals that I have felt despondent with and have never reached. Fast, quickly and hustle seems words I no longer want to associate with how I live my life. I crave, slow meaningful and fulfilling. I want to live deep and fully. I want a love affair with my life, not some one-night fling.

And so this year I enter the slow living movement - slow living is a lifestyle emphasizing slower approaches to aspects of everyday life.

Hustle for me is out and slow is in. I am not going to lie, it scares me; I work for myself, if I don’t hustle I won’t make money. I don’t know what the answer is but I know my soul craves to take it leisurely in the morning, work when the mood takes me and spend time looking for wonderment in places I may not have discovered it before. Not that I won’t work, not that sometimes I won’t burn the midnight oil completing a project, in fact tomorrow morning I have a 4.30 start to get to a school where I coach. For me it is the mind shift of not asking what do I need to put on my to-do list, but what can I take off. Of making priorities like health and family first and work second. It is reading books when I choose and curling up with my cats.

I have no idea how it will go, how much I will resist or how easily I will fall into the fast traps but I do know I am willing to try.

So if like me your are not feeling the New Year mojo, be gentle with yourself, perhaps there is nothing wrong with you, in fact you may be the one who has got it right. Take it slow, commit to what you want to know you are a part of a movement that believe slow is the new fast.


Follow me progress on Instagram and using these hashtags on all social networks. #myearlivingslow #yearintheslowlane

Go to the profile of Sarah Newton

Sarah Newton

Author, Speaker and Youth Coach

Sarah Newton has shared her innovative wisdom with millions who have tuned into her TV and Radio shows, followed her writing and listened to her unconventional talks. She has been described as a catalyst, daring all she meets to break out from social norms and follow their own path. She has worked in youth empowerment for over 30 years, first as a police officer and then eventually running her own business, via a stint at Disney World in Florida. Sarah has a no-nonsense, down-to-earth approach to solving most youth-associated problems, based on tactics that work, not rhetoric out of a book. She often is the only one in the room to stand by her viewpoint and tends to think the opposite from everyone else. Star of ITV’s “My Teen’s A Nightmare, I’m Moving Out” and author of “Help! My Teenager is an Alien – the everyday situation guide for parents”, Sarah has just teamed up with her daughter to write a novel to help girls with their body image issues, she has also written for The Guardian, The Huffington Post and the Daily Mail. Sarah also sits on the UK board of the Arbonne Charitable Foundation and is an ambassador for Girls Out Loud.