By Jenna D’Anna, LCSW

Living in a society that measures success by how productive you are, how many workout sessions you can fit in a week, or how much you are sacrificing time at home, with loved ones, friends, or family to make more money, can make it feel impossible to live any other way without feeling like a failure. However, odd as it may sound it doesn’t have to be this way.

Success, health, and productivity can look different. There is a softer and slower way.

If you have found yourself in a workout class, you may have experienced a very common occurrence: the harder the workout is, the stronger you are taught to believe you are getting. You feel your body starting to hurt but are told to ignore it, keep going, FEEL THE BURN. You leave exhausted, strained, a little angry and sore. You wake up, your legs hurt, you’re in pain while you walk… but isn’t this the way it’s supposed to be? Isn’t this what you need to get stronger?

Maybe not.

You might find yourself questioning, “why don’t I feel better,” after your week of back-to-back healing activities. When it’s not working, it might feel like you’re not doing enough so you add another meditation class, in between your workout class, over-stressed job, and therapy. Society is currently addicted to busyness masked as “healing” and being “productive”.

The key is not to be a sloth either. It’s about balance. Finding the middle ground. Believe it or not, it’s in the middle where most productivity and contentment are found.

Pain Does Not Equal Gain

Getting strong and creating change doesn’t have to look and feel like hurting yourself along the way.  Believe it or not, slowing down is what helps you reach your goals. By resting, resetting, and giving yourself time, you could be getting closer to feeling better rather than burnt out.

Living in a society that thrives in extremes doesn’t really benefit most people. So much of what you’re led to believe is really just marketing to get you to keep buying the dream that some company needs you to believe to keep their business going.

Researchers have found that the values of capitalism, individualism, productivity and competition harm your mental health. This is because your worth is based on what you can produce or earn rather than who you are. Often subconsciously, if you aren’t meeting these values, you can start to feel inadequate, not good enough. So, you push on and the cycle repeats.

Imagine a work out class where, instead of being taught to feel the burn and keep going past your body’s limits, your body’s communication is deemed essential and honored. Imagine pushing yourself, but when you feel your arms starting to hurt, you are told to honor that and take a moment, breathe, and stretch if you need to. Then, once your body has communicated that it’s feeling ready to start again, you can — and you do. At the end of the session, you leave feeling energized, strong, capable, and proud, not hurt. You feel ready for the rest of day rather than burnt out.

This is possible. And not only is it possible, but it’s necessary and needed. Life is hard already. You don’t need to be in pain to be productive.

Why You Should Slow Down and Rest

Social media has become obsessed with healing. On the positive side, social media is challenging the shame of accepting support and help with the struggles humans face. However, like a pendulum, it has swung to the other side. Taken to the extreme, this “toxic self-care culture” has led to an obsession with fixing oneself. In turn, it becomes a source of shame if you are not constantly working on yourself or healing your nervous system enough – and, of course, you can never do enough.

With society’s new obsession with healing, it has lost the idea of play, creativity, and softness.

Slowing down and cultivating mindfulness has been practiced for thousands of years. It has been a part of many religions, philosophies, meditation and Eastern practices. Jon Kabat-Zinn speaks of how the practice of building awareness, detaching, and resting allows you to become more mindful and aware.

Through such practices of mindful clarity and detachment from external values, like the capitalistic values of urgency and productivity, you will be able to pivot yourself to more sustainable lifestyle habits. It is through consistency and stability that long-term productivity is possible.

Despite what most self-help books might tell you, true growth and healing take time and patience. Change is slow, and it might present in smaller, less obvious ways than you have been taught.

If you are constantly busy and trying to do more, you might miss the subtle growth that you have been making. When you can’t slow down long enough to acknowledge your progress, you are likely to burn out – If you’re shut down and exhausted, nothing happens except suffering.

Growth can look like, “hey, my wrist is hurting in this position. Let me readjust to maintain this exercise but not hurt myself.” Boom. You did it. You didn’t sacrifice your need for the idea of what growth and strength is supposed to look like. You took the time to adjust so that in the long run you can actually get better and keep it going.

Rest in a capitalistic society has been perverted into the idea of weakness. There is a belief that rest and leisure are reserved for folks who have earned it through endless dedication to work. Rest has also been viewed as something someone needs to do to “recharge,” in order to hustle even harder. This polarized extreme is exhausting and unrealistic for just about everyone.

Rest should not be a privilege but a right. Rest helps to replenish the body and mind. It helps give you the space to think, process, challenge, plan, rethink. But, it also isn’t the same thing as doing nothing.

The Paradox of Not-Doing.

The more you permit yourself to do less (which is not the same as doing nothing!), ironically the more you will be able to get done. And it will be done better.

When not-doing as much as you can, you start to let things be, allow things to unfold in their own way. You can still put enormous effort into what you are “doing” but with the adjustment of it being less pressured and intense. Becoming more mindful allows for a more graceful, knowledgeable, effortless effort, a “doer-less doing”.

This helps to shift your mindset. Instead of being productive to “feel better” about yourself, you will start to actually, both mentally and physically, feel better.

You will find that slowly, the more you choose to restore and breathe, the more aligned you will become with your original goals. You become more aware of what you are needing versus what you thought you needed.

When you start to fight the need to be productive just for business sake, things become easier. They become less of a test of your worth and more objective. You’re still working towards your goals but without your self-worth being tied to some outcome.

Shifting Your Intention

Start small. Remember, you’re slowing down here. It’s less about productivity than it is intentionality. During the day, see if you can slow down, let go of your thoughts and notice the present moment. See how you feel after listening to folks on the subway, watching pedestrians walk past you while you sit at the cafe, or smelling the laundromat as you walk by. This helps you learn to simply be more aware.

Work on allowing more things to unfold in your life without force or urgency to get to the answer or conclusion immediately. When you start to feel uncertain … embrace it. Breath in, reminding yourself, “I can be okay and not be in control”. Breath out and let go of the racing thoughts and fear. Try to just accept the present moment for exactly what it is.

See if you can find time throughout the day to move without an agenda. Once you have tried a few of these methods, look back and ask yourself … did things still work out? Did your full attention and presence allow you to feel free momentarily and have more clarity?

Let Nature be Your Teacher.

Do you own a butterfly plant? Also known as Christia obcordate, these plants resemble butterflies. Their wing-like leaves both fold and unfold. These plants have learned to conserve their energy, protect themselves from challenging conditions and regulate and manage their water supply by folding their leaves at night and in less harsh conditions.

Similarly, when you allow yourself to rest, slow down, and conserve your energy, the stronger and more adaptive you become. It is in strength, resilience, and sustainability that productivity is at its best.