Joy in the Journey — Slow Down

I was listening to a podcast the other day, and one of the women made a comment that has been lingering with me. She said that even something as harmless as a crafting video carries the same subtle cautions as the rest of social media. You know the kind: the creator shows all the supplies, zips through the steps in a fast-forward blur, and within twenty minutes you’re looking at a perfect, finished product. It’s inspiring, yes—but also a little deceptive. Life isn’t like that. Real progress doesn’t happen in clean, edited sequences.

We don’t live at the highs or the lows. Most of life is lived in the middle, in the small in-between moments that rarely make it to video. And if we aren’t careful, we’ll miss the joy found there.

I’ve always  been a big-picture thinker, a dreamer. I love to imagine what could be and push toward goals. But sometimes in all that vision, I forget to savor the journey.

When our boys were little, we went on a lot of family hikes. They grew up loving the outdoors, and to this day hiking is one of their favorite things. But when they were tiny, those hikes were anything but smooth. They could walk—but not quickly. We had to balance how much we let them hike on their own wobbly legs with how often we carried them in a backpack or towed them behind a bicycle. We wanted them to build strength, to participate in the journey, but we also had places we wanted to go and miles we hoped to cover.

Each boy brought his own flavor to the trail. Our youngest, Noah, was content no matter what—happy to walk, ride, nap, or plod along without complaint. He was quiet, steady, and just glad to be with us. Jonathan, on the other hand, had a million ideas of where we should go and often needed to be pulled back to the actual path. Christian was our explorer. He had to stop for every bug, every rock, every shimmer of water. He wasn’t frightened by the creepy things—he delighted in showing them off.

And then there was my husband. He has always been a man with a mission. For him, the destination was the goal, and he wanted to get us all there. I’ve said to him a thousand times: slow down and let the boys enjoy the things around them. On the trail, I could do this easily—I love the journey of walking. But in life and work, I’m much more like him, pushing toward the next accomplishment without pausing for the moment in front of me.

Eventually, he found his own way to enjoy the process. He bought a camera. That simple act gave him something to do while the boys darted from flower to flower like little bees. And because of it, he captured some of the most incredible pictures of our children, frozen glimpses of their wonder and discovery.

Sometimes in life we feast so much on the destination that we end up starving ourselves of joy. We measure our value against the polished products we see on social media or the seemingly effortless successes of great leaders. We forget that most of the living, most of the growing, happens in the stitches, the nails, the steps, the pauses.

As leaders, we all carry agendas. There are meetings to finish, projects to launch, outcomes to achieve. But what if part of leadership is learning to laugh with your team in the middle of the work? To enjoy every nail hammered in, every stitch sewn, every problem solved side by side? What if we paused long enough to remember that we don’t just lead for the sake of tasks—we lead for the sake of people?

Joy is not waiting at the finish line. It’s hidden along the trail—in the bugs, the rocks, the laughter, the detours, the moments where the journey itself becomes the point.

So today, slow down. Notice. And find joy in the journey.

🎧 Listen here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4ajUMIW2I7nGNLqtRcZU11?si=rTbTAuoSQ-udr8Njw7dC9g