I often think I am going really fast. Sometimes I am right and sometimes I am wrong.

Speed can be one of those comparative measurements – it is relative. Whether you are running or working, to know the rate you are moving at you need to have something that you can compare it to.

I was talking about the idea of pace in the work environment with some of my colleagues the other day.

I have recently transitioned out of a work environment where I was the efficient one. I always felt like I was moving at a fast pace, often too fast for the possible rate of change within the organisation.

In my new work environment, however, I feel the opposite. I am still working at the same pace – or probably faster because I am on such a steep learning curve – however, I feel slow. The organisation is developing and changing at such a rapid pace every day that now I am pushed to keep up with it and everyone that forms a part of it. I do like this feeling of constant change and challenge. It is exhilarating and exciting. But it is also confusing to have my relative speed of work flipped on its head. Something that use to take me three days and be perceived as a quick turnaround, is now expected, and done, in two. Where my actual pace has not changed, my relative speed has.

It is that same feeling as skiing in a white-out.

You can not distinguish between the ground and the sky. There is no visible object you can relate to. Everything around you could either be completely still or moving at exactly the same speed as you. Strange. You think you are standing still and then the clouds lift and you are moving down a hill and have been the whole time.

I wonder if I keep working at this rapid pace for a prolonged period of time, where everything around me is catapulting forward at the same rate, will I start to feel like I am standing still? If it is all relative then I guess so. Scary.