Pluck up the courage to do nothing
When times are tough (and there’s been no shortage of them over the past few years), your first impulse is almost certainly to work twice as hard and draw up and roll out an action plan. But what if real courage meant giving yourself permission not to get active?
Sometimes you need to do exactly the opposite of what seems to make the most sense. Forging ahead regardless of the cost to find your way through a major problem is all well and good… but how about giving doing nothing a try? We mean bona fide inaction, where you watch the rain falling outside the window, not the type of inaction you use to meditate or do mindfulness exercises.
If you really need an “inaction action plan” to get there, here it is:
- Keep some free time in your diary
- Sit around doing nothing – really nothing
- Let your mind wander wherever it wants – even if the destination is chaotic and muddled – without trying to analyze a thing
- Let whatever you’re feeling at that moment come to the surface
- Take a short break from the people around you if you need to (make sure you tell them what you’re doing)
- Accept the fact you don’t know where this inactivity will lead
You should expect to feel a mix of discomfort and guilt at first, but don’t give up; you will find a different kind of productivity – uncontrolled but with a wealth of new personal resources.
Based on
“Let yourself be unproductive. At least for a little while.”
by Peter Bregman (Harvard Business Review, June 26, 2020).
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