Sometimes Doing Nothing Gets the Best Result

If you’re feeling unmotivated, fear not! Sometimes what you need to do is nothing at all.

Some years ago, a friend sent me a children’s book called What Do You Do With An Idea? I was excited to read it, because I’m an idea person. I have lots of them, all the time. But at the time this book appeared in my life, I was feeling deeply unmotivated about everything. I had burnout and wasn’t able to act on my ideas. My life was stagnant; I was stuck. I was filled with an urgency to do something – anything! – to effect change in my life. And here was a book that was going to tell me how. I read it with eager anticipation. What was the secret it would reveal?

Here’s what it said I should do with my ideas. Nothing.

Yep. It’s about a kid who hangs out with an idea he has and that’s about it. He feeds it and they play together. The idea grows, and he builds a new home for it. It teaches him how to walk on his hands, because that will help him see things in new ways. Then one day the idea takes wing and the kid discovers what you do with an idea: “You change the world.” Okay, except he didn’t really do anything with the idea except spend time with it! How does that change the world? Notably missing from this narrative are the step-by-step plans of how to use the idea to change in the world. Where is the goal setting, the list of pros and cons, the projected costs? Where is the struggle, the arduous journey, the courageous crusade? How can an idea change the world when you don’t do anything with it?!

Okay, let’s calm down for a minute. Take a breath. Children’s books are supposed to be full of timeless wisdom, right? So I sat with this little fable for a while, letting it percolate. When that failed to enlighten me, I decided to do an experiment. I’d try doing nothing and see what happened. It wouldn’t be hard – I was feeling so unmotivated about everything that doing nothing was basically what I was already doing. Except I would do it intentionally now. Instead of doing nothing because everything just felt so hard, I’d try doing nothing because maybe it was the inspired choice, a way to make magic happen.

And guess what happened? Nothing. Shocking, right? Except that’s not entirely true. Nothing big happened, sure. My life didn’t change, I didn’t feel more motivated, I was still stuck. But I noticed that my ideas started getting more…well, sparkly. Now that I wasn’t expending energy forcing myself to do something, anything, or on feeling bad about not getting anything done, I had a lot more to put into my ideas. The new attention I gave them made them feel more present, rounder, real. Like things that maybe could manifest in the world, if I gave them a chance.  

There was this one little idea I’d pushed away because it seemed too big for its britches, and I started thinking about it more. It was about starting my own creative business, hanging out my signpost as a creativity coach, starting a podcast. Yeah right, I thought. Who would want to listen to me? But I decided I’d give the idea a chance, and we hung out together. I’ll admit it, we had fun dreaming about life together. But that was all it was. An idea. I still didn’t know how doing nothing about it was supposed to change the world.

But the idea grew, just like it said in the book. And then one day the idea was so big I decided to make a webpage for it. A new home, just like it said in the book. And then it taught me how to walk on my hands – just kidding. But I did start to see things in new ways. Like, maybe this could be a real thing, my creative business. Maybe this idea was worth it. Maybe I’m worth it. So I continued hanging out with the idea, doing whatever felt like the next right thing. I’m still doing that now, even when the next right thing is doing nothing.

It feels magical how much this approach has changed my life. It did change the world – my world. Sure, sometimes I’m busy and getting a lot accomplished, but by maintaining my focus on only doing what feels like it’s the next right thing, I end up not doing a lot, too. Because I’m not doing things because I should or just to get them done, I’m free to do what emerges organically from the situation. And what I’ve discovered is that life doesn’t require us to do all that much. Our sociocultural beliefs are what require us to do all the things. And those are just beliefs. We can challenge and change them if we want to.

So try hanging out with your ideas rather than seeing them in terms of actionable steps, efficient practices, and productivity goals. Maybe they’ll have something to teach you. Maybe they need space to grow some more. They’ll speak to you if you listen, and they may even be able to point you in directions you wouldn’t have considered. Be patient, open-minded, and kind to your ideas, let them know they can trust you, and they’ll show you the way.