How to be okay with doing nothing
The struggle to do nothing is real
So what?
For many of us, doing nothing is one of the most challenging aspects of the busy lives we all live. It’s a struggle to let yourself relax at the end of a long day of work. The busier we get, the harder it seems to let your mind wander off and relax. In our last post, we explored the benefits of doing nothing so you can start to turn your mindset onto bringing it into your life. In this post, we will talk through how to be okay with doing nothing. We will further explore the topic by discussing how to do nothing in our next post.
Remember
Remind yourself of the benefits of doing nothing that we discussed in our last post. To recap, the benefits were our ability to think of breakthroughs and more inventive answers to ourselves and our questions we ponder as well as being able to fix and improve ourselves. By remembering the benefits, you will have a reason to keep still when you get the jimmy legs the next time you are sitting on a beach or mindlessly watching a movie.
Why
Identify your why by leveraging off of the benefits that we discussed in our last post. The next few times that you do nothing, think of more benefits that you are noticing. Once you have an arsenal of the benefits that you are getting from doing nothing, ponder about how doing nothing is changing you and your wellbeing. Is it helping you be more productive? Are you able to deal with difficult colleagues better? Determine the why you are doing nothing so you can refer back to your why the next time you get those jimmy legs again. It will help you combat your mind wandering back to work that you are trying to flee whenever you make an effort to do nothing.
My experience
I’m a hypocrite. Even after doing what I’m suggesting above a number of times, I still get antsy and uneasy whenever I do nothing. Sitting on the couch makes me want to jump up and go for a walk. Watching movies with my better half used to be looking up things on my phone half the time. An effective approach that I’ve been using is doing nothing for just a brief moment (i.e. a few minutes) at a time. I’m gradually increasing this time as appropriate and able to take mini breaks without being too hard on myself.
What now?
- Are you regularly doing nothing? If so, how have you been doing nothing? What are the benefits that you’ve been getting?
- Or are you having difficulty winding down? Remind yourself of the benefits of doing nothing and start taking small steps on doing nothing by taking a break for a few minutes at a time.