Do Nothing

The Traveling Introvert

today I'm going to talk about not doing something, I find that not doing something is the hardest thing of all to not do, to do. Not sure which way I'm not supposed to go. There's times where you might have a lot going on. You keep busy. Things are coming at you left, right and centre. You just want to go, go, go, go, go all the time and you might lose focus of what your overall goals and mission is because you're just kind of stuck in the weeds taking five minutes to just not do anything and look at a piece of paper.

Maybe that's on the wall or on your your board that says whatever it is you're famous for the year or the week or month or whatever it is, and be like, OK, well, the things my doing today or in this next hour that are working towards that goal or are in line with that mission is everything that I'm doing towards that yes or no. Also not doing something is really helpful when setting boundaries. For example, I have been known to not be good at setting boundaries with clients and if something is urgent or I know that other people are depending on me or I know that it's urgent for somebody else, I will probably go out of my way to work hours that are not paid for or do work in times that I would not normally work.

And so it's really hard to not just automatically default into that, but you need to remember that it works both ways. And if they are not willing to do the same, then you really shouldn't be. And it's not setting healthy boundaries for yourself. So not doing something. For example, this weekend I saw two emails come in to my business email address, and my first thought was to, oh, I know this is really urgent and this needs doing, but at the same time me stopping and thinking and being like, what kind of expectations am I sitting if I now go and respond to these emails on a Saturday night, on a Sunday mid afternoon?

And is that how I want to be moving forward? Is that the impression I want them to have and I setting myself up for failure because they're just going to keep doing that. And to be fair, I have lost clients because of this. I know previous clients have gone on and hired other people who would be more flexible, but that's not what works for me. I can't remember for the longest time when I have had a two day weekend and I'm still working towards that.

So and with that, it's doing nothing because I could have a two day weekend, but what else would I fill it with? And that's normally my first thought is OK, well, so now I have this time what can I fill it with? But if I just take a second and do nothing, then my brain gets time to process, my body gets time to relax and repair itself and life goes on. Other times when it's good to do nothing is when you get an email and and it invokes a reaction and emotional reaction.

You might want to fire off an email straight away, be it happy or sad or angry. But I can almost guarantee you that it is better to do nothing for at least five minutes. You could write that email, you could journal about that thing, but do not send a response email in that time. Just do nothing, sit with it, think about it, think about it from that other person's point of view. Think about how you were communicating.

What you are communicating in the right way was the information that you are missing. Maybe you won't play it, but just stop and do nothing. And it is the hardest thing because in this day and age we are primed to be always doing something. Even if we're sitting still on board, we're scrolling through our phones on Facebook or Instagram or Reddit or whatever it is doing. Nothing is almost harder than doing all the things and all the hustle. So if you can at least once a day just sit and do nothing.

Thanks for listening. This is Janice from The Career Introvert, helping you build your brand, get hard and do nothing. That doesn't quite sound right, does it? All right. It's been great speaking to you, looking forward to the rest of the week. If you have any questions for me, please email me at Jannis at The Career Introvert dot com. Have a great rest of your week.