My journey with doing nothing

Most of us are terrible at doing nothing.

Before you say “well, I don’t know Karin, I nothing ALL THE TIME when I’m supposed to be doing other somethings…”

I want to ask you a question. Are you really doing NOTHING, in those moments?

Or are you doing SOMETHING, just not the SOMETHING you want to be doing?

I bet it’s the latter — and you’re not alone. We scroll, we eat, we wander around the house, we procrasti-learn and watch old webinars and peruse reddit and watch youtube videos or netflix…

But we very rarely do nothing.

Between April of 2021 and April of 2022, I conceptualized, created, and launched all FIVE of our signature Body Brain Alliance programs. It was a season of major growth — a year where my audience on Instagram jumped from 1000 to 7000, a year where I hired my first, second, third, and fourth team member, a year where my little side-hustle became a roaring force. It was expansion and hustle and I was forced to evolve and stretch in painful and exciting and wild ways.

Now though, as May quietly rolls in like fog, I have found myself in the midst of a quieter season.

I woke up this morning, logged into ClickUp (our project management system), and my task list had exactly… zero items.

Somewhere, miles away, someone purchases Meaningful Mornings and logs in for the first time.

Somewhere, a few states over, one of my Syllabus to Sold students watches this week’s module.

Somewhere, in the distance, I imagine the voices of my incredible coaches doing client check-ins today.

It’s both blissful and eerie to live in the result of what my past self created.

So today, I sat on the couch quietly and drank my coffee… and then I decided to write this blog, because my threshold for DOING NOTHING is essentially non-existent.

I think this is something that coaches don’t anticipate about having “evergreen” products or courses. It’s something nobody told me about growth — that there will be a moment, after push and struggle and effort, where the Thing You Have Birthed no longer needs you.

And I wonder who I am without work.

I wonder how many of my decisions are tied to my perpetual desire to be seen as someone who “works hard.” I wonder how much of my personality relies on task completion. I wonder where my sense of accomplishment and peace will come from, if it’s not a long to-do list, finally completed.

Doing nothing is like being trapped in a room with someone you don’t know well.

Only, for many of us, the person you don’t know well… is yourself.

And so, as we create evergreen courses and optimize our calendars and delegate and streamline and create more space in our lives, I think we have to be deeply and fundamentally aware of our reflex to fill that space.

We fill it with Instagram. We fill it with mindless tasks. We fill it with agreeing to commitments we don’t really want to yes to.

But what if instead of filling that time, instead of DOING more, we experimented with the radical act of BEING with ourselves?

Slowing down in a world obsessed with speeding up.

Paying attention to our internal dialogue.

Allowing ourselves to wonder, and think, and BE.

It’s really, really fucking hard.

But that’s what I’m exploring this season.