Do I need a Do More move or a Do Less move?
The process of fulfilling our potential, of increasing our ability to have positive impact in the world can be characterised as a process of moving into new, more complete ways of being.
This is the classic, almost cliched, and still powerful idea: what got me here won’t get me there.
At those moments of shift, I’ve noticed that the moves required often fall into two categories, and the question can become:
Do I need a Do More move, or a Do Less move?
The Do More Move
There are times when we simply need to get more productive.
The power of a hustle, particularly in the build up to a transition, can be valuable.
I worked evenings and weekends to build up my coaching business around full time employment before it became clear I needed to create more time, and creating more time was possible because of the work I’d put in.
In the build up to something that we know is important, we may also decide that the pressure of the time or the importance of the task warrants extra work on that thing.
Our society really likes the Do More move.
We seem to have forgotten, though, that the tortoise beats the hare. If you can go at Hare Speed all the time, then that would probably be better than going at Tortoise speed all the time. But the thousands-of-years-old-fable seems to say: you can’t.
Do More is often a badge of honour and this seems to make complete sense: at least you can know, to use a sports analogy, that you have ‘left everything on the field’. Maybe you can be at peace with yourself if you have ‘done all you could’.
The Do Less Move
And yet, paradoxically, often the Do More moves that got us here won’t get us there.
With the societal pressure and valorising of Do More, and with the already challenging developmental shift of having to change our mode of being to create a new level of success, no wonder it’s difficult for many of us to Do Less.
And yet, often, that is the move that takes us to a new level.
The most complex of our work require the most complex parts of our attention. And the most complex parts of our attention – creativity, wisdom, instinct – often require a slowing down.
Rest is a Do Less move. After two months off (or rather, of a very different kind of work involving our new daughter Gabriella), my energy, creativity and entrepreneurship has returned to replace the fatigue and stress of earlier in the year.
Coaching is a Do Less move. When one of my clients says they are too busy for one of our sessions, I often remind them that our coaching should always make them more able to deal with the pressure they are facing, making smarter decisions now which could save them time later.
I remember, often, the Zen saying, ‘I meditate for an hour a day, except when I’m busy. Then I meditate for two hours a day.’ (Meditation, of course, is a Do Less move.)
In a world or environment which specialises in one thing, bringing even a tiny bit of something different can be like a super power.
In a Do More world, experiment with Do Less.
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This is the latest in a series of articles written using the 12-Minute Method: write for twelve minutes, proof read once with tiny edits and then post online.
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