You know the feeling.

I’m late.

I’m falling behind.

I’m not as good as X at this.

I cannot keep up.

That feeling of not getting through your list of tasks for that day. You haven’t ticked every box, and everyone seems to have SOMETHING they excel at, a hustle or a project they are absolutely nailing.

But you? You feel average at best, and in some parts of life an absolute fraud, only giving an appearance of competence and reaching your targets.

Guess what? It’s a myth. You’re not behind other people, despite how you feel.

And why do you feel that way? Because you’ve believed the lie that what we do is more important than who we are. That little voice that tells us we can’t truly rest and relax, that even our time off has to be action packed and filled with things, activities... anything productive.

So we ignore the other, quieter voice that downtime is something we need, and something we must relish for no other purpose but to do absolutely nothing.

Nothing.

How does that word make you feel, with the implications of no plans, no purpose. No structure?

Sadly, many of us might feel a bit nervous and uneasy. We have becomes so conditioned to a kind of ‘life treadmill’.

The space left by downtime is something we scrabble to fill with structure, but in doing so, it crowds out the room we need to consider our relationships, our creative side or our gut feelings. We can feel totally burned out if we don’t allow both sides of our brains to rest. In that rest, some great insight can be born.

Blank holes are not black holes. Allow yourself that gap in your schedule for the nothing (that isn’t really nothing!)

Nothing going in (looking at you, TV and technology!), no requirements or demands on your time from yourself or others. No “I’ll just do...” or filling your time with everyday tasks.
No distractions, no matter how conditioned you are to fidget without them.

Allow yourself space and time - just the unhurried you and space for your brain to rest as well as your body.