From "Do"ing to "Be"ing
Unlocking success and happiness by doing less
“We are not human doings, we are human beings.”
We are in a world that seems to reward being busy. Successful people are depicted as being extremely busy. Statements like “I am too busy” or “I am running around like a chicken with its head cut off” are all too commonly shared with pride. We end up choosing to be busy by doing a lot. People who don’t do a lot are often considered lazy. Kids who are not always doing something productive are reprimanded.
Have you ever tried not doing anything and just “being”? Being in the moment, being with your thoughts or just being still?
Are you on the run to complete your task list, optimize life, squeeze in one extra meeting during the day or respond to one more email before calling it a night? I was in that state and have that tendency. My measure of success was how much I got done in the day. I also got a lot of recognition for “how much” I did in my life and that gave me more energy to do more. It incentivized me to do more. Who doesn’t want the title of superhuman or super Mom?
One of my 2022 goals was to stop doing and start being. As a leader with a strong team and an ambiguous role, I realized I should make time for deep reflection, developing strategy, and improving our products and people. I can do that mainly by being! As an extremely action-oriented person who can’t sit still, this was going to be a challenge. But I used a few strategies to help me be.
But first what does “being” mean?
Being is connecting to your inner thoughts. It is staying present in the moment. It is focusing on one thing at a time. It is about finding time to think and reflect. It is saying No to busy work that fills your time. It is making time for learning. It is about reflecting and processing your mind and heart.
Tips to help us stop doing and start being
Mindset shift: The biggest change to bring about is in our mindset. Once I realized that by biggest job as a leader and Product Manager comes from deep thinking, I embraced the philosophy that my biggest job is to start being and stop doing.
Multi-Tasking to Focus: As a very involved parent and a driven professional, I am an over-optimizer. I try and maximize every minute to do something that progresses my goals. To be part of my family's TV time, I used to work on my laptop while they watched a movie. While I thought I was being productive, I was missing either the fun or talking much longer on my tasks. Now, we watch less TV but the little we watch, I am completely present. I then get back to work if needed. When I drive my kids to school, I used to listen to podcasts. Now I try and have conversations with them or listen to the podcast together. I still muti task but only on nonimportant tasks. For ex, cleaning is boring and so it is also learning time for me.
Change attitude from Maximize to Maximum: As I approached my last sabbatical, a friend gave me some solid advice. She recommended that instead of trying to maximize work by finding every minute I could get to work, I should set a maximum limit to working. This helped me set the maximum time allocated to work and the rest of the time available to me.
Leverage your calendar: Block times in your calendar to just be with your thoughts. I rarely compromise at this time. Doing this over time helped me feel inefficient if I don’t have this time on the calendar.
Supporting Activities: Do an activity like walking, meditation, swimming or anything but leave your phone behind.
Leverage your “need to do” to do less: I am extremely goal-oriented and have been always on the run doing a ton of work every day. I leverage that same nature to set goals for myself to simply think. Now I have a goal of deep thinking and reflection time every week. It is actually on my checklist and I get it done. 💥
Nature forces: Find yourself being in nature or observing nature. It will automatically transport you into a state of being still.
Breath exercise: Any breath exercise that helps you focus only your breath will help you forget about everything else and just be.
Journaling: Finding 5, 10, 15 mins every day to journal is a great way to simply stay with your thoughts. If journaling about the day and your feelings is hard then you can come up with questions to reflect on: Create a few questions that are relevant to your life that you need to reflect on. They can be about how far you are from achieving your goals, and how you might be living your life etc., Then make time to reflect on these questions periodically. That helps you to simply be. The questions I have in my list are
How am I doing in all my roles - as a Mom, wife, daughter, sister, friend, etc.,
How am I doing towards my hope to make a difference in people’s lives?
What are my goals
How am I doing towards achieving my goals
What can I do to change course towards achieving my life goals
Am I living my desired life
I also acknowledge that this can be a luxury that some people might not be able to afford. But I still encourage everybody to take even just a few minutes to stay present with their hopes and dreams so that their dreams manifest themselves.
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I felt the same and just adopted that goal. Thank you for this article! Another important mindset shift to me has been to acknowledge my achievements beyond work. Recognizing I became a better runner, surfer, daughter (...) in the last year.