When the goal becomes gentle ambition
My season of focusing on rest and peace instead of productivity and output and all that comes up within that
I haven’t wanted to write on Substack for a while. I open the app or my laptop and I procrastinate or wander onto something else. Part of my brain (the crueler part) tells me I’m a failure for running late on my posting schedule for a couple of weeks. The other part knows that this is a new era of life for me; one where I’m eager to be led by self-compassion and encouragement, rather than admonishment.
This liminal place where I have taken up residence seems to offer no clarity or certainty, or anything else that I am used to. I often think of the adage “what got you here won’t get you there”, and I know that this is a seminal time for me - unlearning how things have been done, with a view to reframe and reorient.
My whole life I have been driven, fast paced and clear on what the future looks like. What I have set my mind on, I have achieved. But that playbook isn’t going to work for this stage. This stage is a whole lot of unknowns.
I have officially resigned from my business (but still remain on the Board).
We are officially back on our rollercoaster of a fertility journey (after seven weeks of ignoring it all whilst on holidays).
And I am officially unemployed (with my reliable and consistent income ending on June 30th).
And so, the page is blank…
The next chapter is, at this point, entirely unwritten.
The unknowns
I can’t tell you when we may have a baby, I can’t tell you what my next career path looks like and I can’t tell you when, or how, I’ll start earning again. And while there is freedom in breaking away from living in misalignment and leaving situations that no longer serve me, it does all take a lot of getting used to.
As someone with an endless roster of ideas, businesses and visions for the future, I scroll Substack thinking - “that - I could do that” or “ooh that too - I could do that too”. But I do know that whatever comes next needs to feel energetically aligned. I’ve worn so many hats over the last decade, I can morph into many roles but it has also come at great cost - my energy, my health and my time. But this time, I am determined to sit still, take time and really listen and tune into what could come next.
But it’s easier said than done.
To have all of these ideas, to see something that I find intriguing and then to not act on it? That’s the difference between me then and me now - I have always been strong on execution.
But now?
Even if I wanted to, even if I felt ready, my ability to follow through currently is at an all-time low.
And that’s the disconnect.
It feels so strange to feel, if not uninspired then perhaps just despondent - disconnected to the act of doing. When doing has defined me over so many years, it conjures up feelings of guilt, shame and confusion to notice that, although a spark of curiosity about what’s next may come, I have no resolve, energy or capacity to make anything happen.
So, now? I have to trust.
Trust that this time spent restoring and learning how to rest will lead to future creativity and action, despite it being an entire reworking of how I have lived. Instead of watching Substackers who are achieving consistent growth and thinking “I can do that, I’ve done it before and I know how to make it happen”, now I must start thinking - “yes, you can do that, but, for now, please - don’t.” This is where the work will be for me, as I’m sure it would be for so many others - to think about what a successful day or week looks like when the usual success metrics have been thrown away.
But that is so much easier said than done.
Everything about our society tells us that success is productivity. The more you can produce, the busier you are, the more valued you are. To leave behind an identity built around achievement and output means to grapple with learning a new way. In divine timing, I happened upon an article on
this week by Ayushi Thakkar of called ‘why peace is a better metric than productivity’ and it spoke to exactly what I am currently working through. It poses the idea that we shouldn’t measure our days by our output, but by how peaceful we felt. This really landed for me. As my diary and life goes from being jam-packed to being wide-open, peace seems like a solid metric to track success with.“peace as a metric also creates room for being human during the parts of life that don’t make good content. the months where you’re caregiving. the years you’re grieving. the weird, transitional gaps where you feel like you’re floating. productivity collapses in those moments. but peace can still be cultivated. because peace isn’t about what you’re doing. it’s about how gently you’re willing to be with yourself when you don’t know what comes next.”
Cultivating peace seems like a worthy goal to me, but after a decade of hustling and running at pace, I tend to conflate peace with laziness. I’m sure it’s not just me, but it will take some rewiring for a ‘slow day’ to not feel like a ‘lazy day’. To have a peaceful day that is riddled with shame by not being productive is to activate your nervous system and to reverse the entire intention.
So that’s my practice.
And I’m sure that it is a practice for all of us, who have been trained to, and led to believe that, our worth is in what we can achieve in a day.
“but let’s be clear: peace isn’t the same as doing nothing. it’s not lazy. it’s not passive. it’s not the absence of ambition, it’s the transformation of it. peace, in this context, is a relationship with time that’s not dictated by fear. it’s the ability to say, “i can rest now” without asking if you’ve earned it. it’s choosing to speak slower, scroll slower, even type slower not because you’re inefficient, but because your nervous system deserves gentleness. it’s the kind of ambition that’s rooted in clarity, not panic.”
So, now - inspired by these word - I will be attempting to evaluate my days by asking myself a different question - how peaceful did that day feel?
By that metric, I’m doing surprisingly well.
Yes, there is still anxiety, uncertainty, fear of the unknown and reverberations of the grief that I’ve experienced over the last year, but if I sit still and tune in - I feel anchored.
I am grounded in knowing that this path, with all of its unknowns, with the discomfort it creates, is exactly the path that I am meant to be on.
The sureness in that feeling is enough to know that things will work out as they’re meant to.
I’d love to know - how is your relationship with productivity vs peace?
Thanks for reading!! This is my first time trying out the voiceover audio - let me know what you think/ if you prefer listening to reading!
If you’re new here, I write essays about slow success, life transitions, and finding meaning in the mess. As well as recommending some of my favourite things every week!
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I loved this so much, Sinead and I love this journey that you are on now (I feel like I write this every time I read your newsletter). I'm currently working on my relationship with productivity and peace right now. I'm really working on being intentional with my peace or just being still and not feeling like I always need to do EVERYTHING. It's a work in progress, but definitely working on it.