The Cost of Always Being 'On' and why doing less feels wrong.

Do you immediately assume that doing less equates to being lazy? More than that, do you feel that if you aren't constantly 'on' that the world will assume you aren't a motivated, successful, go-getter?

Over the last few weeks, I've been a guinea-pig in my own 'what's the worst that can happen if I do less?' experiment and the results, so far, have been surprising. Not least because, truth be told, I have created an identity around going above and beyond, over-delivering and always being poised to pounce on the next idea that to make the decision to absent myself from that sense of urgency has been, dare I say, uncomfortable and unsettling.

Whether a down-shift in perceived effort is a good thing is something only time will tell, but nearly a month into this effort, I can definitely tell you what it feels like to consciously 'do' less and how that has been showing up.

It hasn't been particularly comfortable and, as someone who has also responded to my internal Sergeant Major immediately, to suddenly tell that loud, shouty inner voice 'not today' or 'not right now' has led to a fair amount of low level guilt.

Doing less has felt like choosing laziness.

However, doing less via conscious choice as opposed to apathy has changed the texture of my days - even this soon into the experiment. I'm practising this new, slower approach across work, nutrition and training and my one observation across all three is that I feel far more connected to all my tasks and less knee-jerk and reactive. More on this in the episode.

My main takeaway is that this reframe means I'm no longer living in a state of low-grade urgency and the knock-on effects of that have been pleasing so far...

Have a listen and let me know what you think of this experiment, whether you're trying it alongside me or whether this has made you look at your workload differently. Let's chat in the comments over on Substack...

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