Why Allowing Ideas Without Action is Working for Me Right Now

It doesn’t matter what personality test I take, I always come out as a high-scoring Driver, Doer, or Mover of some sort. I’m someone who has an idea, sees the first one or two steps to bring that idea to life, and then makes her move. Where some people may wait for more information or need to do more research, I’ve built a life on just figuring out the next right step. Has the step always been right? Hell no. But there have been steps, nonetheless.

I’ve learned as I’ve moved forward (or backward, in some cases), and it’s always been natural for me to do that. As I’ve been working my way through this creative sabbatical, however, an interesting twist has emerged and it’s an intentional twist that I’m allowing because production isn’t the goal this year: it’s exploration. Let me tell you why allowing ideas without action is working for me right now, even though previous versions of me has gone all in on half-baked ideas for years.

Having the Space to Have Ideas

The major shift I’ve experienced since deciding to engage in my creative sabbatical is that I’ve given myself time and space to not only have more ideas, but to explore them without the need to pursue them for monetary gain. I hear it. I know how that sounds. And I’ve certainly had a few “must be nice” comments from onlookers.

I’m fully aware of the opportunity I’ve created for myself here, and I’m also fully aware of the privilege I hold as someone who would even have this opportunity in the first place, so yes, it is nice. But more than that, it has been challenging for me to have the time and space to pursue ideas and purposefully choose not to fill my time with developing those ideas into real things.

Remember during the pandemic when everyone was forced to stay home and we all suddenly had time to do the things we’d been wishing we had time to do for years, but most of us didn’t do anything with it? Well, I wrote three books during that time, and I ramped up my consulting business to become the business that allowed me to take this time off five years later. I’ve always been someone who, when given the time and space, uses it. I love my downtime, don’t get me wrong, but I’m also someone who genuinely derives a lot of value and enjoyment from making things or doing things.

So given my current set of circumstances where I not only have the time and space to explore ideas, but to also act on them, I’m finding it a worthwhile exercise to pause. What I’ve found is that there is also action within the conscious inaction. And that’s what I want to explore with you now.

How Having ADHD Has Played a Role in My Life

I need to throw the stinky fish on the table and talk about what some people have called my superpower: my ADHD. I understand that a lot of people that live with ADHD struggle regularly with executive function, are unable to start projects, let alone finish them, and have a focus problem. None of that has been my struggle and even though there was a time in my life when I would have told you that I quit everything I start (I literally had a business called How to Stop Quitting), I’ve come to realize that I’m actually just able to make decisions about whether or not to continue pursuing something faster than a lot of people.

My ADHD, which was diagnosed almost 15 years ago now, is more on the hyperfocus scale. This essentially means, I’ve come to realize, that when I get an idea that I like and see value in, you should step aside. And clear my calendar. I won’t be doing anything else until that thing is finished. What I’ve come to realize over the years is that the more I get to know myself and how my ADHD plays into my lifestyle, the more I realize that the times I did quit something was simply because I didn’t really care about the outcome.

I Use to Make Excuses, Now I Know the Difference

I can apply what I’ve learned to jobs I’ve held (or not), projects I’ve started on my own, books I’ve written, friendships or relationships I’ve had, goals I’ve set and so much more. At one point in my life, I thought I was a quitter. At this point in my life, I can see clearly that I am, and have always been, discerning. Instead of squirrelling about something for a long time, I am able to quickly gather information and make a decision based on even a little bit of information, as to whether or not I want to do something.

I’ve also discovered that I usually have to get about 80% of the way into something to determine if it’s actually worth continuing to pursue and that’s where the quitter mentality has always come in to haunt me. I used to think I couldn’t finish things, but it’s clear, and feels true to me, that I didn’t need a lot of information to get going, but I did need more information to decided to keep going.

The Intersection of ADHD, Time, Space, Creativity and Reflection

Let’s recap: I’ve got loads of ideas right now. I’ve also time and space to explore and test drive those ideas. And I want to use this time to learn more about myself. Plus, I’ve got ADHD. Why does this matter? It matters because I think we spend a lot of time looking at what’s in front of us, trying to turn it into something else, instead of looking within ourselves to see what we’ve already got.

I think people shy away from trying new things or test driving their ideas because they aren’t fully formed and they aren’t willing to try something until it is fully formed. I’m capable of having an idea today, prepping to get to work tomorrow, and then taking action the next day to build an entire She Shed in my backyard. But many people would spend days, if not weeks, trying to find the exact right design, or process. I’m more of a “let’s see where this can go” kind of person and less of a “let’s go in this exact direction” kind of person.

Good or Bad: There’s Something to Take With You

What’s more is that I don’t just take action and then pout when things don’t go the way I want them to go. I’ve been debriefing life events since I was a child. I’ve been working to make meaning of situations, circumstance, people and possibility before I had the vocabulary to describe that to you. And it’s meant that on the back-end of a project, job, relationship or event, I can continue to get information long after something has ended.

This means that I never stop learning, but I’m applying that learning as I move on to the next thing. It’s rare that I’ll fall so far down on my face that I won’t get back up because I start and end everything with meaning-making.

The time I take to actively and passively reflect on my life and the events that take place within my life mean that I’ve been well equipped to handle new information and situations by applying what I’ve learned in other situations. There’s probably a reason I became an adult education expert, if I’m being honest. Adult Education is all about meaning-making and transformation. But the real reason I’m sharing this is because I haven’t really given myself a chance to think and reflect without action before; that is until I realized that I’ve been doing it all along.

The Deliberate Action of Inaction

Just as I was about to start writing this post, I had a thought about another creative project I’d been toying with lately. The point of this creative sabbatical is to explore any ideas that I feel inclined to pursue; however, the point is not to pursue every single idea I have. With the time and space available to me, it’s actually proven quite hard to just have an idea and explore it in my mind without taking any action. I’ve had lots, to be sure, and I’ve been journaling about those ideas, documenting and reflecting on them in real time behind the scenes.

But not every idea gets to become a blog, or a social media post, or even a conversation with a friend. Some ideas come and go without much fanfare in my head. Then there are the ideas that are so exciting to me that I can’t think about anything else. And those are the ideas I’m actively sitting on right now so I don’t end up back in the content-creation world I chose to leave behind a long time ago.

I Don’t Want to Go Back. I Want to Go Forward.

Years ago, while running various iterations of what would become my consulting business in instructional design, I was what you might call (and some people did) a content creation machine. If there was a platform, I was on it. If it could be created, I created it. I had such a rigorous schedule around content creation that people used it as an example of productivity and “doing it right” at social media conferences, networking events and even business ceremonies.

The comments were all the same: “I don’t know how you create so much content.” Nowadays, I’m sure people would accuse me of using ChatGPT or AI to create that much content, but it was just me and my laptop. I wrote, produced, and edited all of it, on top of my client work and whatever else I was doing. You know, like running a household and being a mom. But the truth was that it felt like it was all for not. It was one of the major reasons I decided to move into consulting: I wouldn’t have to create content for every possible client avatar at every possible stage of readiness just to sell them a $2000 course.

Moving into consulting not only increased my income (by a lot), but it helped me drastically reduce the amount of content I needed to create. My clients weren’t on Instagram. So I basically went back to using Instagram as a personal account or to promote my romance novels. No pressure situations only, thank you very much.

Intentional Action Can Be Inaction Too

So when I think about the ideas I have now, especially the ones that a) can be monetized and b) are about creating content, I find myself holding off on taking action. It’s not that I don’t want to create content: I’m creating a lot of content these days, but it’s all the kind of content I want to create, because I want to create it, not because I need to monetize it.

I wonder, and worry, if I’m being honest, that diving back to the world of content creation for the sake of financial opportunities would ruin the good vibe I’ve been feeling for the last few months. But more than that, I worry that the pressure to show up and say the right thing will just turn me into a content creation machine again. That’s the last thing I want to become.

This blog, along with any other creative projects I’m working on right now exist simply because I want them to exist. I didn’t create this platform for anyone but me. It’s a living tool I’m using to explore my creativity and make decisions about the next phase of my life. And if I have to start showing up to talk about what people want from me, then I lose the ability to freely share what feels important right now. Maybe that’s not what would happen, but because I’ve been slow rolling some of my ideas and forcing myself to question them before I take action, I’ve found these fears and worries coming to the surface.

The Flip Side of the Coin

One of the most important things about self reflection that I love is the application of critical thinking. I’m a natural critical thinker. This means that regardless of how good the argument is to do something, I’m always going to question another way, option, timing, source, or output that could emerge from a specific action. It can be exhausting at times to consider both sides of an argument, but it’s important and has served me well throughout my life.

Right now, I’m finding this skill particularly useful as I explore all of my ideas with equal interest and curiosity because it’s bringing to light the pros and cons of a decision. This is where most people spend so much time trying to get to: do the pros outweigh the cons? And are the cons worth the pros? I get there faster than most people I know. But I also spend more time in my head than most people I know, so it probably balances out.

Do I Even Want to Do This?

At the same time, when an idea like writing a book, starting a podcast, creating an offer, buying a house, or booking a client deal cross my mind, I ask myself not only the obvious questions, but the hard questions. These days, the hard question is: “Do I even want to do this?”

Just because I can do something doesn’t mean I want to do it. This is true of my consulting business. I came to the conclusion after much self-reflection that just because I can offer this consulting service, I actually don’t want to do it anymore. Once I was honest about wanting to do it, not just feeling like I should be doing it because it makes a lot of money, it was so much easier to make the decision to walk away. And this decision helped remind me that there is action in not taking action.

The different between how I live with in action and how a lot of people live with it is that I’m actively reflecting even when it looks like I’m doing nothing at all.

Where others may say, “I’ll deal with that when the time comes,” and then hope to hell the time never comes, I tend to operate more fully and honestly when I just look the problem in eyes (literally or metaphorically) and ask “Do I even want to do this?” It brings clarity in spades, and quickly. Because if I do want to do it, then I just need information for the next piece. If I don’t want to do it, well, unless I have to do it (pay bills, take care of my kid, those kinds of things), I’m probably not going to do it.

Doing Nothing is Still Doing Something

And it’s the not doing anything about anything that I can see now is so useful. It’s helped create even more space in my life to explore the ideas I do fall in love with and will stick with long enough to see if I’m actually serious about them.

This creative sabbatical is not about doing everything. It’s about doing the things I want to do. So while I’ve been actively working to resist taking action on every single idea I’ve had, I also recognize this is the exact right time and place to explore the ideas I do want to test out. I am answering the question, “If I didn’t have to worry about money, how would I spend my time?” in real life. I’ve created a situation for myself where I not only have the privilege of asking that question, but I get to answer it. That, in itself, is something I’m so incredibly proud of.

It’s not everyday that someone gets to dig deep into their life and figure out what they really want. I recognize that the year will come to an end (I’ve just started my fourth month of my sabbatical!) and I want to make the most of the days I’ve given myself. It turns out, if I didn’t have to worry about money, I’d spend my days creating, writing, napping, travelling, getting to know myself, reading, learning about life, and asking hard questions. What’s ironic is that I do that even when I have to make money, so I know I’m in the right place.

What’s Important Right Now?

If the idea of exploring your own life resonates with you, and you want to dig into what matters to you right now, consider signing up for my 5-Day Journal Challenge. I’ll send you an email everyday for five days to help you ask the questions you need to ask right now.