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Being Not Doing: Authors, Let Who You Want to Be Come First and Inspire the Doing
14 of 28 big ideas from the world of coaching to grow your author business
The fourteenth in a 28-part series on 28 big ideas from coaching for authors to coach themselves, adapted from my book, The Coach Within.
“I am a human being, not a human doing.”
— Kurt Vonnegut
“If you want to be happy, be.”
— Leo Tolstoy
The magic and possibilities of being not doing start becoming more accessible with slowing it down (Lesson 13). Being with yourself and not your problems (Lesson 10) also gives us an opening into the power of being. Today, we’ll amplify the notion of making being someone primary over doing something.
The simplest version of this lesson is just as it says: be, not do. Be present. Be in the moment. Don’t do anything. Don’t perform. Don’t try to accomplish something. Be with what is now — accept and acknowledge it; don’t rate, review, or judge it. Be mindful of what is and aware of its perfection. Perfection in this case doesn’t necessarily mean ideal, rather whole and demonstrably real.
We sometimes define who we are by what we do. We do something (an activity, a job, a role)…
