Doing Less

My yoga mentor Judith Lasater routinely asks a startling question, always with a mischievous grin on her face: “I know you can do more, but can you do less?” She asks this in the context of Yoga, but she intends for it to be a question about Life. The question makes me wonder: Why do we think that doing something is always the answer? What if doing less—or not doing anything at all—was the better response to most of the situations we find ourselves in?

Here are two ways I have tried to practice this over the years. I haven’t always been successful, but that was only because I decided to DO SOMETHING sooner than I needed to.

Wait and observe. This is not always the easiest thing to do and yet it has been the wisest course of action at many points in my life. There are times when I have stood back and allowed someone else to act first or given people space to figure it out on their own without me giving my sage advice. What I’ve learned through watching other people is 1) there are many different ways to tackle life’s issues and problems and 2) I don’t always know the best way to do that.

Become a smaller target. If you’re the kind of person people come to for advice or if you just want to be helpful to others, you can easily become a BIG target when things go wrong. Ouch, I’ve been there many times! You can become a small target instead by following the wait and observe practice above and by not being attached to any result. And I do mean ANY result. Just like you I want things to go my way; this is a very human way to see life. However, once we act or refrain from acting, we have very little control over how things turn out. Take a deep breath and watch things unfold.

Right now think of a situation where you routinely do something to fix it, make life easier for someone else, or prevent something worse from happening. How could you “wait and observe” and “become a smaller target”? I challenge you to try these tactics and discover what happens when you do less instead of more.