When Doing isn’t the Answer

We seem to love the idea of new beginnings.

Each year invites reflection, resolution, and resolve. We set goals with the best of intentions: get fitter, learn a new skill, launch a venture, change a habit. We name the outcome and then list the actions required to reach it. The logic is tidy. The follow-through, less so.

Looking back, many of my own goals have followed this same structure: do more, do better, do differently. And while some have been achieved, I’ve come to notice something quieter beneath them all… a deeper hunger, not for new accomplishments, but for a different way of being.

What if growth doesn’t always begin with deciding what to do next.?
What if the more meaningful question is how we want to be as we move forward?

Most of us are fluent in retrospective learning. We reflect at the end of a year on what worked, what didn’t, what we gained or lost. There is value in this, of course. And yet, there is another orientation available, one that is prospective rather than retrospective. One that asks not What have I learned? but What is life trying to teach me next?

Not a new skill.
Not another capability.
But a more spacious way of being with ourselves and the world.

This kind of learning doesn’t respond well to striving.

It’s more like a feather…

If you try to grasp a feather, it flutters away; light, elusive, impossible to pin down. The more you try to catch it, the further it slips from your reach. And yet, if you slow down, soften your stance, be present, patient and hold out an open hand, the feather can land gently of its own accord.

Many of the qualities we long for such as trust, confidence, compassion, clarity, alignment, are like this. When we chase them, they evade us. When we try to “get” them through effort and force, we create the very tension that keeps them at bay.

This is where “be-ing” intentions offer a different path.

Rather than setting goals around outcomes, we set intentions for our inner state. We orient toward allowing rather than striving. We create the conditions for something to emerge, rather than trying to hunt it down.

A being intention might sound like:

• I want to be more compassionate with myself when I struggle.
• I want to trust myself more, especially when certainty is unavailable.
• I want to be truer to my values, even when it costs approval.
• I want to stay present with discomfort rather than rushing to resolve it.

These are not things that can be forced into existence. They require openness, patience, and a willingness to stay with what is unfolding. Like the feather, they arrive when we stop grasping and start receiving.

This is not about abandoning goals altogether. Doing goals still have their place. But when they are not grounded in a way of being, they often become brittle, easily broken by fatigue, resistance, or life’s inevitable disruptions.

Being intentions, by contrast, travel with us. They shape how we relate to ourselves when we fall short. How we listen to others. How we meet uncertainty. They quietly influence our choices, often without effort or fanfare.

So before setting your next resolution, you might pause and ask:

• What is the next lesson I’m being invited to learn?
• What quality of being would support the season or phase I’m entering?
• Where might I loosen my grip and open my hand?

Try completing this sentence:

This coming year, I want to practice being…

Not as something to achieve.
Not as a standard to meet.
But as a way of allowing yourself to grow into what is already trying to show itself to you.

When we stop striving and start listening, we often find that what we’ve been chasing has been waiting all along, ready to land, lightly, when we are ready to receive it.