Since I started my journey as an entrepreneur (20 years ago), I have had to balance two tendencies within myself.

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1. wanting to share what I have, bringing something useful to my network and society

2. my need for introspection and retreat as I develop depth within a given field.

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When I go online, and I read what successful entrepreneurs share, it often sounds like this: "Work hard and work consistently, do more, do it better, be out there."

"If you are going to post on social media, do it daily, do it consistently."

Nothing wrong with that advice, yet it lacks something I found to be true, at least for me.

I can be in communication with a lot of people, and then I want time alone.

I can write 20 posts in one day, and then I want time to recharge creatively.

When I was working as a performer, I would find myself suddenly having no drive to dance at all every year, usually after an intense period of performing and rehearsing.

The hard thing about these periods was not that I had no drive to move, no creative impulse, but that I had the expectation that I should.

It took me a while to realise that this was simply normal for me, that after intense periods of doing or learning, I would have a period of integration and less apparent movement.

When I switched over to coaching however, and then going from a one to one practice to running a team and a whole centre, I could see myself fall into the hum on social media that would suggest that without a consistent input and performance, little could be accomplished.

Yet again and again I find this to be untrue in my experience.

Some of the best ideas come to me outside of work, outside of a conversation, outside of performing for the business.

My voice develops both in engaging in learning and training and in the times I go quiet to find what's true for me.

Action doesn't need to be outwardly recognised. It can be a quiet practice of being home and thinking and writing and walking and playing.

The more I let go of the expectation of being like everyone else the more I recognise the natural flow of my own being. It goes in waves and flows intense and then it's quiet.

Creating my work doesn't need to be pressing myself into what worked for others, it can be being inspired by that and then adapted to how you work.

Listening to my tendencies has enabled me to be calmer in the times it seems like I am standing still, allowing for the process to take place, knowing that the active times are just around the corner.

This doesn't suggest being inactive and having no action; what I am suggesting is that action for you might look very different than what we normally think one must do.

So in the spirit of that, let yourself be inspired by what I write, and be free to discard what doesn't fit you.

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