Confronting Stillness

Stillness. The absence of movement or sound.

I love stillness — in theory. Put me on the top of a mountain, with no human beings in sight, and I feel incredibly grounded. I’d rather hike alone or spend time alone than attend a concert in a crowded place. Absence of sound? As a parent of two young kids, that sounds like luxury. Sign me up.

But the absence of movement feels more tricky to me. I love moving — and my parents say I’ve been itching to move since I was born. I feel strange when I’m not moving forward in my business and my life. But while this itch for movement serves me most of the time, it doesn’t match well with the natural slowdowns of running a business.

When it comes to pacing, running a business can feel like a rollercoaster: Wild weeks are often followed by quiet ones. You may need to sprint to meet your deadlines, and soon after you’ll find yourself with a near-silent inbox. Things almost always pick back up again but for nearly every freelancer I know, seasons of stillness are tricky.

A while back, I saw a tweet that summed up that struggle incredibly well: