Let Stillness Do the Work: The Taoist Cure for Our Addiction to Constant Fixing
We are a civilization obsessed with relentless fixing.
Fix your inbox until it’s a barren, joyless zero.
Fix your mindset with affirmations that wallpaper over anxiety.
Fix your body, your brand, your relationships; track your sleep like a stock portfolio.
Every imperfection? A problem to be solved.
Even our search for peace gets hijacked by this compulsion:
We meditate to boost performance.
We journal to optimise clarity.
We walk in silence but only if it counts as a “reset” for more productivity.
Stillness itself has become another task.
Another tactic.
Another way to do more.
But the Tao, in its soft, unshakable wisdom, offers something wildly different:
What if stillness isn’t a tactic?
What if stillness is the strategy; the fertile ground beneath all real movement?
The soul-level exhaustion of always fixing
The open loops that buzz in your brain, even during rest
Waking up already behind
The mind constantly grasping, tightening, recalculatingIt begins with placement.
The mind constantly grasping, tightening, recalculating
So you push harder. Re-plan. Reframe.
You try to think your way to peace.
But the more you do, the more the water clouds.
You stir the mud hoping for clarity and all you get is more murk.
the tao on the power of not doing
The Tao Te Ching asks:
“Do you have the patience to wait
Till your mud settles and the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving
Till the right action arises by itself?”*
—Tao Te Ching, Verse 15 (explored in Chapter 12: “Let Stillness Do the Work”)
This is not laziness.
This is precision through patience.
Stillness doesn’t mean doing nothing.
It means not interfering with what’s already unfolding.
the year i stopped forcing and found the tao
There was a season in my life when, by all external measures, I was thriving.
I was collaborating with world-class minds. Producing. Performing. Checking every box.
And inside? I was fogged.
Disconnected from my intuition. Tight with pressure.
So at my birthday party, surrounded by friends, colleagues, family, I did something radical:
“I’m taking a sabbatical,” I said. “No plan. No return date.”
Some smiled politely. Some didn’t know what to say.
But inside me, something exhaled.
I didn’t run to a retreat. I stayed in London. I walked. I read. I let go.
I waited.
And in that stillness—not silence, but deep presence—something returned.
Not a five-year strategy.
A felt direction.
When I began to move again, it wasn’t from pressure. It was from clarity.
That clarity had been waiting all along—for me to get still enough to feel it.
WHAT happens when you let stillness lead?
✹ You stop grasping and things begin coming toward you.
✹ You stop fixing and things start settling on their own.
✹ You stop overthinking and the right answer arrives through your body, not your head.
✹ You wait, you breathe and truth rises.
This isn’t stagnation.
It’s deep movement beneath the surface.
try this today: let stillness do the work
Let One “Problem” Breathe
Choose something unresolved. Don’t fix, dissect, or plan around it today. Observe it, gently. See what shifts in the absence of force.
Take a Sacred, “Non-Productive” Pause
Five to ten minutes. No phone. No outcome. Just stillness.
Let your breath find itself. Let your thoughts float by like weather.
Ask a New Question
Instead of “What should I do?”, ask: “What wants to emerge if I stop interfering?”
Affirm This to Yourself
“Stillness isn’t stagnation. It’s where clarity grows roots.”
ready to let go and let stillness move you?
Read The Strategy of No Strategy ; your modern Taoist guide to navigating complexity, finding clarity, and allowing presence to do what pressure never could.
Inside, you’ll find:
✹ Real stories of transformation through stillness
✹ Taoist wisdom on why the strongest moves begin in silence
✹ Tools for reclaiming your breath, space, and sovereignty in a world addicted to motion
✹ A powerful invitation to wait, not with fear, but with trust
Let Stillness Reveal the Clarity You’ve Been Forcing
Know someone caught in the loop of overthinking and overdoing?
Share this. Tag them softly.
Remind them:
The deepest answers don’t always arrive through action.
Sometimes, the most powerful move is to wait with presence until the water clears.
The Tao never hurries. And it always arrives.