The art of not trying: why good things happen when I stop forcing it

For fifteen years, when I needed to get stuff done, my neck vein would throb.

I forced conversations that felt wooden and muscled through writing blocks until my brain felt like cement.

I pushed for outcomes that slipped further away the harder I grasped for them.

I was ‘trying hard,’ you see.

Then I discovered a cool concept introduced by the Chinese, called wu wei, which means effortless action.

It was all about going with the flow of life rather than swimming against it. And I loved the idea.

It’s about recognising that life has a rhythm, and when I align with it, things flow with more ease.

Think of a river carving through rock. It doesn’t force. It simply does its thing over time.

Eventually, it creates the Grand Canyon.

How trying too hard backfired on me.

I used to believe that more effort always meant better results.

But I started noticing that my best ideas came in the shower or on my strolls. My most profound conversations with people happened when I wasn’t trying to be interesting.

My most authentic self emerged when I wasn’t trying to look good.

This wasn’t a coincidence. This was wu wei in action.

I learned this the hard way after years of creative constipation. The more desperately I tried to write something brilliant, the more lifeless my words became.

Only when I relaxed, when I stopped trying to impress and just found a way to enjoy the process, did my voice finally emerge.

What I discovered about not knowing.

Western culture worships certainty. We want five-year plans. We absolutely must know exactly what we want and control every variable.

We’re labelled lazy or disorganised if we don’t.

But I’ve learned something the Taoists understood centuries ago: there’s a cheeky level of intelligence in not knowing.

When I don’t know, and I stop winding myself up in this need, I remain open.

When I’m not attached to specific outcomes, I see opportunities that rigid thinking misses. They appear. I don’t need to force them.

I’ve watched people exhaust themselves trying to control outcomes that were never theirs to control. It’s like shouting at clouds to change the weather.

My job became learning how to dance with whatever comes. And it improved my life and business immeasurably.

How I learned to trust the process.

My thoughts used to tell me that not trying hard enough meant I didn’t care. That letting go meant giving up.

And it brought me a ton of stress.

My thoughts were wrong.

I discovered that not trying hard doesn’t mean not caring. It means caring so much that I’m willing to get out of my own way.

It means doing things when I don’t feel I have all that juicy clarity yet.

The real world actually runs on wu wei. Trees don’t strain to grow. Hearts don’t force themselves to beat.

Nature operates through effortless action, and I’m part of nature, baby.

What I do now instead.

I don’t cling to things being a certain way anymore.

That voice may be shouting at me to stay in control, but it’s now in a back room, and sounds muffled.

I notice the difference between forcing a conversation and letting it unfold naturally.

I listen to people without an agenda, or trying to sound clever or funny.

I give myself permission to create momentum when I legitimately have no idea what I’m doing.

And when I’m stuck on a problem, I step away. I go for a walk.

I rest more, knowing that this is the moment my mind processes problems without my interference, on its own, in the background.

With creative work, I show up consistently but hold the results lightly.

Why letting go requires courage.

I realised that wu wei requires courage.

Especially when this is a relatively new modus operandi for you.

It takes courage to trust that I am enough and to let go of control while life unfolds.

Most people would rather exhaust themselves trying to control outcomes than face the slightly awkward vulnerability of letting go.

But I’ve found that on the other side is a life of surprising ease.

I’ve learned to move with what appear as challenges or projects that need getting done, rather than against them.

I remember to be the river.

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