Set the Page Aside
It's percolation season
This morning, I sat with watercolor paints, just playing around.
The snowy trees outside looked magical, but I don’t do fir trees very well, so I wasn’t trying to capture them. I just let the paint do what it does, and finally, it happened.
I was tempted to put a mountain behind it, but I knew that would ruin it. So I stopped myself from overworking and set the page aside by the window.
It’s year-end.
Others are posting their numbers and setting ambitious goals for 2026. And here I am, painting trees.
For most of my life, I believed my worth was measured by my output. That rest had to be earned, and stopping before it was perfect meant I had failed. So making art that serves no productive purpose feels counter-intuitive. But, that's the point.
Not working is also a form of work.
My executive coaching clients are busy leaders who are sometimes too slammed to sleep.
Many come in wanting strategies to do more in less time, when what they really need is permission to pause. Permission to get quiet enough to hear what they actually need, instead of filling every moment with motion.
My friend, the artist Kate Mundie, in “When is a Painting Finished?” gives this advice:
If a painting fills you with frustration, if even looking at it makes you queasy, turn it to face the wall and give it time. You may come back to it later and see something worth pursuing in a new painting.
Kate’s describing percolation: stepping back so your brain can work in the background. An active form of processing that happens only when we stop actively processing.
Before you can see what actually matters, or what you actually need, you need time to percolate on it.
The best ideas and solutions come from those quiet spaces.
The year is ending beginning.
You’re probably feeling pressure to have it all figured out—new goals, fresh starts, ambitious plans.
Resist that urge.
Instead, give yourself permission to define where you actually are right now. Not where you should be. Where you are. Think about what this next season might require of you, and what you might need to let go of so you can make space for what really matters.
Don’t add mountains, don’t overwork it.
Percolate.
Set the page aside by the window. When you come back to it, you’ll see what it needs.
It is a very nice tree. And if one insists on assigning value, it’s in the mental space the act of painting creates. It’s not always the finished thing that matters most, but what making it makes possible.
Good stuff !!!