The Power of Doing Nothing

This time of year, we’re pushed toward beginnings. Goal setting. Intention setting. Roadmaps for the year ahead. We’re asked — at work, at home, everywhere — what do you want to achieve? The question hangs in the air as if the answer should already be clear.

But the natural world doesn’t work like that.

In the northern hemisphere, January isn’t a planning session. It’s winter. The ground is frozen. Growth has paused. Energy has withdrawn inward, not because something is wrong, but because that’s how survival works.

If you’re in the southern hemisphere, the story is different. You’re in peak summer. Not mapping out new beginnings, but living vividly inside the ones already underway. Long days. Full light. Momentum that makes sense.

And yet, we’re all handed the same expectations. Begin. Decide. Accelerate. It’s no wonder doing nothing feels like failure — even when the world around us is frozen solid.

Stillness Was Never Empty

In older stories, waiting was never treated as a mistake. It wasn’t filler time, or a gap between meaningful events. It was understood as a condition in its own right.

Heroes didn’t rush from one action to the next. They waited at thresholds. They endured long nights with no clear outcome. They listened for signs rather than forcing answers. The waiting itself changed them.

The same was true of the natural world those stories came from. Seeds lay dormant beneath frozen ground, not failing to grow but choosing the only moment growth would survive. Animals withdrew, conserving energy instead of spending it. Winter arrived, and nothing argued with it.

Stillness wasn’t the absence of work. It was work done quietly.

What we call “doing nothing” would once have been recognised as preparation. A way of gathering strength without knowing exactly what would be asked of it later. That kind of waiting requires patience we’re no longer very good at. It asks us to sit with uncertainty, to trust that not all progress needs to be visible, and to accept that some seasons are meant to be endured rather than improved.

What “Doing Nothing” Actually Looks Like

Last night, it snowed here in my small Wiltshire village. Not enough to stop anything outright. Just enough to cover the ground and quiet the edges of the day. By morning, the cold had held, and anywhere the sun hadn’t reached, the snow was still there.

No melting. No slush. No rush. Just the landscape paused, doing exactly what it’s meant to do.

That kind of snow is rare here, in the south of England. Winter here is usually damp and half-hearted. Christmas in the fifties. Rain where frost should be. Two years ago today, it was warm enough that our house was flooding. 

This year, it’s different. It’s cold. It’s quiet. I love the snow. I love the cold. Freezing feels right. Freezing, an interesting idea.

Doing nothing doesn’t mean disengaging from life. It doesn’t mean giving up or checking out. It doesn't mean freezing.

It means trusting that not every moment needs to be filled, optimised, or improved. It means allowing rest to exist without turning it into recovery for the next push.

Today, my biggest task was taking the lights off the Christmas tree. But that's not really all I 'had to do'. That’s just the visible part.

The truth is, I don’t have a job right now. My real work today was applying for them. Getting up on time, helped along by a puppy alarm clock jumping on the bed and licking my face. Getting dressed even when I didn’t feel like it. Putting on makeup, not for anyone else, but because eyeliner makes me feel more like myself and keeps my hands off my face.

I ate a proper breakfast. I read for almost an hour. I took my supplements at the right time. I applied for jobs. I trained the dogs. I went for a walk. I had lunch with my partner. I spoke to a friend. I took the lights off the tree. I made popcorn. I took tea breaks. I’m watching the Eras Tour. Again. I’ll vacuum. I’ll make a YouTube video. I’ll write this blog, and probably another one too.

And somehow, threaded through all of it, is the persistent feeling that I’m doing nothing.

That’s the lie we’re taught to believe.

Because none of this looks like achievement in the way we’ve been trained to recognise it. There’s no launch. No milestone. No visible proof that something important is happening. It’s care work. Maintenance. Self-regulation. Preparation. The quiet effort of keeping a life intact while something new takes shape offstage.

The snow understands this instinctively. It covers what needs covering. It holds. It doesn’t melt just because someone expects movement.

Taking the lights off the tree mattered, not because it was productive, but because it let the season finish properly. The space it left behind is open now. Bright. Ready, without asking anything yet. Soon my creativity table will return there, my notebooks, my hobbies and half-formed ideas waiting patiently. Not because I’ve forced a restart, but because room has been made.

Nothing new was added. Something was allowed to end.

That’s the work winter does. And it turns out, it’s work we’re allowed to do too.

At Fog & Fable

Fog & Fable was built in these quieter moments. The ones where nothing is announced yet, where the world feels held rather than hurried.

We don’t rush here. We watch. We wait. We listen.

And if there’s one thing we’d invite you to do, it’s this: Think back over your day and make a list — not of what you achieved, but of what you kept going.

Did you wake up, even when you didn’t want to? Did you feed yourself? Did you take a break? Did you watch a show in bed and let your nervous system settle? Did you go outside, answer a message, drink some water, rest your eyes for a moment longer than usual?

None of that is nothing.

It’s care. It’s regulation. It’s attention. It’s life being lived in a body that needs time.

Folklore never celebrated constant motion. It honoured endurance. It honoured waiting. It honoured the quiet work that makes survival possible.

So if today felt small, or unproductive, or like it didn’t “count,” try writing down everything you did anyway. You may find that what you’ve been calling nothing
is actually the work that’s carrying you through winter.