Some Things Can't Be Rushed Without Losing What Makes Them Valuable
- Patricia Ezechie
- Jul 8
- 4 min read
Every Morning I Wander Into the Garden
Every morning, before I start work, I wander into the garden. I drink a glass of water, pull on my clogs and go outside to see what's changed overnight. Sometimes I pull out a few weeds. Sometimes I notice something needs tying in. And sometimes I simply stand there for a moment, looking.
At the moment, I'm growing squash, courgettes and peas. The squash seem to grow overnight. I'll often find a stem that's reached beyond the arch I'd hoped it would follow, so I gently guide it back, giving it the support and space to keep growing in the direction it was always trying to go.
Standing there the other morning, it struck me that gardens grow very differently from the way many of us expect our lives to.
We don't make a garden flourish by pulling harder.
We don't rush seedlings because we're impatient for the harvest.
We don't stand over them demanding that they hurry up.
We create the conditions they need, we pay attention, and we trust that growth will happen in its own time.
It made me wonder why we're so willing to offer that patience to a garden, but so rarely to ourselves. So many of us live as though the answer to every important question is to try harder, think faster, decide sooner or push ourselves a little more. We assume that if we haven't found the answer yet, the solution must be more effort.
My own experience has often been the opposite.
The harder I've pushed to find the answer, the further away it has seemed to become. When I've tried to force clarity, I've often found myself going round in circles, pursuing ideas that never quite felt right or making decisions before they were ready to be made.
It wasn't that I wasn't thinking enough.
It was that I wasn't giving myself the conditions that allowed a different kind of thinking to emerge.
Some Things Can't Be Rushed
Over the years, I've come to realise that some of the most important questions in our lives don't respond well to pressure.
Questions about our work.
Our relationships.
Our health.
Our identity.
The direction we want our lives to take.
They ask something different of us. They ask for space.
One of the phrases my partner and I use is "having a brain treat."
Simply giving yourself permission to think without an agenda.
To wonder.
To follow an idea simply because it interests you.
To let your mind explore without feeling obliged to turn every thought into a decision, a plan or an action.
That might sound unproductive in a world that celebrates speed and certainty. I've come to believe it's one of the most productive things we can do. Because curiosity works differently from decision-making.
Curiosity needs space.
It needs room to wander, to notice, to connect ideas that didn't seem connected before. The moment we demand certainty from it, we often close it down.
I've seen this in coaching conversations for years.
People rarely arrive with a single question that can be solved in an afternoon.
More often, they arrive carrying a life that has become crowded by responsibilities, expectations, assumptions and ways of thinking that once made sense but no longer fit.
The work isn't usually about finding a quick answer.
It's about creating the conditions in which they can begin to hear themselves again.
That's often when possibility quietly enters the conversation.
Not as a dramatic revelation.
As a gentle question.
What else might be possible?
I've also noticed that this is true far beyond careers.
Children don't flourish because we rush them.
Relationships don't deepen because we force them.
Trust doesn't grow on demand.
Recovery can't be hurried.
Learning takes time.
Ideas mature gradually.
Gardens grow in seasons.
Some things can't be rushed without losing what makes them valuable. So perhaps we're not as different from gardens as we'd like to think.
Our potential doesn't emerge through pressure.
It emerges through the conditions that allow us to reconnect with ourselves,
think more clearly,
and notice what has always been there.
Maybe that's why creating space isn't a luxury.
It's one of the conditions that allows possibility to emerge.
So perhaps the most important thing we can do isn't to find the answer today. Perhaps it's simply to create enough space for the right questions to stay with us for a while.
Beacuse sometimes that's where the real growth begins.
Listen to this week's podcast
This reflection grew from Episode 20 of Proactive Empowered Careers® Podcast where I explore why possibility often begins with creating space rather than making immediate decisions.
🎧 Listen here ⬇️
Continue Exploring
A question to sit with...
What in your life might need a little more space, rather than a little more pressure?
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