The idea of ‘evidence-based practice’ has been turned into a blunt instrument to designate different ways therapeutic approaches into ‘good vs bad’ or ‘ethical vs unethical’. Or ‘funded vs unfounded’.

Understandably, this has lead to the criticism that research is limited in its ability to accurately assess what works in the complexity of the real world. Which is fair. Research into the nature of research lays bare a myriad of flaws, artefacts and overreach in how we conduct and interpret the studies we then rely on.

But to dismiss ‘evidence-based’ entirely is just as unhelpful. Imperfect as the research may be, it still offers insights we would struggle to achieve from our individual experience alone.

There is, however, a biased cherry-picking of what evidence is attended to in the first place that prioritises what we can standardise, measure and put into a manual. And we risk ignoring other bodies of research that can inform our approach to complex human problems.

The process or ‘what works’ literature highlights the significance of therapist and therapeutic relationship factors that may contribute more to outcome than the specific therapy being offered. How we treat people matters.

We have whole disciplines beyond talk-therapy psychology that study what helps humans to thrive within themselves, within communities, within societies, within our ecosystems.

We also have rich wells of indigenous knowledge and systems that have been tested and refined not over 5 or 50 or 100 years, but over thousands and tens of thousands years.

We don’t need to throw out the idea of ‘evidence-based practice’, we need to be more discerning about what evidence we pay attention to, and be realistic about how much value we can place on any one part of the bigger picture.

When we talk with people about change, there’s often a gravitational pull to get into planning as soon as possible. That’s where most of our training has been focused – all the things we can do together or teach the person to do for themselves. It’s particularly hard to resist the urge when we’ve heard reasons for change and they’re clearly considering it.

Yet moving too fast into solutions can be one of the quickest ways to slow the work down. We can get bogged into a quagmire of ‘yes buts’ and renewed ambivalence. We hear the word yes but it feels like no. Not yet. Not that. We might get frustrated – they seemed so ready, they’re so close to experiencing relief. We might even start to judge. Or feel judged when we’re trying so hard to help. But maybe in our optimism we just took a step too far or too soon.

So how do we know when it’s time to move from drawing out the meaning of the change into preparing for action? One strategy is to do a last sweep for why the change matters – much like doing a last check of the hotel room to make sure we haven’t left anything behind and our passport hasn’t slipped under the bed.

We can summarise what we’ve learned from the person about what the change means, and ask for what we have overlooked: What else might this change mean for you? How else might it help? What have we missed?

Once they’ve found all the why’s they can think of for now, we can ask them what they’re ready for: Where would you like this conversation to go next? How do you feel about looking at some possible next steps? What ideas have you already had?

Then we’re more likely to be travelling together without accidentally having left something – or someone – valuable behind.

I’ve now asked thousands of people in workshops and conferences to imagine seeking help for a significant problem that they would rather not talk to anyone about but have been unable to resolve it by themselves. What kind of helper would you want to go see? What qualities would they have? How would you want to feel talking with this person? And in over fifteen years of asking this question, I have never once heard:

“I’d want to see someone who follows a manual”. 

“I’d want someone who expects me to set goals in the first appointment.”

“I’d want to see a helper who’s so overworked they’re burning out”.

“I’d want them to assume they know more than me.”

“I’d want someone who gives up on me when I feel stuck and tells me to return when I’m ready.”

“I’d want them to be dismissive when they find out I’ve been doing my own research on the issue.”

“I’d want to see three different people for intake, assessment and treatment.”

“I’d want someone who spends the time filling in forms.”

I could continue but we already know what people want – it’s pretty much what we want. We want to see someone who wants to see us, is present and gives us their full attention. We want to be seen, heard and understood. We want to be accepted and taken seriously by someone who is non judgemental and treats us as an equal. We want someone who is skilled and has something to offer, but is also curious about what we have to offer. We want someone who is genuine and caring, with healthy boundaries and is responsive to our individual differences.

It can sound like we want a miracle, a zen-like mystical creature who is all knowing and can read our minds. But maybe what we really want is a conversation with another human who is well-rested, well-supported and well-trained, and knows we matter, they matter and the work matters. Because we can work it out together from there.

Professional athletes and keen amateurs will be familiar with the idea of deload week – a planned block of lower intensity training to support recovery and overall improvement. When you look at how hard they train every other week, you’d think it would be a relief, like a cheat meal or a well deserved luxury.

But deload week is surprisingly unpopular. It feels like slacking off or, worse, that the recent gains might be lost. For many it’s a learned discipline to follow the programme rather than sneaking in extra training when the coach isn’t looking.

People in the helping professions and carer roles are often the same. It’s easier to go full intensity, past the point of risking burnout, than to build in ways to sustain our energy for the long haul. By the time we get to holidays, we’re usually long so overdue for rest that we spend most of the time recovering. And weekends, lunch breaks and sick days aren’t enough to do more than catch our breath or hit a brief pause.

Yet taking time for intentional periods of reduced effort can enhance our overall performance, often in surprising ways. It’s not just a week to prioritise sleep and consciously aiming for ‘good enough’ rather than all-out effort. These weeks can foster creative thinking, integrate prior learning and reclaim joy, not just for you but for the people around you.

Like with athletes, it takes time, experimentation and learning to sit with the initial discomfort of feeling like we’re not doing enough. It might take trial and error to find the best version for our lives right now. We might start small with just a few hours or a day, and then build up. We can schedule it into our diary, listen to our body, vary intensity or deliberately book in more enjoyable parts of our work for that week. However we do it, the real benefit comes when we learn to deload before we desperately need it.

We’re often urged to ‘find our why’ like it’s out there, waiting to be discovered, or lost down the back of the sofa. Our ‘why’ sounds like a magical key that will unlock potential and achievements with the beautiful energy it unleashes. And who wouldn’t want that?

But maybe this version of finding meaning is more like a Hollywood romance that ends with the couple getting together, just before the hard work begins. Because finding our sense of purpose isn’t a thing, it’s a relationship to be cultivated.

We need to woo what matters, take it on dates, do laundry with it, go to therapy together and check in with each other at the end of the day. The real magic comes in turning up over and over to face our hopes and fears, our insecurities and strengths, our urge to control and the need to let go.

Only then, over time, we accumulate memories that delight us or move us to tears. We discover we’ve grown in ways we never dared to imagine. We find solace in knowing we showed up for what matters, or what matters showed up for us when we needed it most.

We’re not seeking a mysterious prize to be grasped like a trophy at the end of the race. It’s more about earning the kind of relationship that, for all our imperfections, lets us be a more intentional, courageous version of ourselves. And maybe that’s what we were looking for all along.

It’s easy to get caught in the busy-cycle of consume-do-achieve. If we get stuck in traffic or a queue, or need to wait for an appointment or meeting, it’s natural to feel frustrated or impatient. Our mind is already itching to get to the next thing.

But what are we being impatient for? For time to have passed, be over and never coming back? Like the space between meals, between words, between notes in a song, moments we want to discard can become precious in their own quiet way.

They add to the rhythms of our day, creating texture and relief. They offer a counterbalance to busyness with an opportunity to observe-digest-reflect. And sometimes, something emerges that surprises or delights us, we just needed to slow down enough to be present when it turned up.

I recently came across a LinkedIn post on how to get your book on the New York Times best seller list. The tips themselves were practical, and described pretty much what I’d seen several recently successful business and productivity authors do. And it was one of the most depressing things I’ve read in a while – and let’s face it, there’s stiff competition for that these days.

The gist of the article was to minimise the focus on writing, forget your inner poet and embrace your inner CEO instead. It was about marketing, building a brand, leverage, products, to be the one percent of the one percent who ‘make it’. And there’s nothing wrong with that if that’s what you want to do.

But what the author didn’t talk about was what you might lose if you follow their plan. Because even those who make the best seller list will tell you it felt good for maybe 24 hours. Sometimes less. And there they are, back in their same body, with all the same insecurities they had the day before, in their same life. Perhaps wealthier, likely with more doors opening, and now faced with even more opportunities that pull them away from what made them love writing or their field of interest in the first place, with the added pressure to do it again.

And if you don’t make that not so holy grail? What gets lost when we swap art for algorithms, grace for grind, magic for marketing? There’s a risk we kill the very things that make life worth living and drive away the people we most want to connect with through relentless hustle. And the risk to us as a society? It’s a lot of noise with very little substance.

I’m not saying to give up on big dreams. Someone is going to be top of the best seller list, win gold at the Olympics, or build a billion dollar business. Why not you? But there is also greatness in the far more humble impact you can have closer to home, in real people’s lives, by embodying what you hold most dear.

Curiosity is a wonderful thing. But it can make us so hungry for more knowledge and skills that we feel saturated. Responsibility can make us cram in so much learning that we feel bloated. And integrity can overwhelm us with the expectation we need to integrate it all into our practice.

Or maybe that’s just me. But if it sounds familiar, we can ask ourselves what can I learn again? What do I already know is valuable and could do just a bit better? What good foundations can I build on? What could I refresh or revive?

We can do the familiar with more intention. Do the usual with a little more pause and consideration. We can return to old gems and breathe new life into them with a little more depth from what we know now. We can practice ways to sustain the good things we do that tend to fade under pressure.

Of course, we’ll keep learning new things. It’s necessary. And it’s rewarding. But let’s leave room to rediscover what we already know. Just because we’ve met it before doesn’t mean it isn’t worthwhile meeting it again. And again.

For myself, I could do a lot worse than to keep coming back to speaking less, listening more and evoking what the other person already knows but might also be ready to learn again.

Last year I did a cooking class in India. The instructor refused to give us a recipe for each dish, instead wanting us to be guided by our palate and instincts. We had a limited spice set that covered all the bases: digestion, health, salt, bitter, sweet, sour, umami and heat.

There were some guiding principles for the order to add spices and a general flavour profile we were aiming to create for each dish, but the depth of flavour came from tasting and adjusting throughout the cooking. There was no correct amount of anything, just a desire for the final version to be delicious.

When it was time to check the balance of flavours, our first urge was to ask her for direction. But she refused. “It’s your dish. You’re the one who’s eating it.” She encouraged us to pay close attention to what our senses were telling us, and to trust our judgement on what to add and how much. Then add 60 percent of that. Let it settle. Then taste again.

It was such a lovely metaphor for a mindful way to live. Know what matters. Choose a limited but well-rounded set of key ingredients. Be present. Be intentional. Be mindful of all of your senses. Embrace your own preferences. Trust your intuition. Take action.

Taking the metaphor a step further we can set our sights on the ideal, then do 60 percent. Make the action bold enough to make a difference but modest enough to be sustainable and allow room for further adjustment. Give it some time. Review and adjust. Share and savour. Keep going. With consistency and repetition, instincts become a craft and the process becomes a rhythm that can carry us through the ups and downs.

We humans have a complicated relationship with the idea of ‘enough’. The fear of not doing enough is a trap anyone can fall into if they care about what they do. The fear of not being good enough is one of the most common and wounding core beliefs that holds people back from their dreams and from each other.

‘Not enough’ can be a motivational war cry to inspire us to dig deeper in service of our ambition or community. Or be dangled in front of us by astute marketers and social engineers to keep us drudging along a path of constant consumption, endless subscriptions and relentless work. And not enough food or air or clean water or medicine or love can kill us.

At the other extreme there’s the richest people in the world, with far more than they could ever consume in a thousand lifetimes, who are hell bent on acquiring more no matter the cost to others or the planet. Another 100 billion won’t fill the emotional hole they’re trying to fill.

Few of us are immune from the siren call of enough, the prize just beyond reach, just beyond that next purchase or promotion or praise. It’s like we all played Hungry Hippos as kids and got the message that’s how we play the game of life. Just. Get. More. Or lose.

‘Not enough’ is a cue, not a cure. It’s a signal to investigate our own discomfort and deeper needs. We can be curious and follow the trail of breadcrumbs to its source. “If I had/did/was that, then I would have/feel… and if I had/felt/was that I would have/feel…” and so on.

Sometimes we find we’ve been chasing a unicorn, an unrealistic state of certainty or contentment. Sometimes we find we were chasing something we had all along but it looked too humble and familiar to seem important. And sometimes we find we were chasing the wrong thing. We didn’t need more knowledge, we needed more energy.

But maybe the word ‘enough’ was telling this all along. At least in English. Just look at it. It’s complicated. The spelling is hectic. The pronunciation is bewildering. There’s a lot going on. And indeed there is.