I was chatting with some friends recently about being in the in-between. Especially as high achievers who can easily get bored once the thing we’ve been doing gains legs, comes to life and is out there. We sometimes rush to the next thing, ready for that excitement again and the birthing of the thing.
My friend said, ‘the exotic becomes familiar’. In that instant I knew exactly what she meant.
I knew exactly what she meant. Not because I’ve heard that phrase before – but because it struck something in me. Being in the in-between can feel promising, wide open and like freedom. Until it doesn’t. It becomes familiar. Stale. Sticky. And truthfully, heavy.
Here’s how I’ve been thinking about this place in time.
We are surfers, riding waves. Those of us who are wired for high achievement, for building, for doing the next thing – we live for the swell. That feeling of something gathering beneath us, momentum building, the moment we catch it just right and suddenly we’re on top again and everything makes sense. The business idea clicks. The project takes off. The version of your life that finally feels right – like it’s moving and you’re making progress.
Some people ride the wave all the way to the shore. They feel it slow, they step off, they stand on the sand and soak it in. They allow themselves to feel accomplished and proud. They breathe.
And then, on the other hand, there are people like me.
I feel the wave calming, slowing and I’m already turning around. I’m already paddling back out. Already scanning the horizon for what’s coming next before I’ve fully felt what just was. The shore barely registers – that’s not a place to stop, it’s a place to notice and move away from. Sure, the accomplishment is noted and filed away but the question immediately becomes – okay, what’s next?
For a long time I thought this was a characteristic of a successful person. The relentless forward motion, the inability to stay still, the hunger for the next thing. It feels like ambition. Like drive. And determination.
But what I’m starting to understand is that it’s also a way of never fully arriving somewhere.
the in between
Here’s what I’ve come to realize from living it – sometimes there’s no wave coming.
Not forever, but not as fast as you want it. Not as big as you expect. Just not there and you’re stuck in silence – floating, treading and waiting.
You’re out there. You’re ready. You’re watching the horizon with everything you have. And the ocean is just.. flat. Or maybe there’s a small swell that starts to build and gets your heart rate up and you start moving towards it – it could be a new idea, a possible pivot, something that feels like it might be the next thing – and then it calms down and flattens out before it ever becomes a wave. And so you’re back to waiting.
This, right here, this is the in between. And for high achievers who also happen to get bored easily – which, as you’re reading this you probably know exactly who you are – it is one of the most uncomfortable places to exist.
The in between doesn’t feel productive. It doesn’t have a metric. You can’t optimize your way out of it or work harder to make the next wave comes faster. You just have to be. Sit there, in the water, looking, waiting and feeling for that next swell. But here’s the key – not rushing it or forcing it. Trusting that the ocean hasn’t run out of waves just because you can’t see one coming yet.
That trust, that is the hardest part.
what the waiting is actually asking of you
I’ve been exploring what it would mean to be good at the in between. Because that’s where I currently am – and I want to embrace it. Not to rush through it or fill it with manufactured momentum – but to actually be in it without losing yourself to the anxiety of it.
And there are a few things I keep coming back to.
The flat water is not a sign that you peaked. It’s not evidence that the best wave already came and you missed it or you didn’t appreciate it enough. The ocean doesn’t work that way and neither do you. The next wave is coming. Your job right now is not to make it come faster – it’s to stay in the water and trust that it will.
The swells that don’t become waves aren’t failures. They’re information – they’re guides. Every idea that doesn’t stick, every direction that didn’t quite fit, every almost along the way – that’s your intuition doing its job. Showing you what’s not your so you can recognize what is. The swell that fizzles out isn’t wasted time – it’s refinement.
And maybe the most uncomfortable one: the shore deserves more than a passing glance. For those of us who are always turning back and chasing the next wave before we’ve fully arrived – there is something worth sitting with in what you’ve just built, what you just accomplished, what you just finished. Not forever. Not to get stuck on shore. But just long enough to actually feel it. Deep within yourself and accept it. The wave you rode all the way in carried you somewhere. You’re allowed to stand there for a minute and soak it in before you start to paddle back out.
a note on the waves we make for others
I want to take this somewhere slightly unexpected. So stay with me.
We talk a lot about finding our own next wave. But what my friend and I chatted about led me to thinking about the waves we create for other people – and how often we let them go unacknowledged.
In today’s world, we are consuming endless amounts of content, thoughts, products, ideas and so much more. We read, we watch, we listen, we buy. And so much of the time we do it in silence. We love something and we say nothing. We use the recipe every week and never tell the person who created it. We read the essay that spoke directly to our soul and simply close the tab without a like or comment. We become silent witnesses to waves of others that genuinely moved us – and the person who made it has no idea.
Here’s what I know from being on the other side of that: the silence is much louder than you think. Not because creators need constant validation – though I am a human design Projector and actually do need it a little – but because making things in a vacuum is one of the loneliest experiences there is. You put something real into the world and you genuinely don’t know if it hit home for someone. Or if it helped even one. Or if anyone was even there, consuming what you created.
So if someone’s work has made your week better, your habit stack stronger, your dinner table more interesting, your hard season a little more bearable – tell them. A reply, a comment, a DM, a review. It takes a minute or two and it means more than you know to them.
Treat the makers of the things you love the way you’d want to be treated if you were the one making something and hoping it connected.
Because, we’re all out here paddling. If not now, you will be again. Waiting for the next wave. Hoping someone noticed that last one.
XX
Mary
If you recognized yourself somewhere in this – if that low grade wrongness has been living with you longer than you’d like to admit – I built something for exactly this moment. Because of all my moments, seasons and years of misalignment.
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