What Happens In The Space Before The Next Thing Begins

You know, it’s a funny thing, this space between... the end of one big push and the start of the next one.

We talk about momentum and finish lines, about goals and getting things done. But very rarely do we talk about the liminal space - that brief, disorienting pause where the engine idles and the map hasn’t been unfolded yet for the next leg of the journey.

I was thinking about this the other day, sitting by the lake after a long stretch of travel. The camera was charged, the phones were silent, and for the first time in months, there was no immediate, urgent ‘Next Thing’ screaming for attention.

It felt… unsettling.

Like walking into a room expecting music and finding only a low hum. Our modern programming tells us this space is a void to be filled, a gap in productivity, a signal to find a new mountain to climb. We swipe and scroll and plan and book, desperate to avoid the silence. We treat the stillness like a defect.

But what if that silence is the most fertile ground we have?

Think about how nature works. The forest doesn’t go straight from peak autumn color to the bloom of spring. There is winter. A deep, frozen, seemingly dormant pause. On the surface, nothing happens.

But underneath, the sap is drawing back, the roots are thickening, the soil is resting. That absolute stillness isn’t the absence of action; it’s the restructuring of potential.

In our own lives, this in-between period - the day after the diploma is hung, the week after the big project ships, the silence that falls when a relationship finally ends - is where the real integration happens. It’s when the heat of the experience cools enough for the shape of the lesson to become visible.

You can’t truly learn from a failure while you’re still sprinting away from it.

You can’t savor a triumph while you’re already writing the business plan for the next one.

This space before the next thing begins is where you stop being the doer and start being the observer. It’s the gap in the breath. It’s the moment the pitcher holds the ball, just before the wind-up. Everything that has happened so far - the struggle, the late nights, the sudden unexpected grace - is settling into the marrow of who you are. The truth is, the next thing can’t be truly new or truly different if it’s just built on the frantic, unexamined energy of the last thing.

So, when you find yourself in that unscripted moment - that quiet Sunday afternoon, that empty stretch on the calendar - don’t rush to fill it with noise. Don’t let the old momentum dictate the new direction.

Stop. Look around.

Notice the texture of the air. Let the weight of the last experience finally drop. Because what happens in the space before the next thing begins is not nothing. It is the subtle, profound process of becoming the person capable of doing the next thing better.

What if the ultimate act of courage isn’t the starting or the finishing, but the willingness to simply wait in the middle?