Untold Truths: Are You Percolating—or Procrastinating?

Sometimes “trusting the process” is faith. Sometimes it is fear with better branding.

We say we are waiting for the right time, protecting our peace or allowing things to unfold. Sometimes that is exactly what we are doing. At other times, we already know what needs to happen and are gathering better-sounding reasons not to do it.

“Percolating is a very good word,” I said during a recent conversation.

It describes thoughts, ideas and even new versions of ourselves developing before we can fully explain them. But it also raises an uncomfortable question: are we genuinely percolating, or have we simply found a more attractive word for procrastinating?

The distinction matters because both can look like stillness from the outside.

I have thought about this while looking back over the last eighteen months to two years. There were periods when I felt lost and uncertain. An old version of me no longer fitted comfortably, but the next one had not properly introduced herself. I could feel a shift before I could describe it.

I can now see that I was not simply waiting. I was writing, working, rebuilding, questioning old assumptions, testing new ideas and making decisions before I fully understood where they were leading. Something was moving, even when the destination remained unclear.

That is what genuine percolation does. It changes us beneath the surface before the results become visible.

Transformation often begins by unsettling what we thought we knew. New thoughts need room. New ideas require us to question old ones. Growth cannot happen while everything within us remains committed to staying the same.

Not every transformation arrives with a dramatic big bang. Even the things that appear to happen out of the blue rarely begin there.
In May, I talked about planting seeds. In June, I put a date on hope and decided to win by faith. July taught me to notice blessings and abundance. August began to unravel things I had not known were ready to move. Now September feels full of possibility.

It may look as though something suddenly changed. It did not. September did not create what I am seeing now. It simply made visible what had been percolating for much longer.

But this is the part we must not romanticise: percolation requires participation.

Even during uncertainty, something must be moving underneath. A belief is being questioned. An idea is gathering shape. Information is being absorbed. A habit is changing. A difficult truth is becoming harder to ignore. We may not have a finished answer, but we are engaging honestly with the question.

Procrastination feels different. It repeatedly circles an answer we already know because accepting it would require action, discomfort or loss. It asks for more time without doing anything useful with the time it has already received.

Trusting the process cannot mean refusing to participate in it.

Perhaps the question is not simply, “Why has nothing happened yet?” Perhaps it is, “What is changing beneath the surface while I wait?”

Are you thinking differently? Are you making quieter but more deliberate choices? Are you gathering courage, knowledge or clarity? Or are you using the language of becoming to avoid the risk of beginning?

There is no shame in admitting that we have been procrastinating. Recognition is movement too, provided we do something with it. Nor is there any need to force what is genuinely still forming.

A new version of you may already exist in fragments: in what you no longer tolerate, what now excites you, the questions you have begun asking and the life you can suddenly imagine. She may not be ready to introduce herself, but that does not mean she is absent.

Perhaps the #Unshakable truth is that percolating and procrastinating can look identical from the outside. The difference is what is happening underneath. One is the quiet work of becoming. The other is fear buying time.

So ask yourself honestly: are you avoiding your next move, or is your next version still percolating?

‘See’ you next week.

IG Handle: @unshakable.is.a.state.of.mind