If you refer to an activity as navel-gazing, you are critical of it because people are thinking about something for a long time but take no action on it.
[disapproval]
She dismisses the reform process as an exercise in collective navel gazing.
navel-gazing in British English
noun
informal
self-absorbed behaviour
navel-gazing
thinking only about yourself and your own problems or activities, rather than concerning yourself with the problems or activities of other people
I'm very good at motivating people to do things, so I'm a doer rather than a thinker.I've never really done much navel-gazing!
More idioms containing
navel-gazing
navel-gazing
Examples of 'navel-gazing' in a sentence
navel-gazing
Too much navel-gazing, Ms Helena Latimer, she scolded herself and pushed her way to the tube door.