If you are a business owner or perhaps a business leader, you know that your mind is on your business 24/7/365. As a fellow business owner, I can relate. We are taking care of business whether it is the weekend, we are on vacation, covering for another employee who had a family emergency, and the list goes on. The pace at times can be daunting. Then the economy slows, the phone stops ringing and your new business pipeline sounds like crickets. Summer hits and everyone you need to reach is out of the office. Unfortunately, our tendency is to feel a moment of panic rather than enjoying and taking advantage of the pause.
Remember recess?
When we were in grade school, we all looked forward to recess — a pause in the day to break free and rest our minds from learning. This purposeful practice somehow got lost as we moved on to high school, college, graduate school, married, had families and entered the business world. Life got too busy to pause. Suddenly at the rare time when life gives us a moment of quiet, we don’t enjoy it.
A pause is simply a break in the action, a moment of rest or a chance to reconsider something before continuing. Unlike stop, which implies a definitive end, a pause restarts after taking a break. It is a purposeful time of rest, time to think or regain composure.
Here are some tips for how we can take advantage of that oh-so-rare opportunity of a pause:
- Find a restful, quiet space to think somewhere away from your office and free from interruptions. Immersing yourself in a different setting allows your mind to open up and explore new ideas.
- Reflect on the past year. What has worked well? What did not? Jot down lessons learned and what could be done to improve the outcome. What brought you the most joy and what produced the greatest headaches?
- Determine parameters for your pause — will it be a few days, a week, a month? This gives you guilt-free permission to take the time and to prepare others to handle matters in your absence.
- Take time to learn something new. Pick up that book that you’ve been meaning to read, review notes from past conferences, revisit articles you have read and saved with the intent to act on something, read newsletters or emails from associations that have been in your email inbox since the beginning of the year.
- Reach out to re-engage and make connections — whether it be with other business owners or people that you have been meaning to stay in touch with, go have lunch or a drink and enjoy some social downtime.
When opportunity presents, enjoy the pause
provides a time for reflection and an opportunity for fresh perspective. So, the next time life presents you with the gift of pause, don’t waste it on panic. Instead, embrace it and enjoy the pause. ●
Kelly Borth is CEO and chief strategy officer at GREENCREST
