Power of the pause

I’ve always been a woman with a plan.
A list-maker. A get-it-done-before-lunch type.

Efficiency has been my love language.

And for most of my career, that’s served me, or at least, I thought it did.
I prided myself on being driven. I knew what was next, and I usually got there fast.

Until recently, when what’s next fell apart.

Losing my job stopped me cold. It wasn’t on any list. It wasn’t part of the plan.
It was a pause, one I didn’t schedule, can’t optimize, and still don’t fully understand.

At first, I treated it like a problem to solve. What should I do? What’s the next thing? How do I fill this space?

But the longer I sat with it, the more I noticed what was underneath that question: my constant need to move. To know. To do.

Where the drive came from

A few years ago, my leadership coach asked me a question I still think about:

“Where did this drive come from?”

I remember blinking, because I didn’t have an answer.
I just assumed being driven was a good thing, the hallmark of productivity and purpose.

But the more I examined it, the more I saw it for what it was: a double-edged sword.

Drive, for me, wasn’t just motivation. It was also fear.
Fear of slowing down.
Fear of being seen as less capable.
Fear of missing out on the next opportunity if I didn’t sprint toward it.

And that kind of drive, left unchecked, isn’t sustainable.
It’s a recipe for burnout, one I’ve cooked more than once.

Learning the pause

So lately, I’ve been experimenting with something that feels radical for me: the pause.

Mindfulness teachers talk about the pause between the inhale and the exhale, that tiny, weightless moment where you’re not doing either. That’s where awareness lives. It’s also where choice lives, the space between a reflex and a response.

“I’ve come to realize I’m a serial reacter working on becoming a responder.”

In leadership, that pause might look like holding silence for one extra beat before speaking. In life, it might be resisting the urge to fill the unknown with the next plan.

It’s not easy. I can feel my inner list-maker twitching, but the pause is teaching me something. It’s showing me what emerges when I stop trying to fix the moment and start listening to it.

Curiosity instead of control

This isn’t a reinvention story.
It’s more of a recalibration.

I’m still driven, but I’m learning to let curiosity, not fear, take the wheel.

So here’s the small experiment I’m trying: once a day, I’m finding one intentional pause. Before answering an email. Before moving to the next task. Before deciding what’s next.

And I’m noticing what surfaces in that tiny space between action and response.

If you’re wired like me, list-loving, action-biased, allergic to downtime, try it.
Just one pause.

You might be surprised by what you hear in the quiet.