Pausing For The Benefit Your Career

In a world where things are measured only in what we can see or indeed spend, it is very difficult to make the space to benefit from pausing. I am not talking here of the rigorousness of a mindfulness technique, whilst I know this is powerful, what I am bringing to the fore is the notion that we don’t always need to be ‘doing’ even in our careers, in order for something to be happening. The biggest shifts have always taken place for me when I have slowed enough to breathe, to catch up with myself, and only then do all the bits of ‘doing’ that have preceded this moment become a place of integrated ‘being’. 

It’s amazing what happens in ‘the pause’. As a ‘young coach’ I did some of my training as a practitioner on the phone. Both coach and coachee learned that if we did not pause (& really I had to learn to count to ten so I did not interrupt the process!), to sit with it, feel the echoes and resonances of what had just been voiced, to let it integrate. If we didn’t pause we missed the whole bloody point! 
As an active individual I have learnt that the pauses are REALLY powerful. Consider times you are on a train and stare out of the window and the calm that comes from that. When we pause it appears nothing is happening. When we pause, this is actually the time the ‘transitions’ take place, the deeper ‘below ground’ shifts and roots that will eventually lead to the fruit or flower.

So, how can we give ourselves ‘permission to pause’. Even the sea, who appears to be in motion all the time, takes time to pause and gather her energy and so must we all, in order to move forward renewed.
Perhaps this means we need to actively schedule in pauses. Find the place where is it you are most at peace when you are still? Make sure you go there, regularly, allow the transitions that are happening invisibility but totally fundamentally and pause. It is your job is to find your own way to best capitalise on this essential part of your professional development.
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