Push or Pause? You decide.
I'm learning to practice the pause, .
And it makes all the difference.
This week I poured through my journal from my first year in business, not just to remember, but to witness. To witness where I was and where I am now.
Here's the biggest difference:
Now, I appreciate the power of the pause.
Pausing was not in my vocabulary when I launched in 2017. The title on my journal says it all, "Make It Happen".
(But what was "It" anyway?!? Honestly, some days, I'm still not quite sure.)
Reading these pages, I can witness that when I wasn't sure, I pushed.
Now, I pause.
The pushing was what was expected, what was normal. It was in the air that I breathed in my corporate environment. Driving, moving, doing. It was all part of the job. And for many of you, I know it still is.
I held an executive committee kick-off meeting with my first corporate client immediately after my last day of work. Thenextday. On a Friday.(Seriously, I couldn't even allow myself to pause for ONE DAY?!?)PUSH
Literally, on one page of my journal, I'm capturing the tears that were shed from beautiful comments made at my going away happy hour... and on the next page, I'm debriefing what it was like to attend this first client meeting. WTH?!? PUSH
(Hold on while I jump on my "Journaling is important" soapbox...
I'm so thankful that journaling was a muscle I was building or I would have forgotten all the details of the beautiful, special events of my last week, surrounded by work friends who felt like family! Journal, people!)
As I moved through the pages, I could see over and over again where I was just pushing So. Damn. Hard. Pushing against the weight of expectations. My expectations...and the expectations of others. It showed up in my pages like this, "I should be able to do this website by myself, I led a marketing team for crying out loud", "You've got an MBA Steph, why can't you figure this out?", and "I have to make this work, what will everyone think if I'm not successful?" PUSH
Sheesh. That was tough to read. My inner critic was a real B...
The programming to push, not pause, is so ingrained that we're almost unconscious of it.
But we're not really unconscious, are we? We know we are tired. We know we feel like we cannot let one thing drop. We know everyone is depending on us. We know to push through.
What would happen if you paused?
What would happen if you didn't use your PTO time to travel to your kids' soccer tournament and used it to go hiking by yourself for a day?
What would happen if you didn't check your email before you went to bed...for a whole week? Or better yet, never again?
What would happen if you carved out the time to journal for 15 minutes a day? (You knew I was going to go there, right?)
Here's what happened for me when I paused instead of pushed:
I opened up and met new people who helped me build a beautiful new community.
I created new things! I read new books that sparked me to create even more new things!
I helped a lot of new people! And, I got paid to do it!
I learned to trust myself, deep in my bones.
I remembered how to breathe. How to be.
It's a journey my friends, one I'm still on. One I'll be on for the rest of my life. And it's worth it. I'm worth it. So are you.
... PAUSE ...