Trust me in this!

We all like wins, right?  What if I told you that I know how you can win this week?  Would you be interested?  Would you lean in?  What if I told you that I can almost guarantee success if you do one important step?

Who’s with me?

So… do I have your attention?  Do we have some win-seekers out there?  Who doesn’t want to win?

Ok… without further ado… I give you the simple solution…

The Pause

But it’s so simple!  Wait… what does that even mean… the pause?

I thought you would never ask.

Here’s the thing… the pause is a super power.  Why?  Because we are so reactive as a culture and as a people in general.  We have gotten that way because everything happens so fast in our lives.  We scroll and if something doesn’t catch our eye in a cazilionth of a second, we are on to the next thing.  We see a post on social media that triggers us or lights us up and we react instantly- we make a comment safely from behind our keyboard without having to look anyone in the eye.  Or we block someone.  Or unfriend them.  And that is only on social media or online.

What about in person?

How would our world change if we were less reactive?  We move so fast throughout our days and through our phones and meetings and emails that when we get home and someone says something we don’t want to hear, we fire back the first thing that comes to our mind and there just might be a strain in the relationship as we didn’t measure our words.  Faster and faster.  Very little thought.  Living at the speed of reactivity.  What could possibly go wrong?

What if there was a better way?

I can be reactive.  Very reactive.  Who’s with me?  I tend to want to fix it.  That is my default.  But that isn’t the only answer and it often isn’t the right one.

Enter the pause.

The beautiful pause.

I truly think our world would be better if we embraced the pause.  Think about it… What if instead of firing back a response, we first paused and considered our response and how it might affect the one we are talking to?  What if we crafted a response that wasn’t so reactive?

What if when we are about to pick up our phones for the 165th time for the day, we asked ourselves why we are picking it up and instead just paused and observed the world around us?

Who’s with me?

What if the next time one of our friends or loved ones had something they wanted to share with us, we paused our busy day and just listened and then asked some good questions and made them feel heard?

What if instead of always having our head down and moving forward, we paused and looked up and maybe… just maybe… smiled at someone?

What if our phone wasn’t the first thing to come out of our pockets when we had two minutes at a traffic light and we instead embraced the beauty and stillness of that pause?

What if we found five minutes out of our day…

Just five minutes… to pause and be quiet?

Each time we choose into the pause, we are choosing to win.  You don’t have to fire back an immediate response almost all the time.  You can think it over before answering.  You don’t have to always retreat to your phone.  Even though it is the easy choice.

Pause= Presence= WIN!

Embracing the pause has made all the difference for me.  It allows me to be present.  To #WINtheNOW.  I invite you to experiment with the pause this week.  And let me know how it goes. I would love to hear about your wins!  You can send me a message here to let me know.

But in the meantime… know I am rooting for you.  I believe in you!  And I truly believe that for you… #gooddaysareahead.

And if you want to talk about how to take the next step to becoming the best version of you, let’s talk!