When's the last time you purposely paused? It could be as simple as a little silent time during a presentation to help emphasize your point, or as planned a 'real' vacation day. Here are five tips for adding a purposeful pause to your life.
According to Ad Age magazine, the slogan introduced for Coca-Cola in 1929 – “The Pause That Refreshes” – was the third best advertising slogan of the 21st Century. I can see why, it’s a great slogan. And I believe its message is one we can employ in our personal and professional lives with much greater meaning and much better results than we would achieve by simply drinking a carbonated beverage.
Here are five ways we can take a pause to refresh ourselves and through that pause produce greater results.
Refresh a presentation. As professionals we will often give presentations. One of the most important things to include in any presentation is some silent time – a pause. A pause changes the pace of a presentation and gives our listeners a chance to soak in an important point. It allows them time to answer a question in their mind. It gives them the chance to be persuaded. Don’t fill every second with the sound of your voice. Give people some mental space. Remember our job when giving a speech or presentation is to persuade or inform our audience. Pauses will help you achieve those goals.
Refresh a meeting or training session. Regardless of how absorbing or important a training session or a meeting is, people need a break. They need to stretch their legs, they need to step away from the process; they need to pause. Great trainers know that a well-timed break can improve retention of the material being learned. Outstanding facilitators know that people need some mental space in the course of an important meeting to stay mentally fresh and to make sure the best ideas are being generated. A break or a pause isn’t a luxury – it is an important part of any agenda when you have a group of people gathered.
Refresh your problem solving process. Solving a tough problem? Feeling a bit stuck? Not sure what to do next? Take a break. A few minutes or a few days (depending on the size and urgency of your problem) away will refresh and reinvigorate you in ways that might not seem possible. When we take our focus away from solving a problem or challenge we allow our subconscious mind to continue working unimpeded by our consciousness. Since our subconscious operates thousands of times faster than our conscious mind, this is a strategy you can employ with great results.
Refresh your plan. Whether you are considering your daily agenda or to-do list – or your long term goal – you need to stop, reflect and reload. Take a few minutes at the start of each day to review your major goals for the day – those things you plan to accomplish and cross off your list. Taking a short break from “doing the work” to “review the plan” will pay off throughout the day. Then, as the day progresses, take a look at your progress. These short breaks will help you refocus and re-strategize – adjusting for the inevitable changes that have occurred during the day. Of course the same holds true for your long term goals too – reviewing them often is a pause from “doing” that will pay huge dividends in the long run.
Refresh everything! Some pauses need to be longer than others. We need to create the short pauses in our lives, as we have already discussed, but we also need to make time for the longer pauses as well. Time spent on a favorite hobby. Time spent reading. Time spent with an old friend. Time spent at the spa. A day trip. A weekend get-away. A full-blown vacation. All of these things can refresh us much more completely and deeply than we might realize. Time away mentally, emotionally and physically can create fresh perspectives, new connections and renewed mental freedom that seem impossible when we have our head down working fifty miles a minute.
Before you return to your next task or read the next thing on your list, take a short break. Pause for a minute and think about what you have just read. Think of how a pause could have aided you in the recent past and resolve to use breaks and pauses more regularly and effectively in the coming days.
While a Coke might help, these pauses will refresh you in deeper and more meaningful ways – without the caffeine or calories. Think about this phrase the next time things are getting a little challenging or difficult. Think about how a break – or even a deep breath – might refresh your mind, body and/or soul in a way that refreshes your approach or attitude catapulting you to greater success.
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