Earlier this week, I was on the grounds of Lake Junaluska Assembly, a retreat center near Waynesville, North Carolina. People have been going there for more than 80 years for spiritual renewal, refreshment, learning, and thinking. During an early morning run, I spent some time thinking about my career and pondering some business problems that I need to solve.
It’s important to take time out of your daily routine to plan unless you want to stay on the same path that you have always traveled.
Pausing to plan is the most important pause one can make. I pause regularly to write, to create new speech material, and think about problems. I would encourage you to do the same.
Here are some suggestions about how to plan:
– Make pausing to plan a weekly if not a daily activity. Schedule it just as you would an important meeting and guard that time passionately as if it’s the most important item on your to-do list – it very well could be.
– Eliminate distractions by going to a quiet place or silencing notifications on your phone and email.
– Include something physical at the beginning of your planning pause, even if it’s just a brisk walk. Physical movement stimulates intellectual movement.
– Consider listening to your favorite music, adding scented candles, or drinking an aroma-filled hot beverage.
– Explore other ways to wake up your brain like puzzles, juggling, or playing a musical instrument. Or it might be getting a massage, yoga, or dancing that act as your intellectual jumpstart.
-Use mind mapping or storyboarding to take a simple idea and expand upon it quickly reserving evaluating or judging the output for a later time.
My favorite philosopher, Anonymous, once said, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always gotten.”
Planning to pause regularly can help you move past the always done it that way thinking.
#Pausitivity #LeadershipDevelopment #Pausing #StrategicPlanning #Retreat
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