Case Study: Supercharged With A Pause

How did a simple pause supercharge two clients’ goals for 2022?

New Year Pressure

The strike of midnight doesn’t automatically clear the slate for a new beginning. 

Yet a pause, a moment of space, has the potential for a powerful reset; two recent client stories illustrate this.

Celebrations before considering goals

The Perceived Goals

• Client 1: Move their family to a new country 

• Client 2: Bored of their current role and want a new job

Challenging Mindset

The New Year may denote a separation from the past, yet unresolved ‘stuff’, or even unrecognised moments of joy, which could hamper our ability to properly define our goals. Pausing, taking a step back, can provide a powerful opportunity to challenge our mindset. Without doing so, we are failing to set up the right conditions for defining goals, which means that, even if we achieve them, it’s quite possible we won’t get the outcomes we anticipated. What’s more, we are not backing our ambitions fully. 

In these scenarios, both clients sought a focus, a plan and action points (as well as coping strategies for the stress that naturally emerges in pursuit of these types of goals). All of which sounds positive. 

However, what emerged during our conversations, which is typical of so many similar conversations, is the pressure that people put on themselves to ‘just keep moving’. Like Dory the fish (anyone who’s watched Finding Nemo will know!), there is a mindset that continuous progress and movement is the only solution. It’s like our inner dialogue is saying “well, I’ve set a goal, I must now be productive in my pursuit of it at all times”. The problem is this pressure we put on ourselves can make us blind to why we want to achieve the goal and whether it’s even the right goal. 

The Pause

In posing a single question, both clients stopped. 

Silence descended and reflection began. 

The question: “What could you learn from this year, that if left or ignored, could trip you up next year?”

The significance? 

A delay. 

A pause in thinking about the plans and actions. A moment of space. 

This pause caused the momentum of our discussions to slow down and we were able to unpack the possible challenges to achieving the goals that could be faced, whilst also bringing more understanding to why this goal means ‘progress’ for them. 

Evolving the goals - unpacking the question

“What could you learn from last year, that if left or ignored, could trip you up next year?”

Client 1: Reflecting on challenges from 2021, we uncovered that the driver for moving the family abroad was tangled up in an assumption. The assumption of hitting an age and plateauing. A ‘how life should be’ belief revealed itself. 

Discovering this belief allowed different viewpoints to be adopted. The client realised how black and white their mindset had become about this goal and how stressed they were about making the ‘right’ decision about where to relocate to.

In changing the interpretation of the goal we landed on a desire for a ‘new chapter in life’. What transpired from this reframing is that other options emerged; stay and take a stake in the current employer’s business, set up in business on their own, or short term rentals in several locations to find out if living abroad is for them. 

A reinterpretation of the goal allowed for an umbrella goal to be developed; ‘find more adventure in life’. With this reset came a huge relief from the pressure of knowing what the next move needed to be. Now it was about exploring, being curious and discovering what could be.

Over the past few weeks, the client has been able to hold conversations with their employer about greater responsibility and possible share options. As they are becoming more curious about what else could be possible and what adventure means to them, the discussions have even included what locations the business could tap into. It’s also enabled a similar conversation with their previous employer. The ambition is now for a career move that offers greater influence on future business direction and flexibility in terms of location that would benefit their growing family.

Challenging the black and white view of the goal removed the pressure for this family and opportunity has opened up for them.

Client 2: In bringing awareness to what had brought joy and satisfaction in their current role, experiences that connected them to their values of ‘making a difference, equality, connection and fairness’ were hugely rewarding. Most poignantly, the client realised how alive they felt when we talked through these experiences and how important it, therefore, is to find a role that connects with their values. 

This shift in awareness has caused a rethink relating to the search for a new job; evolving the goal from simply finding a new job, to embarking on a significant career move. 

Reflecting on the experiences of 2021 has shaped the type of employer they are considering working with. It is an empowered decision on their career direction, rather than a functional one. There is an excitement about the client, and a greater ambition is evolving as they explore what else might be possible. A brief is forming of what they want, rather than passively waiting for a job description to come along that they will retrofit their skills and experiences to.

Both of these clients are standing in their power and making decisions about their future they’d not thought possible by challenging assumptions with a simple pause. What could you learn by taking a moment once in a while?