Will pausing slow you down?
Read time: 4 minutes
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Will pausing slow you down?
A few years ago, I came across a story about Indra Nooyi that has stayed with me ever since.
Not because it was dramatic or extraordinary on the surface, but because of how quietly powerful it was.
Despite leading one of the world’s largest organizations and operating in environments where every decision carried weight and urgency, she cultivated a simple but intentional practice: before making important decisions, she would pause. She would give herself space to think, to reflect, and to respond with clarity rather than react to pressure.
That stayed with me because it challenged something I had believed for a long time, and something I see so many women around me still believing…
That ambition must always look like movement, speed, and constant action. That if we are not doing more, pushing harder, or moving faster, we are somehow falling behind.
But what I have learned, both through my own journey and through working closely with so many high-achieving women, is that your biggest breakthroughs rarely come from pushing harder. They come from the pause.
If you think about the last time you felt truly stuck, whether it was a difficult decision at work, a complex stakeholder dynamic, or a situation where there simply didn’t seem to be a clean way forward, you will likely recognize a familiar pattern.
You probably leaned in harder. You spent more time thinking about it, trying to force clarity, revisiting the same options over and over again, hoping that effort alone would unlock the answer.
And yet, the breakthrough didn’t come in that moment of intensity.
It came later, when you stepped away. Perhaps in the middle of a shower, or during a quiet walk, or in a moment when your mind finally loosened its grip on the problem.
That is not a coincidence. It is how your brain is designed to work.
When your mind is constantly occupied – flooded with urgency, noise, and the subtle pressure to perform, your thinking narrows. You default to what is familiar, what feels safe, what you have already considered.
But when you allow even a brief moment of stillness, something shifts.
Your perspective expands, and you begin to see beyond the surface of the problem into what is actually driving it.
This is why, when I observe the most effective and grounded leaders, there is one quality that consistently stands out to me, even though it is rarely spoken about or formally measured. It is their ability to pause – consciously and deliberately – before they respond.
In practice, this does not look like withdrawing from responsibility or stepping away from ambition.
It looks like taking a couple of minutes in silence before walking into a high-stakes meeting instead of filling that space with scrolling.
Or allowing yourself a breath before answering a difficult question, so that your response comes from clarity rather than reactivity.
Or choosing not to match the emotional intensity in a tense room, but instead becoming the person who steadies it.
And perhaps most importantly, it looks like intentionally protecting pockets of time in your day where no input comes in – no messages, no decisions, no noise. Just space to think.
This space is where clarity lives.
If you are navigating a life that is already full – with the demands of your career, your family, your responsibilities, and everything in between, this becomes even more critical…
Because when your external world is constantly demanding your attention, your internal world needs space even more.
What I have come to believe, very deeply, is this:
Stillness is not the opposite of ambition. It is what amplifies it.
Without stillness, ambition can quickly turn into exhaustion, where you are constantly doing but not necessarily moving forward in a meaningful way. But when ambition is supported by moments of pause and reflection, it becomes sharper, more intentional, and far more sustainable.
So instead of asking yourself how you can do more this week, I want to invite you to consider a different question: where can you create space, even in the smallest way, to pause?
I’ll leave you with this to reflect on:
What is one small practice you can introduce this week that would create just a little more space for stillness in your very full life?
Listen to my new podcast with Dominic Siow
Recently, I spoke about on the Inspiring Leadership podcast with Dominic Siow, where we explored something that many high-achieving women experience but rarely articulate: the quiet gap between success and fulfillment.
When we don’t create space to pause, reflect, and realign, it’s easy to keep chasing goal after goal…only to arrive and feel like something is still missing.
There’s actually a name for this – the arrival fallacy – the belief that “once I get there, I’ll feel fulfilled.”
But what I’ve come to realize is that fulfillment doesn’t come from constantly moving forward. It comes from aligning what you’re achieving externally with who you are becoming internally.
And that alignment is only possible when you create moments of stillness.
If this resonates with you, I’d really encourage you to watch the full conversation. It’s a deeper, more honest exploration of success, ambition, and what it truly means to feel fulfilled in the life you’re building.
→ Watch the podcast here:
I’d love to hear what stayed with you.
With warmth + intention,
Bhavna