Your Next Clear Move
Welcome to Your Next Clear Move™—the podcast for leaders, professionals, and high-capacity humans who are done “getting ready” and ready to move.
I’m Debbie Peterson, Leadership Readiness Expert, and in each episode I deliver grounded insight, clarity-driven mindset strategies, and one actionable step to help you stop the drift and lead yourself forward.
This isn’t about fixing what’s broken. It’s about reconnecting to what matters—and making decisions that align with who you are and how you want to lead next.
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Your Next Clear Move
Permission to Pause: Why Leaders Need It Most
Ever felt like your never-ending to-do list is controlling your life instead of the other way around? You're not alone. Leadership today often celebrates constant motion and equates busyness with productivity. But what if the secret to more effective leadership isn't doing more, but strategically doing less?
The most powerful leadership tool might be the simplest: permission to pause. This isn't about checking out or giving up—it's about creating intentional space between stimulus and response. When we pause, we transform automatic reactions into thoughtful leadership decisions. We shift from overwhelm to clarity, from frenzy to focus.
The cost of never pausing extends far beyond personal burnout. Leaders who refuse to slow down create cultures where team members feel obligated to match their nonstop pace. The unspoken message becomes clear: if you're not constantly busy, you're not valuable. Over time, this drains creativity and engagement, leaving teams active but misaligned. By contrast, leaders who model the courage to pause demonstrate boundaries and resilience. They show their teams that reflection is just as valuable as action.
Ready to transform your leadership approach? Try these three practical pause practices: First, when feeling overwhelmed, do a brain dump of everything swirling in your mind, then prioritize thoughtfully. Second, regularly ask yourself, "What is most important right now?"—a question whose answer evolves with changing circumstances. Third, incorporate team pauses at the end of meetings by collectively reflecting on learnings and next steps.
Pausing isn't weakness—it's a strategic advantage that creates the clarity needed to lead with intention. Give yourself this gift, especially during busy seasons when it feels most counterintuitive. Your team, your work, and your wellbeing will thank you. Visit debbiepetersonspecks.com for more resources on building pauses into your leadership practice and discovering your next clear move.
Hey, hello and welcome back. I am Debbie Peterson of Getting to Clarity, and this is another episode of the Getting to Clarity podcast. Now, this is the place that you come if you would like tips, tools, techniques to determine your next clear move in your leadership, perhaps in your life. And today we are talking about pausing, giving yourself permission to pause, actually, and why you, as a leader, need it most. So stay tuned, all right. Well, we are coming upon the season towards the end of the year, summer is essentially over, and in my world, the holiday season that's coming up has a way of magnifying everything the good, the bad, the ugly, and between Thanksgiving, which is actually my favorite holiday, and Christmas and New Year's and the commitments, it's like my to-do list just gets lengthier and lengthier, and that time of year, it seems like work collides with personal, you know, with my family responsibilities, and then there's social events, and the calendar just gets filled up. On top of that, I may or may not have a personal drive to end the year strong, and so, therefore, I'm competing with myself, and then, suddenly, I am carrying way more than I ever intended. Does that sound familiar? You know, when my plate gets too full, I get cranky and I get overwhelmed, and that is the sign for me that I know I need to pause. So I give myself permission to pause. And it's not about, you know, giving up giving in. It's about stopping long enough to get clear on what's most important. When I allow myself to pause regardless of when this happens during the year I step back, I look at everything in front of me and I ask a simple question what truly needs my attention now? Then I know what can be delegated, where I might need to ask for help and I can get creative with solutions instead of trying to power through it on my own. The simple act of pausing gives me the space to reset and to refocus, and that's what I want for you. So what does it mean to pause?
Speaker 3:So a pause is not laziness, it is not a weakness, it is action, an intentional leadership strategy. So pausing is choosing to create space before you respond or you react, and it's an acknowledgement that speed does not equal progress. It is giving yourself a moment to evaluate the things that are on your plate before plowing ahead. So in NLP, there's something called cause and effect, and it's the idea that every action produces a reaction. Okay, in leadership, this principle of cause and effect shows up in the choices that you make under pressure. So if you react automatically, the effect may be stress, conflict or wasted effort because you didn't think it through. When you pause, you create space to choose a thoughtful response and the effect is more clarity, more alignment and a stronger leadership presence. So pausing is the bridge that turns cause into a more intentional effect, and in leadership, that difference can change outcomes for you and your team.
Speaker 3:Now what happens if you never pause? Well, there's a cost to that, because I know a lot of leaders who push through instead of pausing. They wear exhaustion like a badge of honor. They believe that slowing down will make them look weak or uncommitted, but the truth is it's the opposite. Leaders who never pause make more mistakes, they burn out faster and they create cultures of constant overwhelm. Now when a leader models nonstop busyness, their team feels pressured to do the same thing. The message becomes really clear If you're not constantly busy, then you're not valuable, and over time, that culture drains energy, it throws creativity right out the door and it leads to very active disengagement. So a team that never pauses loses perspective on what really matters. Now there's power in pausing. So here's the flip side of it when leaders give themselves permission to pause. Flip side of it when leaders give themselves permission to pause, they model clarity, boundaries and resilience. They show their teams that it's okay to stop, to think, to reset, to prioritize, and that single choice to pause creates a ripple effect in their team environment. So, instead of frenzy, the norm becomes focus. Instead of overwhelm, the team sees intentionality and alignment. So think of the last time you hit pause before reacting. Maybe it was in a meeting when things were emotional, okay. Maybe it was at home when it was stressful and the stress was about to take over. Maybe that pause allowed you to step back, to breathe, to choose a response that reflected who you are and what you value, instead of your frustration. That is a great leadership strategy. So I want to give you three practical pause practices. Say that five times really fast. Three practical pause practices. Say that five times really fast. Three practical pause practices.
Speaker 3:Here's a simple way the first one to bring pausing into your day. So when you feel overwhelmed, I want you to do a brain dump and what that means is you write down everything swirling in your head, personally, professionally, your to do list, get it all out on paper and then next, anything with a hard due date like it has to happen by a certain date you assign a date and you put it on your calendar. Now, that is off your plate for now, okay. From the remaining items that don't have a hard due date, you give them a priority an A or a, b or a C Okay, a is critical, b is important, c is whatever's left over. But when you assign these items A, b and C you have to do so equally. So if you've got five A items, then you have five B items and five C items. The lists have to be equal, Otherwise you're just going to put everything in the A list and stress yourself out. So by making these decisions, these choices, you're going to see where your time and focus need to go in this moment.
Speaker 3:Another option, the second pause practice is to stop and ask yourself a question what is most important right now? That answer changes day to day, from season to season. So list out everything on your plate and see how it ties to what is most important. Often what's going to happen is you discover that much of your energy is going towards things that are not truly aligned with what is most important right now. And then, finally, the third practice is a team practice and it is at the end of a meeting. You do a quick debrief or a project review, you insert a pause and you ask your team what did we learn? What needs to happen next, what can wait? And by doing that in the room, that moment of reflection, it can make sure one everybody's going out the door on the same page and it can prevent wasted effort and really clarify that path going forward. So set aside five minutes this week for a pause, write down all the things you have to do, circle the things that matter most and for each of the remaining items, ask if this can be delayed, can you delegate it, can you drop it all together? And the clarity from just this short exercise can shift your entire week.
Speaker 3:Now, from a team perspective, leaders can normalize pausing by encouraging their teams to build it into their own routine. So start a meeting with a short pause to set focus. End a meeting with a pause to reflect on priorities. Encourage your team members to use the language. Let's stop and think this through. Okay, that's a pause statement. Let's pause before we decide is another pause statement, and these small phrases and actions help you to build a culture where reflection is valued just as much as action.
Speaker 3:So pausing is a gift that you can give yourself and your team. It creates the clarity that you need to focus on what really matters. It gives you resilience to navigate the busy seasons and the space to lead with intention. So, instead of pushing through the overwhelm, give yourself permission to pause. If you are ready to build more pauses into your leadership or would like additional tools and strategies, head on over to my website at wwwdebbiepetersonspeakscom. There are tools and resources and programming there for you that will help your team to reset, refocus and lead with more clarity. So, until the next time, I am wishing you the clarity you deserve to discover your next clear move in your leadership, in your career, in your business. Take care and bye-bye for now.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to this episode of the Getting to Clarity podcast with Debbie Peterson.
Speaker 2:If you enjoyed this show, please rate and recommend it on iTunes or wherever you enjoy your podcasts.
Speaker 1:To learn more about how you can bring Debbie and her transformational clarity leadership strategies to your organization, visit DebbiePetersonSpeakscom.
