A Deliberate Pause May Be the Best Advice for Our Business Growth
By: Banchiwosen Woldeyesus, Blogger Ethiopia
Tags: Business Strategy, Business, Entrepreneurship, Business Development, Psychology

1. The thinking part of your brain needs a break

When you run your business every day, every week, every month, and every year, without taking a break, part of your brain responsible for logical thinking runs dry. Can you put more backpacks on a shoulder that’s already carrying a heavy backpack?

You can’t.

To carry another backpack, you need to put down what you’re already carrying. Your shoulders need to be free of any weight and take a rest. Otherwise, you’ll bend, whimper, and collapse on the floor.

The same is true for the prefrontal cortex (PFC) — the thinking part of your brain.

PFC has a lot of responsibility. When you run your business, it carries a load of logical thinking, executive functioning, and using willpower to override impulses. Any part of your business that needs your concentration, the PFC does the job.

When you use the PFC without allowing it to rest, you make impulsive decisions that may cost you and your business thousands or millions of dollars.

So you need to take a deliberate pause so the PFC can carry the weight of any logical thinking your business needs.

2. Taking a deliberate pause prevents decision fatigue

Last month, I almost made a poor decision that would have cost my online business a tremendous loss. I’ve been teaching different online courses nonstop since the pandemic started. Because I am exhausted from running a demanding online business, I almost asked my students who already took one of my courses to pay and learn the same course.

Decision fatigue is real.

You understand what I’m talking about. Making frequent business decisions wear down your willpower and reasoning ability.

You’re not the only one with this problem. A famous study shows that decision fatigue is more common than you think. In the study, Israeli judges were more likely to grant paroles to prisoners after their two daily breaks than after they had been working for a while. When the judges didn’t take breaks and decision fatigue set in, the rate of granting paroles gradually dropped to near 0%. Exhausted judges resorted to the easiest and safest option — just say no.

Can you believe two daily breaks made a difference? A difference between a tough decision of giving parole or taking the easy way out and saying no.

I can.

Taking a two-week restorative rest is benefiting my business. I took a walk in the woods for days and recharged my batteries. And I came back to my online teaching feeling more inspired and with a mindset that could make an excellent decision than before.

Taking a break benefits your business. It’s not an indulgence. Nor is it something you should do as an afterthought.

It’s so important like an essayist Tim Kreider noted in the New York Times in 2012,

“Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence or a vice; it is as indispensable to the brain as vitamin D is to the body, and deprived of it we suffer a mental affliction as disfiguring as rickets…It is, paradoxically, necessary to getting any work done.”

If you don’t want fatigue to make poor decisions that may cost your business, dedicate time to recharge your batteries. You don’t need to take a vacation to a beach to stare at a glittering sea; the ocean breeze ruffling your hair.

You can take a break right where you are.

You just need to block a time on your calendar to take a deliberate pause from your business. You can pause for one day a week. Or you can even do it for a few hours every day if you’re intentional about when that time comes and how you use it. Decide what you’re going to do with that time. It should be something restorative. Not lying on your couch and watching reruns of whatever your favorite TV show is. That will not recharge your batteries. It’s probably going to suck any energy left from running your business.

The point of taking a break is not to make yourself more exhausted than you already are and make poor decisions.

3. Your productivity and creativity benefits from taking a break

When I take a break to brisk walk around my favorite park, I write more articles in a few hours. I teach with my full energy. My teammates can see my energy through the camera on our video calls.

Taking a deliberate pause boosts your productivity.

It also allows your brain to generate new ideas and concepts. After each break, a new idea always pops into my head. When you take a break, you might come up with an idea that changes your business model or something that creates more value for your customers. It’s not just me who says taking a break benefits your creativity. According to research, “Aha moments” came more often to those who took breaks.

Isn’t that something you want? To take a pause and replenish your mental resources and become more creative?

Just like an athlete allows his body to rest after a race or training session, you need to take a break and make it a habit to grow your business.

4. You can isolate the important things your business needs and get a better sense of the bigger picture

Sometimes when you run your day-to-day tasks for your business, you forget important things. Like what’s best for your business right now and the tasks you need to be doing.

What’s worse, you forget the bigger picture.

Taking a deliberate pause reminded me I’ve forgotten my bigger picture. When I started an online business two years ago, my goal was to create an E-book my students could use after they took my courses. In my day-to-day online teaching, I’ve forgotten this big picture. I’ve forgotten an important task I needed to be doing for my business.

These days, I walk a different way each day to think about the bigger picture. I adjust my clock a few weeks ahead to rise with the sun and work on a digital product for my students.

You need to step back from your business and take a deliberate pause. To isolate important things your business needs. To reassess your business goals. To make sure you’re giving your attention to the right tasks and projects.

5. You can see something new — precisely what building any business requires

Taking a deliberate pause helps you to reflect on the success of your business or failure. To think about what’s coming next. To reflect on the current status of your business, where you see it going, and how it’s competing against your competitors.

This keeps your business fresh and relevant. This is the key to lasting impact, anywhere, in anything.

Taking a break is a clearing, not a construction or a conclusion. It’s a tool that reveals the path of your business — where it is and where it might go. It helps you cross between two worlds (what is — and what might be.)