PPI #72: The Power of The Pause

Here's the thing. All you have to master is the power of the pause to tap into the infinite wisdom within you.

We're all on a quest to be our best, right? Everyone wants to reach their full potential in business, in life. There's not a person in the world. For example, if I gave you a button, I said, look, if you press this button, you'll become the best version of yourself. Who wouldn't press that button? Everyone would. We all want to reach our full potential. We all want to be the best version of ourselves. The power of the pause is a technique that will aid you in that quest. So many times in the course of your day, you are faced with decisions, choices that you must make, and the trajectory of your life. Whether you view it as positive or negative or neutral, however you view it, it will be determined by the choices that you make. All those forks in the road that appear day in and day out, on the health front, on the home front, on the work front, the accumulative effect of those choices will dictate whether your life is positive, negative, neutral in your eyes. And the power of the pause is a simple technique that you can use to help you make better decision choices. Whether that's proactively, what should I do right now? Or reactively, how should I react to this situation? And the power of the pause says exactly what it is right there. It's about pausing before you act. So if you have a thought in your head, for example, should I be going to the gym right now, Should I be working on this project right now, should I take a moment and start playing this video game here, or should I continue, you know, reading this book? In that moment, pause and ask yourself, what would the best version of me do right now? And just seek that advice and listen, and you'll hear the answer almost instantaneously and then follow that advice. But we only access that by pausing. Here's what happens when you pause. When you pause, you shut off that emotional, perhaps suboptimal response pattern in your brain and you tap into your prefrontal cortex, you know, what makes us human? So that you can tap into that logical, decision making side of you and ask that more human side of you, what is it that I should do that would be most consistent with the best version of me? Similarly, if you're faced with a situation to which you must react, whatever that might be, somebody cuts you off, you don't like something that was just said to you, the kids are out of control, you've missed some targets at work, or with your goals, you can pause. And once again, you can ask yourself, how would the best version of me react right now to this information, to this situation? Listen to the advice. Follow the instructions. The more you practice the power of pausing, the more you'll access the infinite wisdom within you so that you can make the right choices, which, as they accumulate over time, will literally change the whole trajectory of your life. So I hope you've enjoyed that. And if you head over to my website@ericpartaker.com, you can also subscribe to my weekly Peak Performance Insights newsletter.