Pause: The Hidden Power Behind Your Next Level
Newsletter in Brief
We don’t plateau because we’re weak, we plateau because our old operating system can’t handle the new peak in front of us. Pausing is not only about rest; it’s capacity-building, the space where psychological, emotional, and relational growth takes root. The next level of performance comes from recovery, reflection, and reinvention — not from pushing harder.
This is a bi-weekly newsletter that shares strategies and actionable steps for self-mastery, leadership and my personal reflections and professional updates. Subscribe here!
Why you need Pauses to conquer your Peaks
The idea for this newsletter comes from a community I co-run with fellow INSEAD alumni — Peaks and Pauses. It’s about recharging, reflecting, and climbing our next summits. Last weekend, I found myself returning to this theme again. Why?
Because I realised that too often we treat pauses as something purely for wellbeing: a retreat, a moment to breathe, a reset to help our resilience kick in so we can “bounce back.” But what I’ve come to understand and experienced firsthand - is that at some point, just keeping going stops working.
Sooner or later, we face a peak that’s higher than anything we’ve climbed before. And suddenly, all the strategies, strengths, and capacities that helped us reach earlier summits… fail.
A personal example
On my journey to build and lead my leadership development practice, I’ve been in constant motion: learning, building, connecting, delivering — and thinking I was being “smart” by mixing in small recreational pauses to prevent burnout.
But over the past few weeks, I realised something uncomfortable: while all that effort was getting me somewhere, it wasn’t taking me where I truly needed to go. To work at the depth I want with my clients, to hold pressure and uncertainty, to stay attuned relationally — I needed more.
Not more effort.
More capacity.
Capacity to hold space in the way I imagined, not just for others, but for myself.
Capacity to respond instead of react, even when the fireworks inside my body go off.
Capacity to zoom out, see the bigger picture, and step into it with intention.
Capacity to experiment while still learning, without needing to get it perfect.
Capacity to connect deeper than I ever have, with others and with myself.
Capacity to tune into my own emotions, name them, and share them as useful data rather than threats.
Capacity to set boundaries, say “no” when everything in me is conditioned to say “yes,” and stay grounded in that choice.
I took a pause and I stepped away. Somatic leadership retreat. It was a deliberate pause to “upgrade” my own operating system.
To embedd new ways of responding that comes from my body, not only from my mind. One could argue - it is a ‘must have’ in my work as a psychodynamic coach, however I see it as an ongoing journey to reach our own potential, mastery, excellence - with self-compassion in mind. The one that might take years to bring to completion.
The Mountain
You could think of this like of climbing an 8,000m mountain versus a 4,000m one. The 8k peak has a death zone, extreme oxygen limitations, and entirely new physiological and psychological demands. You don’t conquer that with the same capabilities you developed on the smaller peaks.
You train differently.
You build new physical and mental capacity.
You expand what your system can hold: more stress, more pressure, more complexity, more uncertainty.
The same is true in our professional and personal lives. There comes a moment when adding more hours, more skills, and more effort does nothing. The peak is simply too big for the operating system you currently have.
This is where Pause becomes essential
Pause isn’t just rest. It isn’t just recovery.
Pause is capacity-building.
If you don’t create dedicated space for reflection, insight, and reinvention, your capacity doesn’t expand. You stay equipped for the 4k peak while staring at the 8k one and wondering why brute force isn’t moving you forward.
Pause becomes a strategic, deliberate space we carve out for the change we desire. A space where we unlock our “Next Level,” whatever that may be:
a career step
a transition into entrepreneurship
a reinvention of identity
planning life after career
creating legacy
Next level looks different for each of us, but the truth is the same: it requires space. It requires new capacity — mentally, emotionally, relationally.
And capacity doesn’t grow in the busy-ness of our lives. It grows in the pause.
The Science Behind the Plateau
We often think hitting a plateau is failure. It isn’t. It’s a signal.
A plateau is your system telling you:
You’ve outgrown the operating system that got you here.
Harvard psychiatrist George Vaillant spent decades studying adult development and found something surprising: the unconscious strategies we use to protect ourselves — our unconscious defenses — must evolve if we’re going to keep growing.
And that’s exactly where most of us hit the wall.
Early in our careers, our defenses, such as perfectionism, control, and fierce self-reliance help us climb fast. They keep us safe. They help us perform. They make sense.
But somewhere along the way, the same strategies that worked so well start working against us.
This is where the plateau shows up. We start to feel stuck.
We don’t feel stuck because we’re lazy or unfocused.
We plateau because:
we’re using old strategies for a new level of complexity
our defensive patterns drain energy instead of generating it
our work becomes more about managing anxiety than moving forward
we suppress emotions to “stay in control,” which narrows perspective
we cling to independence instead of cultivating support and collaboration
In other words, the mountain changes, but we don’t — yet.
Managing our deeply ingraned patterns and using non-mature defenses to protect ourselves from everything that life throws at us eventually can drain us or stop our development journey. To operate in such way asks for emotional suppression (not fully allowing ourselves to express our emotions/feelings) , constant alertness (always scanning for what might go wrong), and a need to stay in control at all times.
No wonder we lose energy and hit a plateau — all our fuel goes into managing our fears, anxieties and exhaustion that comes with it instead of growing our capacity.
We might want to move forward and achieve more, but we are being blocked by our own way of being.
Pause disrupts this pattern
When we slow down long enough to see our patterns — the old stories, the unhelpful behaviours — we can evolve them. To mature them. To advance them so we can succeed with our next ambitions and goals.
And here’s what that shift looks like in real life: We move from:
control → trust
perfectionism → excellence with self-compassion
suppressing emotions → integrated awareness
hyper-independence → empowered connection
This is where capacity expands. This is where you unlock the Next Level.
Robert Kegan, a Harvard professor known for his Adult Development Theory, demonstrated that adults must undergo a fundamental shift in how they make meaning if they want to handle greater complexity.
Or - in other words:
You can’t conquer an 8k peak with a 4k operating system.
The High-Performance Pyramid, developed by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz.
Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz's research on high performers demonstrates that elite athletes, artists, and executives don't perform continuously – they operate in cycles of intense effort followed by strategic recovery.
The recovery isn't optional; it's where growth happens. Muscles don't build during the workout but during rest. In their words:” rituals that promote oscillation – the rhythmic expenditure and recover of energy – link the levels to high-performance pyramid”.
The same is true for psychological capacity. Our inner system strengthens through controlled stress followed by intentional recovery.
What research tells us about the Pause
The “stepping away” phenomenon. Psychologists Sio & Ormerod (2009) performed analysis on 117 studies on incubator effects ( breaks form problem solving) and found that such breaks consistently improved solution quality by 10-15%, especially when it came to creative and insight problems.
Why does this happen?
From a psychodynamic perspective, high anxiety narrows our attention, while relaxation broadens it. When we are calmer, our mind opens to wider possibilities and divergent thinking becomes easier.
Research shows that the most effective type of “incubation” is light, undemanding activity — walking, casual conversation, light exercise, even ironing or washing dishes. The optimal window ranges from 10 minutes to a few hours.
In these moments, the brain continues working in the background, forming connections that conscious effort often misses.
So, before a strategic decision or when you feel stuck, step away and reduce cognitive load — it creates space for fresh insight to surface.
So what does a Pause look like?
Not necessarily going to Bali or a remote retreat.
Not a month-long sabbatical.
More often, it looks like:
phone-free walks
someone holding a space for you to speak, reflect, listen to yourself
a distraction-free weekend morning
unstructured time to let insight emerge
This is the space where transformation begins. The space of being, not performing.
Pauses aren’t procrastination or ‘wasting our time’; they are wisdom. They are preparation for who you must become to reach the next summit.
Reflection Corner
What peak are you trying to climb with your current capacity — and where have you noticed it’s no longer enough?
What would shift if you embraced a pause right now — to reinvent, reset, and build capacity for what’s next?
Are you pushing harder in a “death zone,” hoping effort will compensate for capacity gaps that actually need to be built?
The next time you find yourself facing a peak larger than any you’ve climbed before, remember to pause. It is not a weakness — it’s the preparation for your Next Level.
What limits you isn’t the peak. It’s the operating system you’re climbing with.
P.S. What resonated with while you reading this? I would love to hear.
Connect Deeply. Evolve authentically. Impact profoundly.
Live Beyond the Ordinary.
Curious to learn more?
1. For more articles, tips, and insights, connect with me on LinkedIn and ring the bell on my LinkedIn profile to be notified every time I share my top tips.
2. Reach out to me at hello@sanitapukite.com to explore the possibility to bring High-Impact Leadership Lab series into your organisation.
3. Looking to scale up your influence to move from performance to presence. Book a discovery call.
*****
BEYOND is a state of continuous growth and transformation. It’s about stepping out of the ordinary, redefining what’s possible, and leading boldly. Here, we explore leadership fundamentals - self-awareness, presence, mindset, behaviors, strategic decision-making and influence. BEYOND is for those who refuse to lead within expectations and instead choose to go further, think bigger, and make a lasting impact.