The Power of a Pause: 5 Ways to Make the Most of One

Nobody puts “forced time out” on their vision board. We plan vacations. We plan retirements, sometimes. We even plan the occasional long weekend where we swear we’ll do absolutely nothing. But the pauses that change us most are usually the ones we’d never have chosen. And there can be real power in a pause, whether it’s planned or not. Here are 5 ways to make the most of a break.

Over the past three and a half years, I’ve had four medical setbacks, one right after another. None were life-threatening, thank goodness. But every one came with a long recovery and a stretch of rehab, and every one meant stepping back from the life I’d been living. The result? I woke up after the first one realizing the shape of my daily life was changed. Like it or not.

The power of a pause

The first one took me out of my career. My timeline to return to work was long. And as it progressed, I realized I might never go back.

So in March of 2024, after the first surgery, I started Lifeticity. I knew I could spend the coming weeks wishing them away. Or I could try to make something of them.

And here’s the thing: a lot of people thought I was crazy. “Just rest. Recuperate. Take some time off,” were what I heard a lot of. But I know myself and while I certainly spent my share of time on the couch watching Netflix, I knew I needed a new purpose. A new pursuit.

Building a lifestyle site, newsletter, Substack, and everything that came with it all was something I’d been thinking about for some time. But I didn’t have the time.

Suddenly, I had too much time. Sure, I was busy with rehab, doctor appointments, etc. But I wasn’t busy in any way that made me feel like it was pulling me forward. Toward a new me.

Choosing what to do with a pause

So I chose to start building. Not every day, and not perfectly. Some days not at all. Other days, a little bit. A few days were actually productive. But stacked one on top of the other, they began to add up to something.

This post is about that choice. It’s about the power of a pause, planned or unexpected, if you let it do its work. Not because hard things always happen for a reason, and not because every setback is secretly a gift.

Sometimes a hard thing is just hard. But even a pause you never wanted can hold something worth keeping.

Why an unexpected pause hits so hard in midlife

By midlife, most of us have built lives with a lot of momentum. Careers, households, family schedules, people who count on us. We know who we are partly by what we do all day.

So when something forces us to stop, it isn’t only the calendar that goes blank. It can shake our whole sense of self. If I’m not working, who am I? If I’m not the one taking care of everyone, what’s my role now? If my body won’t do what it used to, what else is changing that I didn’t agree to?

Pauses come in all shapes and sizes. Some we choose, like a sabbatical or early retirement. Those have their own challenges. But the ones we don’t choose are often the ones with the most to teach us.

Then there’s the pace of the world around us. Everyone else keeps moving. Friends are traveling, former colleagues are getting promoted, and the group text is full of plans. Standing still while everyone rushes past can feel a lot like falling behind.

Here’s what I’ve learned.:

Stopping is not the same as falling behind. Sometimes it’s the only way to see where you actually want to go.”

–SUsan

First, let yourself be disappointed

Before we talk about making something of a pause, I want to say this clearly. You’re allowed to hate it.

You’re allowed to be angry that your plans got derailed. You’re allowed to grieve the job, the summer, or the version of yourself that could do things easily. Skipping straight to “every cloud has a silver lining” doesn’t make the cloud go away. Usually, it just makes us feel guilty for not being more grateful.

When my latest recovery started, I gave myself permission to wallow for a while. I watched too much TV. I felt sorry for myself. I was frustrated with my body and very tired of being a patient.

And then, at some point, the wallowing stopped helping. That’s the moment to watch for. Not the moment you think you’re supposed to be over it, but the moment you notice that staying stuck is costing you more than moving forward would.

How to make the most of a pause you didn’t choose

Once you’re ready, here are the approaches that helped me most, and that I’ve seen help others too.

1. Start with rest, and mean it

Whatever caused your pause, your body and mind likely need time to recover. That’s obviously true after surgery. But it’s also true after a layoff, a parent’s hospital stay, or months of burnout. Stress is exhausting, even when you’re sitting still.

Real rest isn’t a failure to be productive. It’s the foundation for everything else. Give yourself permission to sleep in, sit outside, read a novel, or stare out the window without apologizing to anyone.

2. Take an honest look around

A pause gives you something ordinary life rarely does: distance. From a step back, you can see your life more clearly than you ever could from the middle of it.

Ask yourself a few questions, and write down the answers:

• What do I miss? What don’t I miss at all?
• What was I doing out of habit, not because I wanted to?
• What have I been putting off “until I have time”?
• If I could only go back to part of my old life, which part would it be?

The answers might surprise you. When I stepped out of my career, I expected to miss it more than I did. That gap told me something important about what I wanted next.

3. Choose one small thing

You don’t need a grand plan. In fact, a grand plan can feel like one more pressure when you’re already running on empty.

Instead, pick one thing that’s small enough to do on your hardest days and meaningful enough to care about. Learn one new skill. Organize one drawer. Write one page a day. Sketch out one idea you’ve been carrying around for years.

For me, it was writing. I couldn’t do much physically, but I could sit with my laptop and think. So I started a blog. No plan beyond the feeling that I had something to say and women I wanted to say it to. One post at a time, it became Lifeticity.

4. Decide what “fruitful” means to you, and write it down

Making good use of a pause doesn’t have to mean being productive. For me, it happened to involve a project, because building things is when I feel most like myself. But fruitful can look very different for you.

It might be reconnecting with an old friend you finally have time to call. It might be long afternoons with a parent you’re caring for, listening to stories you’d never heard before. It might be realizing you don’t want to go back to the job you lost. Or it might simply be learning to rest without guilt, which for many of us is the hardest skill of all.

Whatever it looks like for you, write it down. Pauses have a way of fading once life speeds back up, and the insights that felt so clear when everything stopped get buried under emails and errands. Keep a simple notebook, or a running note on your phone, and jot down what you’re noticing about yourself, your priorities, and your life.

When the pause ends, you’ll have a record of what it gave you, and a reminder of the promises you made to yourself. That’s the real question, after all. Did this time leave you with something you want to keep?

5. Don’t rush the ending

When a pause ends, the temptation is to jump right back in at full speed to make up for lost time. Try to resist it. Re-enter slowly and on purpose, bringing back only the parts of your old life you actually want. This is your chance to design what comes next, instead of defaulting to what came before.

Ideas for different kinds of pauses

Every pause is different, so here are a few ideas matched to the most common ones.

After a job loss. Take stock of your skills beyond your job title. Try a short course, a volunteer role, or a small freelance project to test a new direction before you commit to it. Many midlife reinventions start exactly here. Mine did.

During a health recovery. Choose low-energy activities you can do from a chair or a couch. Read the books piling up on your nightstand, try a language app, plan a future trip, or start a project on your laptop. Keep expectations small and celebrate every bit of progress.

While caring for a parent. Your own time may be scarce, so look for small pockets. Ten minutes of journaling, a walk around the block, or a recorded conversation about family history. These moments often become the ones you’re most grateful for later.

When the kids leave (or come back). Revisit the interests you set aside while raising a family. Redo a room. Say yes to the class, the trip, or the book club you’ve been postponing for years.

After a loss. Go slowly. Grief is its own kind of pause, and it doesn’t follow a schedule. Let “making something of it” mean simply getting through for now, and trust that meaning can come later.

What my pause gave me

Here’s the honest truth. I would not have chosen any of the setbacks of the last three and a half years. I’d trade them in a heartbeat for a healthy body and a boring medical chart.

But I can’t deny what came out of them. The first pause led me away from a career I thought I’d have forever, and toward Lifeticity.

None of that makes the hard parts less hard. It just means the hard parts weren’t the whole story. And the latest one? I’ll tell you about that soon.

Your pause can be a beginning

If you’re in the middle of a pause right now, one you never asked for, I hope you’ll be patient with yourself. Rest first. Be disappointed if you need to be. And when you’re ready, look around for one small thing you could make of this time.

It doesn’t have to be big. It doesn’t have to be productive. It just has to be yours.

Because a pause isn’t only an ending. Sometimes it’s the space where your next chapter begins.

If fall has already knocked you off track, my free guide, Your Fall Reset, can help you start the season fresh, right where you are.

Have you been through a pause that changed your direction? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.