#24 The Power of the Pause: Why Rest is a Business Strategy

In this episode of The Jewelers View, host Courtney Gray delves into the importance of taking breaks and why rest is an essential business strategy. Courtney shares a personal anecdote about how the intense focus on her work led to a surprising injury and highlights the challenges entrepreneurs face in balancing their drive with the need for downtime. Through the story of one of her students and various research-backed insights, Courtney emphasizes that rest is not a luxury but a crucial element for sustainable success. She introduces practical techniques like the back burner method to manage creative ideas without burnout and advocates for purposeful pauses to fuel creativity and growth. Tune in to learn why pausing isn't about losing momentum but gaining clarity and insight for your next big move.

Transcript

 Welcome back to the Jewelers View. I have to tell you an embarrassing . Apparently I gave myself tennis elbow last week. Now, the embarrassing part is it was not from metalsmithing. It was not from lifting weights, but from leaning on my desk with intense tunnel vision, trying to perfect every last detail of my new six week course transform.

Hours at the computer, gripping the mouse, crouched over like it was a final exam. When I finally looked up, my elbow was so stiff I couldn't lift a weight, so I went in to go and lift my like 10 pounder, I literally can't lift it above the index of my elbow, right? So I tried the five pounds, same thing. Wouldn't go above the index. It didn't hurt, but it  wouldn't rotate like I thought it could. So I called my chiropractor friend. She came over, she adjusted, worked on my muscles and all the things and said, I think you have tennis elbow.

And I figured out later, I was like, oh my gosh, I've been leaning at the computer so intensely that I gave myself freaking tennis elbow. The kicker was, this happened, of course, right as the course launched, and do you know what my first thought was? Instead of taking a really well earned break and a rest, I thought, okay, what's the next big thing I need to knock out?

It was so uncomfortable for me just to pause, not plan, not problem solve, not stack the next task. Just sit in stillness. Celebrate. Right. I just launched. Excellent job, Courtney. Good job. Take a break. Kick your feet up,. Have some tea. Chill, rest. So this episode is about why the pause is not a luxury.

It's a strategy. It's where we gain insight. It's where we learn to pivot. It's where we find our next best move. Entrepreneurs, no one tells us when to stop. We have to create space on purpose because reflection is where momentum is born. So here's a couple things I want to cover in this episode. We do not burn out overnight.

It's a slow burn. Let me tell you a story. A student of mine, let's call her Jen, was the go-getter type, right mover, shaker full of passion, nonstop drive overdrive. she worked a day job. She built her jewelry line at night. She showed on weekends. She launched an online shop in her spare time and tried to release a new collection all at the same time.

She kept saying, I just have to get through this next part, then I'll take a break. But the next part never ends. When you're running your own business, it just never comes there. There's no top to the mountain, so eventually Jen hit a wall. She hadn't touched her tools. In two months, she felt numb.

She felt disconnected from her work, and she asked me, am I just not cut out for this anymore? Maybe I was never meant to do this in the first place. I told her, you didn't fall out of love with your work. You just burned through all of your fuel. If she hadn't failed, she had just forgotten to take a breath. , Let's be honest, creatives are some of the hardest workers out there.

We pour our hearts into every piece mind, into every decision, and soul into the entire process. And because we love what we do, it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking we don't need rest. But here's the truth. 79% of employees report work related stress. Solopreneurs are at even higher risk because we wear all the hats and no one's around to say, Hey, step away for a bit.

Take your 15 minute break. , There's no policy unless we build it ourselves. According to Stanford, research productivity collapses after just about 55 hours a week after 70. That's. Zero added output. your brain and body simply can't keep going at full speed.

So what's actually healthy, let's talk about this. Studies suggests the sweet spot for most creative or knowledge, knowledge-based work is 35 to 45 hours a week, or about six to eight hours a day. With built-in breaks for deeply focused work like designing, making, or writing four to five truly focused hours a day can be incredibly effective.

 now, here's the part we rarely talk about. When you push past your limits, your body borrows from your mind. When your mind is exhausted, it leans on your body. And when both are tapped out, that's when burnout hits. Recovery isn't just about sleep. 

 Your creativity. Takes time to recharge. Your emotional energy. Takes time to catch up with how hard that you've been pushing. You can't keep drawing inspiration from an empty well. The pause isn't a distraction or a dropping the ball, it's actually the path back to a clear vision to knowing what the next best step is.

And rest isn't stopping. It's reflecting. So here's what I had to learn the hard way, the pause is where real growth happens. It's where I stop spinning the wheels and start seeing things clearly. . When the course launched, I should have been celebrating. I should have been looking at the work that I just completed. This took me months and months to build, , to put it out there, to email you all furiously and hope for some enrollment, and to finally get that enrollment happening to see all the things , we need to pause and celebrate.

Instead.. It was like this habit of panic. I felt so weird not rushing into the next project. I felt lazy. I felt lost without a to-do list, even though there's more to do. Pause and celebrate, and that's when I realized Something I really want you to hear, we move so fast, we forget to pause.

Reflect and absorb the actual learning that happened during the process and reflection. It's where we gain insight. It's where we learn how to pivot if we need to pivot and to find the next best thing. You don't always need another launch, another piece,. Sometimes you just need to breathe.

So let's talk a little bit about Backburning it. This is a technique I like to teach my clients to stay clear without overwhelm. This is something I not only teach, but I use it constantly myself. The back burner technique is simple. If something is important but not urgent, it doesn't belong on the front of the mind, on the front burner.

Move it to the back. It's still simmering. It's still real. You're not abandoning it. You're just not giving it your prime energy right now. Not yet. This is how we keep the creative flow alive without burning out. Not every idea needs to be acted on immediately, even though it feels like that, right? We can feel very urgent about everything.

Some ideas need to ripen. Some seasons are for simmering and some are for creating

As a business owner, everything feels urgent. It's not one of the biggest lies we buy into is that everything is important, but here's the truth. This is not the intensive care unit. It's not surgery. This is a creative business. It's important. Yes, emergency. Rarely that launch your stressed about or the next thing that you're working on, that collection.

You didn't finish that Instagram post. You forgot to schedule, not urgent.  let's start practicing discernment. What's truly urgent? What is emotionally loud but not time sensitive? What has a real deadline and what just feels like one?

So here's a phrase for you to hold with you this week. when your body is whispering for rest, do not wait until it screams.

Let's say it again. When your body is whispering for rest, so those little nudges, your eyes get hazy. You start glazing over you. Oh my gosh. I had a colleague fall asleep at the bench with his torch lit. That's definitely not a whisper, But when your body is whispering for rest, don't wait until it's screaming at you.

That's when burnout happens. So I'm inviting you today not to quit, not to walk away, but to pause even just one hour, one afternoon. One full day where you don't push, fix or plan something because the reflection time, that's work too. It's where insight lives. It's how we learn to pivot, find our next best thing, and reconnect with the heart of what we do.

 📍 Why are we here in the first place? Okay, so next week I'm gonna come back and talk a little bit more about the back burner IT method. How to keep your ideas alive without acting on all of them at once. We'll go deeper into this technique and talk about how to preserve momentum without pressure.

See you then. Until then, onward and upward, go take a nap.