Image by @spiritvisionstudios from Unsplash
It's hard enough being human, let alone a "professional" one. Who decided on these unspoken rules anyway, and why did we all agree to follow them?
This ties back to something I explored in "The Role You've Outgrown but Haven't Left." That piece wasn't only about job titles or what sits on your namecard. It was about the roles we quietly outgrow without noticing — including the role of who we are at a certain age or stage.
Here's one I outgrew without realising: the instinct to react fast.
We're taught early that speed is a virtue. Quick thinking, quick answers, quick turnarounds. And in some contexts, that's true. But somewhere along the way, I confused being quick with being good. There's a real difference between reacting and responding, and for years I didn't know I was doing the first when I thought I was doing the second.
A reaction is instinctive. It's immediate, unfiltered, and often emotional — it comes from the part of us that's unprepared or overwhelmed, and it tends to leave a mess behind, even when it feels justified in the moment. A response, on the other hand, asks more of us. It requires restraint, awareness, and a deliberate choice about what happens next. Reaction expresses. Response solves.
What I stopped doing was answering before I'd actually thought something through. Fast felt efficient. It rarely was. Mistakes crept in precisely because I was optimising for speed over substance.
So I started doing something almost embarrassingly simple: I gave myself a pause before I answered.
It sounds small. It isn't. That pause does three things at once. It gives me space to actually think rather than perform thinking. It draws attention, in the way that stillness often does more than noise. And it signals composure — not because I'm trying to look calm, but because I actually am, having given myself the room to get there.
When feedback lands now, or a difficult question is thrown my way, I try to run it through three quiet checks before I open my mouth: Is this true? Is it meant to help me grow, or simply to tear me down? And is there something I can actually do about it? Those three questions have saved me from a fair number of reactions I'd have regretted.
I won't pretend I've fully arrived. There are still days I slip back into my old, fast-fingered nature — the reflex is old and well-worn, and new habits don't overwrite it overnight. It takes time. It takes effort. It takes practice, deliberately repeated, before it becomes who you are rather than who you're trying to be.
But the pause, imperfect as my use of it still is, has changed more than my professional life. It's changed how I show up in it.
What's one moment this week where a pause, instead of a quick answer, might have served you better?
