Leading Differently: What a Year of Slowing Down Reveals
Photo Credit: Leo Visions | Unsplash
A year of redefining effectiveness, contribution and what it means to lead well
When Life Asks You To Slow Down
This year asked something of me that I was not expecting. When I stepped into a new leadership position, life spoke up loudly with a bold request that I slow it all down, way down. This ask wasn’t gentle. It surfaced like a massive wave, forcing me into an inquiry around the underlying beliefs about why I work the way I do, and reevaluating what truly matters.
In retrospect, this need to slow down and confront my own limitations probably started five years ago. When the pandemic took hold in 2020, it was the first moment when what I had always been able to produce became impossible. Homeschooling and working while navigating a collective worldwide trauma had a profound impact, and yet I refused to listen. Instead of looking at what needed to shift, I began to make unconscious sacrifices, mostly in the form of my own well-being.
Then, two years later, I blew my knee out skiing. This time the message bit louder, “Hey, lady, you cannot do all you think you can. You need to tend to your body.” I listened briefly, did a few months of PT and then the unconscious sacrifice kicked in again. I overrode what my body needed, ignored the rest and restoration that was truly needed and kept moving toward a level of output that was outdated and not useful for my company, my team or me. I worked so hard to override every instinct I had, clinging to ways I had always worked, knowing on a cellular level it was no longer effective, needed or even being asked of me.
This pattern held for years. Life kept sending me all sorts of “invitations” to slow it down and tend to myself. A Long COVID diagnosis took away choice, and I was forced to sleep. Fatigue stopped being a gentle nudge and instead became something immovable. Menopause, the wise creature she is, said, “This is going to be wild, but it’s time to rewire your whole system, so hold tight while your brain and body become a total mystery.” Working past noon became a struggle. Brain fog set in, and I began to question my worth. The fatigue had a message that was clearer than anything I had heard. “I have asked you nicely for four years. You have ignored me. Now you have no choice but to lie down.” That’s how it works, doesn’t it? If we override our instincts for too long, collapse just might come.
Still, I did not want to believe it. I thought I could outsmart whatever was happening. I told myself I would work a flex schedule. I would take more supplements. I would work with fortune tellers. I would have my Akashic records read. I would pretend, force, ignore. I would cover as best I could. I kept looking for a workaround that did not involve changing. But every attempt brought me back to the same truth. The way I have been doing my work no longer works.
Letting the Break Change Me
At the beginning of this year, my team finally said what I could not. “It is time to stop. To take the break. To set it down and see what is really needed.” Their clarity, commitment and support made it impossible for me to ignore my own outdated habits and murkiness. I was being asked to trust my team, to honor my instincts and intuition, to return to creative expression and to tend to the thing that makes it all happen: my body.
None of that came easily. I questioned my effectiveness and the value of my contribution. I wondered if I would ever feel like myself again. And then, somewhere far off, a very quiet and honest voice whispered. “I hope not. I hope you take a break and do not go back to that version of yourself.” The version that produced no matter what. The version that believed that if I did not sacrifice myself, everything would fall apart. The version that thought constant output was the way to prove my value.
And so, thanks to my extraordinary team, I took the break. I set it all down and got curious about what would be picked up on my return.
Sacrifice still exists. My personal focus is to be more intentional. To choose freely what will be sacrificed and to name it, out loud, so I stay present. Lately, I am choosing to sacrifice such things as meeting deadlines always no matter what. I am choosing to sacrifice a clean kitchen, neatly folded laundry and the need to look like everything is under control. I am choosing to sacrifice busyness. I am choosing to sacrifice pushing through. I am learning to sacrifice the belief that getting outrageous amounts done in a workday is the highest contribution I can make.
What this year, 2025, has asked of me in the deepest way is to redefine what it means to contribute. To untangle myself from the version of being effective I inherited, defended and clung to my entire career. It has asked me to trust my body, my timing, my knowing. It has asked me to shift the habits and stories that kept me upright but also kept me locked in place. I began an inquiry.
I am exploring what happens when I sometimes sacrifice productivity and instead choose creativity. Not always, just sometimes. Creativity is my flow, my most natural state. Dreaming, imagining, creating, tending. These things bring me ease, and not because they are easy, but because they are true. Creativity brings life, abundance, flow, joy. It brings energy and connection. It calls forth beauty and produces with ease.
The Work Ahead
As a new season begins and the new year approaches, I can feel that the ask is still here. Slow down. Pay attention. Trust the creativity that is trying to move through you. Trust the team around you. Trust that what is yours will arrive at its own pace, not in the frantic rhythm you once believed you needed.
If this year has taught me anything, it is that doing less during this period of great uncertainty and big changes may be the only way I can become more myself. And maybe, just maybe, that is the real work ahead.
As I move into the new year, I know I am not alone in the ways this season asks each of us to reflect honestly on where we have been and where we are going. So, it feels right to pause here and invite a wider reflection.
Reflections for Leaders As We Look Ahead to 2026
Where is life asking you to choose a new way?
Where might pushing, bracing, or gripping be getting in the way of a truer or more grounded response?
How is your sense of worth tied to what you produce?
What becomes possible when contribution is measured by presence, relationship, authenticity, and creativity rather than output?
What is your body trying to tell you that you have not yet acknowledged?
Where might fatigue, distraction, confusion, pain, or tension be offering a message about what needs to change?
Where would greater honesty or self-awareness shift your relationships?
Is there something you have not said, or something you have not admitted to yourself or to someone you work or live with?
What might slow, deliberate movement allow you to notice that speed has kept you from seeing?
Could moving more slowly create better sensing, clearer decisions, or more grounded confidence?
What are you still trying to control that is not actually yours to control?
Where could you practice meeting life, work, or relationships as they are rather than how you insist they should be?
How open are you to connection when it arrives in unexpected ways?
Do you let people in, or do you turn away because it disrupts your plans or sense of order?
How does your role or title influence how you show up?
Where do you forget your own humanness, or allow others’ perceptions of power to shape your behavior?
How can you hold the world with both strength and softness?
What helps you stay open when life feels both beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time?
Who are you becoming, and what do you need to release in order to meet that version of yourself?
Which old beliefs, patterns, or expectations no longer fit the life you are actually living?
If this reflection resonates with where you are in your own leadership, there are a few ways to keep going.
Explore our full range of leadership development programs for practical tools that deepen self-awareness and strengthen your impact.
If you’re looking for a space to learn alongside other leaders, join us in Seattle for Henley Live, a full-day immersive gathering designed to help you reset your pace, reconnect to what matters, and reimagine the way you lead.
