Have you noticed that there are moments in your day when you're clearly not feeling engaged in your life? Have you noticed times that it feels like you're just going through the motions?

What do you do in those times?

If you struggle in those moments, today I’ll share with you an effective way to handle it. I think you’ll recognize it as something you’ve heard before, but maybe you dismissed as too simple or categorized as too “woo woo.” So, I’m going to explain it to you more scientifically in the hopes you’ll realize its value and start using it to your advantage.

I want to remind you of the power of pause. When you see that you’re going down a path that you don't enjoy, pausing must be the first step to effectively transform that moment. If you were planning to go somewhere, and you realized that you were driving in the wrong direction, you wouldn't just keep going! You would stop and say, “I need to make a turn; I need to move in a different direction so I really get to the place that I want to go.” However, chances are you may not do that in daily situations.

Instead, I see that when we're feeling not engaged or joyful about our lives, we tend to just put action on it in a way that's kind of avoiding what we're feeling. We try to just “muscle our way through it” forcefully, which makes it even more difficult.

The reason this approach doesn’t work is simply momentum. I've spoken about momentum before, but I’m hoping that by looking at it from this angle, you’ll see the real the real gem of information that's there.

When something has momentum, it has a tendency to keep going. If you don’t want it to keep going, then you need to do something to stop it. The best thing to do is to act opposite of it and bring it to a pause so that you can go in a new direction.

That forceful approach is going to use a lot of your energy. If you're using energy in order to create a higher energy state (like joy) – well, it's counterintuitive. That doesn't work.

By pausing (stopping momentum first), you actually KEEP the energy, so that you can now take it in a new direction. Pausing also gives us an opportunity to have insight. When we push through something, we are missing a huge opportunity to learn.

There are many ways to pause, but to be honest, one of the best ways to do it is to use your own breath. This is where some people mindlessly chuck the technique into the “esoteric” bucket without considering it. Your breath is a very tangible thing – it is something specific, not “woo woo.” You can feel it physically, and you can hear it in many cases.

Additionally, it's always NOW. Right? I can't breathe for yesterday, I can't breathe for tomorrow, if I'm aware of the breath that I’m taking now, I'm automatically conscious of the moment. When you're conscious of the moment, it’s a momentum stopper. Now you have the opportunity to harness your own energy – you hold whatever momentum is happening in this state of suspended animation. From there, you can decide to go somewhere deliberate with it, not somewhere that's just an unconscious reaction to your day.

So, my goal today is to remind you of this – of the power of pause. I want you to be able to keep the power that you have and use it deliberately to create. Harness this power by becoming conscious of your breath. What does this mean? It means to feel the sensations of your own breathing and make that the focus of your attention for a few minutes. When you breathe in, you feel the breath coming in – maybe you feel your ribs expand. When you breathe out, you might hear the sound, and you feel your body contracting. If you really engage in that for even 5 breaths, you will be in a different place afterwards.

Don't leave all of your energy to chance. Don't let the world take it. Claim it for yourself. You claim the power in that pause, and then take that energy where you want to go with it.