“I’m in slo-mo,” I say this when I deliberately slow down to focus. Typically, these moments are at the end of the day and help me settle my mind and sink into my work—not rushing, just paying full attention. It’s not about speed or hyper-productivity; it’s about giving myself permission to calm my pace.
 

Pacing is how I build sustainability into daily life. Just like long-term planning, it helps me manage goals, ambitions, and to-dos in a resilient way. Daily balance is hard. Life can often feel like an endurance event, but only elite athletes run marathons in a sprint. Burnout is inevitable without pacing.

In my workshops, people often say they want to feel less rushed. They crave more space. Intentional pacing, not just focus and prioritization, can create that opening.

Remember: busy is a choice. That’s not a judgment, just a truth. We live full lives, but sometimes, it takes a pointed question to break the cycle of glorified busyness. As Kristoffer Carter asked on my podcast: “When are you going to slow the hell down? Who’s going to do this for you? Nobody. You have to give yourself permission.”

So here’s my invitation to you: Give yourself permission to manage your pace—for the sake of your sustainability.

Let’s explore three strategies to help you do just that:

1. Intentionally Set and Manage Your Pace

Working with pace starts by setting your intention: What pace feels right for you right now? There’s no right or wrong, just what fits this moment. Maybe you need to move quickly and intensely, and that’s okay, but ask yourself if you have the right structures to support that drive. Or maybe you want to slow down or move at a moderate pace. In that case, what adjustments will help you manage your goals and ambitions sustainably?

Setting your pace also means actively managing it. Ambitious people tend to lead full lives with full calendars. That’s why it’s important to have practices to check in and be willing to intervene and adjust as needed.

One way I practice this is by regularly reviewing my calendar. I don’t always get it right and catch things like overbooking personal commitments into an already full schedule. With such reviews and this awareness, I make adjustments to space out activities more thoughtfully, avoid overextending myself, and create the breathing room I need.

Travel is another area where I manage pace. In 2022, I had a half-day work meeting on the East Coast. I could’ve flown in and out in 36 hours, but instead, I extended the trip and added restorative time in New York City. I saw friends, visited favorite spots like Central Park, and fed my curiosity by visiting several museums. Not everyone has the flexibility for that, but it shows how even small choices around pace can lead to more sustainable, resilient experiences.

When I work with pace, I also return to a simple mantra: “There will be time.”

Like many of you, I often have long to-do lists and feel the urge to squeeze in one more task at the end of the day. But I’ve learned to remind myself: cut the list and space out the to-dos. Most tasks don’t need to be done immediately; they just need the right moment, space, or energy. Trust that the time will come, and you’ll likely complete them with more ease and efficiency.

A workshop participant once said something that really stayed with me: “Do what you can when you can, and adjust as needed.” That’s it. Pace it out.

2. Take Breaks of Different Lengths

One of the most effective pacing strategies is taking breaks, yet many of us don’t. In Slack’s 2023 Workforce Index, half of global knowledge workers reported rarely or never taking breaks during the workday.

But humans are wired for rest. Athletes offer inspiration. In Peak Performance, Brad Stulberg and Steve Magness highlight Olympic marathoner Deena Kastor, who used a strategy called periodization, alternating intense effort with intentional recovery. Kastor credits the longevity of her running career not just to training but to prioritizing rest, which she found harder to do than the training itself.

I deeply believe in breaks of all lengths. From one-minute pauses to full sabbaticals. Hard work matters, but not if it crowds out what sustains us.

Many of us feel pressure to keep going. Hustle culture discourages pausing, but research shows that 90-minute work cycles match our natural rhythms and improve productivity. Breaks aren’t indulgent—they’re essential to cognitive, emotional, and social well-being.

Even short breaks make a difference. Five- to ten-minute windows exist on most days. Reflect on how you use them. Are they restoring you or not? Many of us use that time to scroll social media, but such passive activities often don’t refresh us.

Longer breaks matter, too. Filling our weekends, days off, and vacations with sustaining activities such as time outdoors, reading, or creative classes offers critical restoration. Time away boosts health, relationships, and satisfaction.

Sabbaticals take it further, offering space to recharge and reimagine. It’s surprising more companies don’t offer them, given the intensity of work culture today. If you have the financial room, longer breaks can build resilience and reveal what’s next, personally or professionally.

If you resist taking breaks, try reframing them as tools that support performance, not weaken it. Just like periodization works for athletes, it works for us, too.

To make breaks stick, plan them. Think about what sustains you (daily to yearly) and how you’ll follow through. Add them to your calendar, tie them to existing habits, or enlist an accountability partner.

3. Manage Sustainability Over a Longer Time Horizon

Pacing isn’t just for our daily routines, it also applies to how we manage our long-term calendars and plan extended breaks. A lightbulb moment came during a conversation with Heather Ainsworth, founder and CEO of Workable Concept, a company helping leaders support employees with caregiving responsibilities. Heather, a longtime role model for me of Sustainable Ambition, has consistently designed work structures that support both life and career sustainability.

On my podcast, she shared: “Balanced and sustainable shouldn’t be judged by a single moment in time, but over an eighteen-month horizon.” That stuck with me. Real sustainability comes from managing the ebb and flow of effort over time, not just day-to-day.

Sustainability doesn’t mean we won’t have periods of intense work or personal stretch. Life and work can be demanding. Think back, when a storm was coming, farmers didn’t clock out after eight hours. Sometimes, work and life call, and we must rise to meet them.

What helps is planning with a broader lens (twelve to eighteen months) so we can anticipate peaks, plan for recovery, and build resilience. Planning a creative sabbatical for myself is a good example. I talked with my coach all year about carving out space for both rest and creative focus. Though I took shorter breaks throughout the year, a longer block wasn’t possible until the following year, and even then, work spilled into it. Was that ideal? No. But the payoff was worth it. That trip to feed my creative energy became an investment in my resilience.

A simple, long-term planning calendar helps you visualize periods of high effort and time for recovery. It makes it easier to identify when to slow down, when to push, and when to rest. The key? Actually taking the breaks and not skipping them.

Final Thoughts

Sustainable Ambition isn’t about slowing down, it’s about knowing when and how to shift gears. By managing your own pace and modeling these strategies for others, you create space for performance and renewal to coexist.

Author Bio

Kathy Oneto is an executive and life-work coach, speaker, facilitator, strategy consultant and advisor whose mission is to help ambitious organizations, teams, and individuals explore how to live and work differently for more success, satisfaction, and sustainability. She is the founder of Sustainable Ambition®, host of the Sustainable Ambition podcast, and author of the book Sustainable Ambition: How to Prioritize What Matters to Thrive in Life and Work (June 2025).

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