Sometimes last year, I started a pastry business with my wife. It was just chinchin but there was a big dream for it because I have always believed that food production is one of those businesses that stand a chance in the future. We wanted to include coconut flakes, peanuts, and a few other things later. The fire was burning pretty well, and I was moving with the boost. But all of a sudden, the fire started burning low when things weren’t going as planned.
The cost of ingredients increased and I didn’t want to compromise on quality, but customers didn’t want to understand. They wanted the same quality and quantity for the same price, which wasn’t possible; it would mean me forfeiting profit. Increasing the price of product wasn’t an option either because I had competitors, especially within my community. A lot of people compromised on quality, but I wasn’t ready to sell to people what I can’t consume.
I told my wife we needed to pause while I figure out how we can make profit, even though it’s not much. She asked if we were quitting, and I said no, it’s a break we must take to make progress. While the production was paused, a few people kept asking for the product. My wife always said we must lose these few, but their numbers were too small to keep the business running. What I needed was a market that appreciates our quality and it took me a while to discover the right market, but the break was worth it, judging by our sales in the past few weeks.
While reflecting on the difference between then and now, I realized that sometimes pausing to recharge on any journey isn’t completely a bad idea. It’s an opportunity for reflection and reassessment before progressing.
I know a lot of people would disagree with the idea of pausing because they misunderstand the essence of it. I was once like that; pausing meant laziness or quitting, and I always pushed myself until I burned out. Right now, I feel like there are so many things I wouldn’t have quit if I had taken time to pause and reassess instead of pushing myself forward blindly, driven by competition or aspiration without checking if the applied strategy was truly working for me.
From the recent improvement, I can confidently say that I have gained new perspective and clarity, which is paying off already. I feel double the flame, I feel more motivated to keep going just because I took a pause. There is a huge possibility that I could have experienced burnout like so many did if I hadn’t taken the pause.
Sometimes, people quit after pausing, and it still doesn’t mean that to pause is bad. What if, during the pause, they realize that they could have done better with something else and decided to direct their resources into something more meaningful and rewarding? That's what pausing is capable of doing, helping you see what you missing to make the right decision.
For me, its a fact that pausing or quitting isn’t always for the worse course; it can be inspired by positive reasons.
I would love to know your thoughts about the idea of pausing to reflect or reevaluate yourself. Have you taken a pause recently? What was it about, and how did it turn out? I would love to learn from your experience.
