This post originally appeared in Forbes on January 29, 2025.
January arrives with the excitement and ambition of New Year's resolutions. Many treat the turning of the year as a fresh start. Yet, most people give up on their goals within two to six weeks. If January didn't go as planned or start with the bang and progress you hoped for, don't fret — there's a case to be made for holding space and giving yourself permission to pause. Megan Reitz, author and Associate Fellow at Saïd Business School, Oxford University, and Adjunct Professor of Leadership and Dialogue at Hult International Business School, has studied the art of "spaciousness" and her latest research on the topic provides tips on how to pause and reflect on what this busyness is all about — and why society makes us feel lazy or inefficient for doing so. It's time to throw out societal norms around busyness to create space for the things that matter most and reprioritize what it means to work in 2025.
"There’s a deep irony in that many people start the year having resolutions around being more mindful and being less stressed and, in the process, manage to come up with a whole pile of more tasks in order to do that," says Reitz. Spaciousness flips that concept on its head. It’s not about making time to squeeze in extra work to do all the things in pursuit of certain goals; rather, it’s about shifting one's attention to see the world as more dynamic instead of simply as a series of things to do. "The spacious mode is a mode where we widen our attention. We look at the world as it is, flowing and moving. We see interdependencies and relationships. When we look at the world in that way, we make markedly different decisions."
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