61. Pulling Back to Move Forward with Dr. Sasha Shillcutt

Jun 16

Sometimes it’s necessary to stop what you’re doing and figure out the next step. Dr. Sasha Shillcutt calls this process a pause and pivot and she believes it’s essential to move forward.

What Happens When You Pull Back and Pause

Get space to examine your life and figure out what you want
Release yourself from what’s holding you down and back
Experience your emotions
Move forward

Listen to Episode 61 Here

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About Dr. Sasha Shillcutt

Sasha K. Shillcutt, MD, MS, FASE is a tenured and endowed Professor and the Vice-Chair of Strategy in the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC). Sasha is the CEO & Founder of Brave Enough, a well-published researcher in cardiac anesthesiology and gender equity, author, and international speaker.

Sasha’s greatest passion is empowering and encouraging others to achieve well-being in their professional and personal lives. She speaks frequently to executives and leaders on the topics of professional resilience and gender equity. Her TEDx talk titled Resilience: The Art of Failing Forward has been viewed by thousands of people. Her writing has been published in both the New England Journal of Medicine and JAMA.

She leads conferences and retreats for professional women through her organization, Brave Enough. Her first book, Between Grit and Grace: How to be Feminine and Formidable, was released in February 2020.

Why You Should Pause

It can feel so overwhelming when you’re stuck in the constant mode of go, combined with people-pleasing. The internet can be a harmful place and Dr. Sasha Shillcutt talks about her experience with running her first Facebook group.

Sasha talks about how miserable she was while running her Facebook group. She explains how she was keeping it a positive experience for all the group members, but at a detriment to her own mental health.

She knew she had to pause and pivot, but the idea of closing her group scared her. But when Sasha finally did pull back from what she was doing, she realized what a good decision it was.

What Happens After a Pause

When Sasha took her pause and pivoted, she truly felt free to make better decisions for her life and business. She was no longer tied to something that didn’t feel aligned with her values and caused her more stress.

It wasn’t easy, but Sasha broke free from what held her back. Sasha describes the pause as not being easy - at all - and one of the hardest things she’s done, but also one of the most worthwhile. She encourages everyone to pause and pivot when they feel it’s necessary.

While she was in this space of pause, she also allowed herself to feel her entire range of emotions, including those perceived negative ones she tended to aggressively push aside.

Homework for Women Physicians

It’s time to grow deep in self-awareness, set clear boundaries, and develop strong time management skills to create the work-life balance you desperately need (and deserve!). In the Brave Enough Masterclass Brave Balance, you will learn tools to live an empowered life and create a long-lasting work-life balance so you live a life you love.

Have you ever taken a pause to pivot your life and move forward in a different direction? I’d love to hear about it if you’d like to share. If you haven’t, is this something you feel might benefit this era of your life? Let me know in the comments below!

In This Episode

Why pulling back is a good thing [6:00]
What a pause can allow you to do [15:15]
How to break free from what’s holding you down [20:00]
What happens emotionally after a pause [21:30]
Why it’s okay and essential to feel your whole range of emotions [22:00]

Quotes

“Give ourselves permission, as women, every year of our life, or every minute if you feel like it, to pause and pivot. Pull back to have to move forward. Success isn’t linear, it doesn’t just move from one axis to another, there’s a lot of stops and pauses along the way.”[5:20]

“The pause hurts so bad. If you think about your success in life, you probably didn’t learn much from it. But if you think about the times in your life that were horrible, you probably learned the most life lessons.” [10:34]

“I think it’s so easy to get sucked into likes, followers, and people-pleasing. But it’s a really dangerous, risky place to be. It’s so easy to cross that line and make it be unhealthy.” [25:37]