I am not sure how you plan your breaks but mine end up being very last-minute (and short!) recently. Just got back from one in London, and the memories with my brother, friends I haven’t seen in years, and a Test match at The Oval gave me the one thing my Google Calendar never can - space.

I barely can ‘switch off and reset’ - separate debate about that later - but it’s not spa-day-space or brainstorming-session-space I need; it’s the real kind that lets your brain go for a real walk. It’s actually that thing I pretend is deep introspection but is really just overthinking with better scenery, weather and outcomes.

Better clients. Better pace. Better alignment. Better decisions.

Better from me, and better from those around me.

Not wanting more doesn’t mean I have made peace with less. It just means I have stopped measuring ambition in volume.

I don’t need a 2-week sabbatical when a 4-day breather resets me just fine.

I don’t need 20 team members if 6 of them show up like fire.

I don’t need to say yes to everything when the right no moves me forward.

As Manuja as an individual and at nuja inc., I really don’t need these things, and there’s beauty in acknowledging and accepting it.

And I know this doesn’t always land. Sometimes, it feels like I have to explain that being ‘driven’ doesn’t mean I am on ‘overdrive’. Or that wanting better is not being a hardass, but being precise.

Some people will get that, and others won’t. Let me know which camp you fall in - if we agree on something, great. If not, you can respectfully take a walk…just not with my wandering brain on Fleet Street :)

M.

xx

Manuja

Not for everyone. Never was.