How do you find time to self-reflect when life is too busy to pause and look around?

It becomes increasingly clear in coaching that everyone has good intentions.

Much like setting a New Year's resolution, we have a plan, a new approach, a new understanding that means after our coaching session we are ready to implement what we have discovered. When we hit the day-to-day, it's going to be different.

But the pull that our routines and responsibilities have on us can feel like the strings on a marionette doll, and before we know it we are tap dancing to the same tune we danced to before the coaching because they are the systems we have used to cope, to succeed by the standards we have set for ourselves.

And our intentions will still be there next week. Maybe after the next coaching session?

So how do we shift that balance and introduce the space we need to turn the tide of our ingrained expectations?

Humans are phenomenally capable beings. Not only can we be creative, efficient and organised, but we can also find ways to do those things more easily, better and faster through our inventions and adaptations. Advances in industry, technology, travel and communication—anything really—are all designed to provide capacity.

In the early 1800s, travelling from London to Edinburgh by horse and stagecoach could take three days. By the mid-1800s, the railway had reduced the same journey to less than ten hours. Distance hadn’t changed—our ability to move through it had. Two days to spare. Think of the stress relief; what you could do with that time saved… ahhh, the novels I could read, the time spent with family… but what do we tend to do with any time saved? Fill it. Instead of creating capacity for space, balance and ourselves, we do more.

Let’s take the invention of the mobile phone. When the first handheld mobile phone call was made in 1973, the promise was remarkable: communication no longer needed to be tied to a place.

You no longer had to be at home to receive a call.

Or by your desk to hear important news.

You could be moving through the world and still stay connected.

By the 1990s and early 2000s, mobile phones became mainstream with a clear intention—greater freedom and flexibility.

A parent could be reached in an emergency.

A colleague could update you while travelling between meetings.

Plans could change without someone waiting at a landline or a designated meeting point. No longer do we need to ‘meet at the left lion in Nottingham Square at 6 o’clock’—a reference only understood specifically by my fellow Nottinghamers… but I digress…

Distance became less disruptive.

But with that convenience came something else.

If people could reach us anywhere… the expectation slowly became that they should be able to.

And if they could reach us instantly… the expectation became that we should respond instantly too.

The device designed to give us freedom of movement also made us perpetually reachable.

So even when we’re walking the dog, driving home, waiting in a queue or sitting on the sofa, part of us remains on standby.

Connection became continuous. And with continuous connection came the quiet pressure of continuous responsiveness.

Now let’s take a pause—don’t panic, I’m not trying to sell an off-grid lifestyle to anyone, though at times I see the appeal. I’m just setting a scene, painting a picture.

I have given two examples, but really I want us to consider the overlapping responsibilities and commitments we juggle on a day-to-day basis: timetables, budgeting and bills, jobs, meetings, travel, insurance, making sure we eat and sleep, and, for many of us, making sure our dependants do all of those things, and we become… busy, to say the least.

I could share research and statistics on the effects of these things, e.g., Mental Health UK’s 2026 Burnout Report, which found that 9 in 10 adults experienced high or extreme levels of pressure or stress. So here I creep ever closer to my point… thank you for bearing with me thus far.

We are clear at The Excitable Soul that purpose isn’t an add-on, something you make up; it is uncovered. It has always existed. When you have done the discovery work, the soul-searching and exploration of the protective or armoured behaviours we have acted in service of in the past, there can be an almost enlightening quality to it. A personal awareness that in itself holds remarkable potential.

Imagine what is possible if we make choices in alignment with what is meaningful to the self and contributes beyond the self (the definition of purpose that we use).

But once you have this awareness, we have to go back into this maelstrom of competing needs, wants and pressures and disrupt our implicit ways of working to become more intentional. We form new habits of awareness by paying attention to what we assign meaning to.

“But what we know about forming new habits is that it’s hard.”

But what we know about forming new habits is that it's hard.

It is understandable, then, that people find it challenging to apply this new awareness. What we often call multitasking is rarely doing multiple things at once; cognitively, it is usually task-switching—stopping one thought, holding it, shifting attention, then returning again. Each switch comes with a cost. Psychologists refer to this as a switch cost, in which time, mental energy and focus are lost during the transition between tasks. So when we ask ourselves to pause, reflect and make a more intentional choice, it is not happening in a vacuum. It is happening alongside emails, conversations, responsibilities and unfinished thoughts already competing for our attention. No wonder it can feel hard.

This is why making space to notice often needs structure before it becomes instinct. James Clear writes in Atomic Habits about habit stacking—the practice of attaching a new behaviour to one that already exists: After I make my coffee, I will sit for one minute and reflect. After I park the car, I will take one deep breath before going inside. Rather than relying on motivation or memory, we anchor noticing to something already woven into daily life. This matters because awareness, like any new practice, asks something of us cognitively. Research from University College London found that forming a habit takes, on average, 66 days, though it can take much longer. In other words, if paying attention to what matters does not feel natural yet, that doesn’t mean you are doing it wrong. It simply means you are practising. And practice, repeated over time, becomes rhythm.

So what happens after enlightenment? Some hard but rewarding work. Becoming aware of what matters is one thing; applying it consistently is another. It takes intention, practice and often a conscious pause in the middle of full and busy lives.

The good news is that the research broadly agrees with what we have found in coaching: people rarely create meaningful reflection by suddenly finding an extra hour in the day. Instead, they build it into moments that already exist. Reflection is most successful when it becomes part of everyday life rather than another task on the to-do list. Whether through journalling, talking things through with a trusted person, recording voice notes during a commute, or attaching a reflective question to an existing routine, the aim is the same—to create small but consistent opportunities to notice what is happening, what you are feeling, and what those experiences might be telling you about what matters.

And we've got you covered. From our experience at The Excitable Soul, here are some of the ways people have found to intentionally reflect and make space to notice what matters.

Journal the day – What happened? What energised or drained me?

Follow the feeling – What is this emotion telling me about what matters?

Voice-note your commute – Reflect while travelling rather than finding extra time.

Find a curious partner – Someone who asks questions rather than gives advice.

Habit stack reflection – After I make my morning coffee... After I finish yoga... After I park the car...

Pause before replying – Particularly to triggering emails or messages.

Use waiting time – Kettle boiling, school pick-up queue, train platform, walking the dog.

Create purpose prompts – "What would alignment look like here?" or "What matters most in this situation?"

The school gate pause – Before getting out of the car, ask yourself:

What energy am I bringing into this next interaction?

The dog walk debrief – Use the first five minutes of a walk to replay a conversation or event and ask:

What am I still carrying from that?

The traffic light check-in – Each time you stop at a red light, take a breath and notice:

What emotion am I feeling right now?

The shower reflection – Many people do their best thinking in the shower. Instead of planning tomorrow's to-do list, ask:

What has been getting my attention recently and what might that be telling me?

The diary scan – Before looking at tomorrow's calendar, ask:

Which of these commitments feels most aligned with what matters to me? Which feels least aligned?

The lunch break audit – Halfway through the day, ask:

Have I spent today reacting or choosing?

The queue challenge – Whether waiting for a coffee, in the supermarket or at the school gate, ask:

What have I noticed today that I might otherwise have missed?

The recurring frustration test – When something annoys you, pause and ask:

What value or meaning marker feels threatened here?

The celebration habit – At the end of the day, identify one thing that felt meaningful, however small. Train your attention to notice what is working, not just what needs fixing.

The bedtime breadcrumb – Ask:

If today left breadcrumbs about what matters to me, what would they be?

The transition ritual – Whenever you move from one role to another—employee to parent, teacher to partner, manager to friend—take thirty seconds and ask:

What do I want to bring into this next chapter of my day?

The mirror question – Whilst brushing your teeth, ask:

What did I learn about myself today?

Purpose is not discovered in a single moment of insight. It is uncovered through repeated acts of noticing. The challenge is rarely knowing what matters; it is creating enough space to see it. Small moments, repeated consistently, have a remarkable way of changing the stories we tell ourselves and the choices we make.

We would love to add to this list. How do you fly in the face of the daily pressures to self-reflect?