The Clock and the Moment: When to Push, Pause, or Pivot
- Maria Carbunaru
- July 8, 2025
- 5:53 pm
- 0 comments
Though family relationships, friendships, hobbies, or travelling are all fertile soils for training our sense of timing.
How many of us have been in situations where we pushed a project through when it was not ready, we delayed a task and missed the wave, or we made a change for the change’s sake, creating a mess when the situation required more consistency and practice?
In our fast-paced world of modern work and life, it becomes obvious that timing isn’t just about meeting deadlines, raising the numbers, scaling up, or improving performance—it’s about reading the moment.
If we are to move forward in a life-giving, nature-harmonious way, we need to develop an understanding that every decision has its time, and that knowing when to act is as important as how.
When I decided to leave Romania, the hour didn´t seem ideal.
A pandemic has started to mess up the brain of the world. We had restraining orders for moving past the streets of our homes, we needed vaccination certificates to travel to other countries, and we were wiping the food packages with alcohol. It all seemed like a bad time.
But internally, I knew that weirdly enough… for me, it was an auspicious time.
I was filled with excitement at being accepted into the Improvisation School in Canada. I could rely on some savings, and mostly I was ready to let go of the main project of my young years: Education Studio.
After almost 7 years of coordinating it, the place where I put my heart needed to go on without me, and I needed to find out who I was without it.
Something deeper than my fear and guilt told me that the biggest challenge now was to hold the grip tight, to be unable to detach and let the kid enter the school gates without me. The most insane thing now would not be to move to another country by myself without definite plans, but to ignore the voices of “the moment” and stay with the measure of “the clock”.
Moreover, I knew that I needed a new challenge, and if I didn’t jump then, maybe I would never do it.
“Timing can be everything and wisdom requires the patience to wait as well as the courage to leap when the time becomes right.”
MICHAEL MEADE
Anthropologist, Mythologist, Founder of Mosaic Foundation
Two types of timing
This balance between the clock and the moment—between structure and intuition—seems like an essential skill to develop if we want to make sure there still is a planet for us and the next generations.
So what’s the clock? It’s the world of schedules, metrics, and deliverables. It's time we measure, plan, and organize. It keeps us accountable and keeps projects on track. It’s what the Greeks call Chronos.
But the moment, or what they call kairos, is different. It's the opportune, often unpredictable, time of sensing when something deeper is ready to shift. It’s when a group is ripe for innovation, or when pushing forward would lead to burnout instead of a breakthrough.
As we move forward, we might notice we need both Chronos and Kairos in our lives.
Cultivating timing skills through improvisation
In her book, Improvisation for the Theatre, Viola Spolin, the creator of theatre games, shares:
“Timing is perceiving (sensing); it is an organic response which cannot be taught by lecture. It is the ability to handle the multiple stimuli occurring within a setting. It is the host attuned to the individual needs of the many guests. It is the cook putting a dash of this and a flick of that into a stew. It is the children playing a game, alert to each other and to the environment around them. It is to know objective reality and to be free to respond to it.”
During my studies with improvisation coach Aretha Sills, I grew sensitive to the moment when she introduced a new exercise.
It appeared to me that there was a lot of sensing involved.
A new exercises was not chosen because it was fun or because it could make for a special experience in the group (though most probably it did both). It was also not pushed aside because some players have done it already, but because I believe - she sensed it would be the right time for us, in this particular group, with these exact people, to try it out.
Timing in a Circle of Trust
In my other foundational foundational experience, in the Circle of Trust retreats at the Center for Courage and Renewal, I remember that no talking sticks were passed from one participant to another.
Silence had a role in the group, and if anyone felt it was the moment to speak, they would break the silence, and they would stop when they felt.
The touchstone “Everything here is by invitation, not demand” made everyone free to express themselves and to be considerate of the space left for others.
In his book “A Hidden Wholeness”, Parker J Palmer, the founder of the Center, shares countless examples of people mentioning how happy they were that they were allowed to stay in silence for many sessions in a row when the sharing circle was opened. Because in that space I believed they found something they couldn't find in any other areas of their life: they finally heard themselves, and got a sense of their inner timing.
“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.”
LAO TZU
Philosopher, Writer from Ancient China, author of "Tao Te Ching"
So, how do we know when to push, pause, or pivot?
In practice, this is a skill that cannot be taught, but can be cultivated. Like a path that appears under our feet through repeatedly walking on the empty field.
To start, we can watch out for some clues that indicate one path is more suitable than the other. We may want to consider:
- Is the clarity high? Have the previous natural phases of the cycle we’re in been completed? Are our efforts and motivations aligned and ready for welcoming a new wave of energy that the push will release? Do we have enough inner and outer resources to hold the unknown that comes with it?
We might want to consider advancing, despite the fear.
- Are there signals that something deeper is off, and pushing would only create more resistance? Do we feel stress, confusion, or disengagement in or around us?
Sometimes it’s ok to let it go for a while. A well-timed pause—whether it's a moment to regroup, a candid check-in, or a strategic delay—can restore clarity and prevent burnout. Contrary to the general feeling nowadays, pausing isn’t about losing time; it could be about regaining perspective.
- Does it feel like the old path no longer fits? Is the project in a loop, and has there been no refresh for a significant time?
Pivoting might be what we need when conditions change. The most attuned parents, colleagues, team leaders, creators or facilitators read the signals: a drop in energy, new insights from colleagues, or a shift in the needs of those whom we serve. Pivoting doesn’t mean failure—it shows agility and responsiveness.
The challenge is that the "right time" often doesn’t show up on a calendar. It´s only identified by our inner wisdom.
That’s why we need relational intelligence, listening, and reflection skills to know when to add "a dash of this and a flick of that".
It’s also where we can start building cultures that are not just time-efficient, but timing-aware.
In today’s work landscape, those who can tune into both the clock and the moment will do more meaningful and fulfilling work. Because in the end, it’s not just what we do—it’s when we do it—that shapes the future of our civilization.
