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Halfway There
Summer Is For Rest
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A Note from Gitanjali
I have always found July to be an interesting month. It arrives quietly, almost without us noticing, and then suddenly we realise that the year is already half over. Six months ago many of us sat down with a notebook, a new calendar, or perhaps simply a cup of tea and made promises to ourselves. We would exercise more consistently, apply for that new role, build the business, write the book (this one is me!), spend more time with family, or finally tackle the project that had been waiting for the "right moment."
By July, something else has happened. Life has happened. Looking back at January can sometimes feel uncomfortable because we instinctively measure ourselves against the version of ourselves that was so optimistic six months ago. This year, I have been trying to think about that differently. Instead of asking whether I have achieved everything I planned, I have started asking a different question.
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"Am I giving myself enough time to recover so that I can continue doing meaningful work over the long term?"
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It is a question I suspect many ambitious people rarely ask, because somewhere along the way we learned to associate rest with laziness rather than with performance. Interestingly, neuroscience is pointing us in the opposite direction.
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang (what a fun name!), Professor of Education, Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Southern California, has spent years studying what happens in the brain during periods of quiet reflection. Her work on the brain's Default Mode Network suggests that when we stop concentrating on a task, our brain does not become idle. Instead, it begins integrating experiences, consolidating memories, strengthening learning, and making connections that are difficult to produce during periods of intense concentration. That finding has been echoed by research from many other disciplines. Matthew Walker, Professor of Neuroscience and Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, has shown through decades of sleep research that learning is completed not only through effort but also through recovery.
The economic evidence is equally interesting. The OECD Employment Outlook 2024 continues to show that several European countries with the highest levels of productivity also protect generous annual leave. Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany and Norway consistently demonstrate that fewer working hours do not necessarily mean lower output.
Perhaps summer is valuable not because it gives us more time to be productive, but because it reminds us that productivity was never supposed to be continuous. We have become remarkably good at filling every available moment. Even holidays have become projects. We plan them, optimise them, document them — and sometimes return needing another holiday to recover from the first!
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The Professional Women's Group
One of the highlights of this month was speaking at the Professional Women's Group. Thank you to everyone who joined the session, asked thoughtful questions, and stayed afterwards to continue the conversation.
Professional Women's Group, Zurich
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One idea that generated particular interest came from Ellen Million's discussion of the hidden job market. It was a timely reminder that careers are rarely built exclusively through online applications. Many opportunities move quietly through conversations, introductions, recommendations and relationships long before they ever appear on a recruitment website.
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🎙️ RESOURCES OF THE MONTH
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Summer is often a good time to catch up on conversations that we meant to listen to but never quite found time for. Here are three episodes that continue to generate thoughtful messages from listeners.
Tired of Being a Role Model
Inspired by my recent visit to Columbia Law School, we talk about responsibility, stewardship, and the quiet exhaustion that can come from always feeling that someone else is watching.
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Motherhood, Money, and the Career Cost
A conversation that explores the long-term financial consequences of motherhood and why so many families underestimate the cumulative effect of career breaks, pensions and lifetime earnings. Many of you wrote to say you had conversations with your partners that you had postponed for years, and several told me you sat down with a calculator for the first time to understand what the long-term implications might look like.
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Women and Workplace Politics: How Not To Get Dirty
In this episode, Apa and I explore how to understand influence, sponsorship, visibility and organisational dynamics without compromising your own values.
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It Will Still Be Here in August
This is normally the point in the newsletter where I would encourage you to sign up for my online negotiation course. Instead, I am going to give you slightly different advice.
If you have already purchased the course, it will still be waiting for you in August. If you have been thinking about enrolling, it will still be available in August. There is no prize for squeezing one more commitment into a month that could instead offer you some space to recover. So take the holiday. The course, and I, will still be here when you return.
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Review Before You Restart
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One of the habits I have developed over the years is that I no longer wait until December to reflect on the year. By then, everything feels rushed. July provides enough distance to look back honestly and enough time to make meaningful adjustments before the year is over.
When I review the first half of the year, I rarely ask myself whether I have completed every goal I wrote down in January. Instead, I ask whether those goals still deserve my attention. Occasionally, I realise I was pursuing a goal simply because it sounded impressive rather than because it genuinely mattered to me.
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The real power move this month is not setting another ambitious target. It is deciding, with intention, what deserves my energy for the remaining six months of the year — and what I am willing to leave behind.
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Treating Rest As Something You Have To Earn
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One of the most persistent beliefs among ambitious people is that rest must be deserved. We tell ourselves that we will slow down after the project is delivered, after the promotion arrives, after the business reaches the next milestone, or after life finally becomes less busy. The problem, of course, is that the finish line has an extraordinary ability to move every time we get close to it.
Looking back over my own career, I can see how often I postponed recovery because there always seemed to be one more client, one more proposal, one more presentation, or one more opportunity that felt too important to ignore. We often admire people who appear capable of working endlessly, yet the people who sustain meaningful careers over decades are rarely the ones who never stop.
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Recovery is not the reward for good work. Recovery is one of the conditions that makes good work possible.
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Stop Doing Something
This month, I am not going to encourage you to add another habit, set another goal, or start another project. Instead, I invite you to stop doing something.
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If you have been searching for a new job for months, if you can, please stop the search for a brief few weeks. The opportunities will still be there in August, but you may return to them with a calmer mind and a fresh perspective.
If you are in the middle of a personal project, take a pause. I have decided that my own book launch can wait until August. After months of writing consistently, I would rather return rested and curious than continue simply because I feel I should.
And if you have been carrying a difficult decision around with you for weeks or even months, give yourself permission to stop trying to solve it every single day.
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Closing Reflection
The older I get, the more I realise that not every season is meant to look the same. There are periods in life that call for intensity and long hours, moments when we need to build, create, lead, or persevere through something difficult. There are other seasons that ask something very different of us. They ask us to recover, to reflect, and to notice whether the direction we are travelling still feels like the right one.
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So wherever you happen to be this month, I hope you allow yourself to slow down without feeling guilty about it.
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My hope is that when we all come back after the summer, we do so with clearer minds, renewed energy, and perhaps a slightly different perspective on what really deserves our attention during the second half of the year. Until then, have a restful summer.
With clarity and courage,
Gitanjali
Chief NegotiateHer
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