Not all work looks like work. Sometimes, the most productive thing you can do is stop.

The pace of startup life is fast.
One quarter rolls into the next.

You finish a sprint and step straight into a board meeting, or your next team meeting, or you begin your next investment round.

Reflection and pausing to deliberately learn gets pushed down the list.

And before you know it one quarter rolls into the next and the next.

Coming into 2025, I knew I didn’t want that. I didn’t want to leave my growth - or my learning - to chance. I didn’t want to lose sight of the deeper arc of what I’m building and why.

So I created something new: a Wayfinding Retreat.

Why I Created the Wayfinding Retreat.

The seed was simple: I wanted a ritual. A consistent moment, every quarter, to step back and ask:
How am I doing? How is my business doing? Am I on track? What needs adjusting?

I’ve learned a lot from the world of endurance events - about pacing, energy management, and mental resilience. I’ve come to believe that founders have a lot in common with endurance athletes.

We need the focus that a training plan or a clear set of outcome and performance goals can provide.

We need recovery periods.

We need reflection built into the rhythm of how we operate.

But in business, those pauses rarely happen unless we deliberately design them in.

So I decided to do just that.

And to make it stick, I knew it needed structure.

It needed an identity.

A name.

A sense of ritual.

The result?

A 24-hour solo retreat, in my camper van, in the middle of the Peak District.

No meetings.

No screens.

Just nature, a notebook, and a handful of pre-set questions I’d created to guide my thinking.

“This wasn’t about checking out.
It was about tuning in.”

There’s real science behind this, too. Studies show that even brief immersion in nature can restore cognitive function, boost creative problem-solving by up to 50%, and reduce mental fatigue.¹

And for me, that tracks. When I’m in the hills, things click into place faster. I feel clearer. My thinking stretches wider.

What Is the Wayfinding Retreat?

The Wayfinding Retreat is intentionally simple.

It’s not about elaborate plans or expensive locations (unless of course that’s your thing!). It’s about stepping out of my usual environment into a space where I can think differently.

Here’s what it looked like for me:

24 hours offline in the Peak District
A quiet spot in my camper van with good food, a big duvet, and my notebook (the spot I chose provided me with a key, to enter through a door in a walled garden, which gave me access to the grounds of Chatsworth House which is where I headed for my morning run)
A long walk (& yes - I lucked out with the sunshine!)
A clear structure for reflection—but also space to follow my thoughts wherever they needed to go

Why did I call it The Wayfinding Retreat? The word ‘wayfinding’ comes from ancient navigation practices—how seafarers would move across oceans using only the stars, the wind, the swell. No fixed maps. Just the ability to sense, adjust, and respond.

Startup life is more often than not, busy. And that can mean we’re often in ‘flight or flight’ mode. Cortisol is high and we’re making decisions on the go. And let’s be honest - that’s part of what draws us to entrepreneurship.

But this busy-ness creates noise. And I believe we have to create moments where we provide ourselves with the opportunity for quiet. Time to reflect, to sense, to adjust and respond to where we’re at and where we’re heading to.

Finding our way forward by pausing to connect with where we’re at today.

How It Fits With the Way I Work

The Wayfinding Retreat is part of a broader rhythm I’ve built for myself—an ecosystem of small but powerful rituals that keep me grounded and intentional, even when the pace picks up.

Here’s how the pieces fit together:

Daily Trail Notes – a few minutes each morning to set intentions. It’s where I ask: What matters most today? How do I want to show up?
Weekly Basecamp – a moment to zoom out and reflect on the week. What’s moved forward? What needs adjusting? What’s felt good?
Monthly Waypoint Review – a deeper look at my and my businesses outcome goals, the progress I’m making towards them, the ways or working that are working well or that need adjusting. It’s my moment to recalibrate and refocus.
Quarterly Wayfinding Retreat – this is the big one. A proper pause to reflect on the last quarter and to plan, and set outcome goals for the next quarter—while checking in on the process goals and performance markers that will get me there.

Each layer does something different. Together, they help me avoid reactive leadership and keep me tethered to what actually matters.

The Questions I Used on This Retreat

Reflection doesn’t need to be complicated to be powerful.

These are the prompts I used on my first Wayfinding Retreat. If you're looking to design your own pause, feel free to borrow or adapt them:

What am I grateful for from the last quarter?
What were my biggest wins? What am I most proud of?
What challenges did I face? What did these teach me?
Have I been working in alignment to my mission statement and my values? When has this felt strongest? When has this felt hard?
Which habits have supported my growth and progress towards my startups outcome goals?
Imagine you can time travel - what outcome goals will you have achieved at the end of next quarter?
What excites me? What scares me? What help do I need?
What’s driving me to be focused in the next quarter?
What one word sums up the theme for the next quarter?
What would make the next 90 days feel energising and intentional?

You’ll notice they’re not all about KPIs or growth metrics*. And that’s intentional. A Wayfinding Retreat is about whole-self reflection—because you’re not just building a business, you’re leading it. And it’s these types of questions which will help you to get a read on how that’s going.

*an input to my wayfinding retreat is a review of my business KPIs - so that work happens alongside this.

What I Noticed

This retreat gave me more than I expected. Here are a few things I noticed and why I’m already looking forward to the next one:

1. My brain started working on it before I even arrived.
The moment I blocked the time, something shifted. My subconscious kicked in. Ideas started bubbling up, questions started forming, and I felt my focus sharpening in anticipation.

2. Pausing before burnout is a gamechanger.
So often we only step back when we hit a wall. But this was different. Because I paused from a place of intention—not exhaustion—I accessed a different kind of clarity. Calm, creative, focused.

3. It’s productive… even if it doesn’t look like work.
Sitting in a campervan, wrapped up in my duvet with a notebook (before going for a run around the grounds of Chatsworth House!) isn’t what most people imagine when they think of “high performance.” But I came back clearer, more focused, and more connected to what really matters in my work.

“This kind of reflection doesn’t slow you down.
It fuels your next leap forward.”

Your Version Might Look Different

You don’t need a camper van or a national park to have your own Wayfinding Retreat.

Your version might be an afternoon in a café with your phone on airplane mode. A long walk with a voice note app. A quiet hour in a library with your journal and a coffee.

But whatever it looks like, name it. Give it weight. Make it a ritual you return to.

Because as founders, we need spaces where we can sense, adjust, and move forward with intention.

What’s one simple act you could take right now?

Pick a date, and schedule your next Wayfinding Retreat - whatever it might look like for you.

The Power of Pausing: Inside My First Wayfinding Retreat