I need a change of pace.

Hey everyone, last May I taught you the word pace. Which means a step or the speed at which you walk/move/do something. 

Phil walks at a quick pace.

Life in Tokyo is fast paced.

That movie was too slow paced, nothing happened for the first 40 minutes!

You can see that lesson here.

The other day I was teaching a lesson and taught:

a change of pace

I then realized I forgot to include this common idiom in my pace lesson! So today I will teach you how to use this very common idiom.

It means that something has been moving at the same speed for a long time and it has gotten a little boring or tiring. You need to change your pace (speed up or slow down) to feel refreshed.

When traveling on foot, you move faster if you change your pace (walk 10 minutes, jog 30 minutes, walk 10 minutes, run 10 minutes, jog, etc) than if you keep the same pace all the time.

This idiom is usually used to talk about your life, you are getting bored with how your life is going and you want a change of pace. Either you want to slow things down or you want to speed things up.

1. I used to be a stock-broker in New York but it was really stressing me out. My doctor told me I should slow things down so I decided to start an organic farm for a change of pace.                       
2. I've been stuck in this small town since college, I need a change of pace! Next year, I think I'm gonna move to the big city!                                                                                                    
3. I always go to McDonald's so sometimes I go to Lotteria for a change of pace.

As you can see, change of pace is usually used with need or for a. 

Need is often used BEFORE you've changed things, you use it to talk about a change you're thinking/dreaming of doing.

For a is used to explain the REASON you changed something. You are explaining that things had gotten boring and you needed to do something different.

After traveling around the world for a year and a half, I realized I needed a change of pace so I decided to settle down in Japan and teach English for awhile.

Have a good week,

Phil