What you have planned to do right now is the most important thing to focus on. Staying in the now is a mental focus thing that requires tremendous commitment, but pays great rewards. How many times have you been engaged in something and found your mind wandering? Someone is talking to you and you are thinking about something that happened in the past or something that is going to happen in the future. Stay in the now. The thing you are doing right now is the most important task for you and nothing else matters during that moment. This attitude helps in so many ways:
1. Exercise. If you have committed to a exercise and you are just now engaging in that activity. Focus on nothing else. Give that exercise your all, focus on making it the best minutes of the day. Really get yourself into the activity. Committed exercise in this manner always pays in the best ways. You see improvement more rapidly. If you find yourself dragging, or thinking about other things, or getting distracted. Stop and tell yourself to stay in the now.
2. Relationships. Here is a good example. I had the opportunity to take some time with my daughter the other day for a walk. I could have been on my phone, or distracted by other troubling thoughts. Rather I chose to leave my phone and home, and also shutdown everything else that I was doing and I went for a walk with my daughter. We talked, had fun, engaged. That was the best thing that I could have done at that time. Every relationship you have will dramatically improve by staying in the now. If you have time dedicated to a person, then focus on that person and let nothing else get in the way.
3. Projects. We all have projects we are working on. How many times do we start projects just to get distracted by other things? We cannot get our projects done because we do not focus the allocated time to them. An hour of work probably produces 10 minutes of quality time on the project….going to get something to eat….ok now I am back. Where was I? Oh yeah, writing this blog. Hold on, someone is calling me, be right back. Ok, I am back. That person really made me upset. Now I am really angry. What was I talking about? Oh yeah, staying in the now. BING, ah I cant believe that person just asked me in an email the same thing they did last week. Was my original answer not good enough? What was I working on now? Ah forget it, time for second breakfast.
4. Me time. Everyone needs time to wind down, reflect, ponder, pray, consider values, goals. Do you actually focus on that or do you allow the constant needle of distraction to poke you in the eye all day and night right up until you zombie out in front of a TV? Carve out time for yourself, and make that a priority. Focus on the now and eliminate all distraction from this important time focusing on critical personal growth.
Living the NOW is very important, a mentality that takes effort to perform. Do not get me wrong, planning for the future or learning from the past is important – but schedule time to do that! Focus on that as an activity and not a constant albatross you deal with all the time. Stay in the Now and watch life get better.
Guy Reams
