Your Self Improvement Blog

I recently spent a few of days with a client here in the Alps – someone who regards his personal development as of paramount importance in his life, someone who changed his daily routine, going to bed one hour earlier to ensure that he has an extra hour each morning for meditation. He has been regularly meditating for up to an hour every morning for the last couple of years. The benefits? His fitness and health have greatly improved. His mental focus at work and at home has become laser-like and he has suddenly discovered a new-found creativity – in terms of news ideas and problem solving. He is in the zone.

And, yet, some months ago, he was confronted by a major career decision and, in the process, found himself reverting to the indecision and stress that had almost ruined his life some years ago, that had almost cost him everything. So, here’s his question to me – why, when it came to the push, did his meditation have no effect in the cut and thrust of daily life? Well, for starters, he freely admitted that things would have even been a lot worse had he not been meditating. As he said to me, at the very least, he is one of a small minority of people who are fully aware of their thoughts and fully aware when what they are thinking is unhelpful or damaging.

However, the important point is that, unless you put what you learn in meditation into the moment to moment living of your everyday life, you cannot achieve the downstream and all-important benefits of clarity, focus and presence of mind. Of course, you don’t wait until something goes wrong to start putting what you have learned in meditation into practice – you do it when things are just normal. It’s a little like training for a big match – you train in advance so that you can play your best on the big occasion.

This training consists of regularly checking your state of mind during the day – every day. If things are simply running normally, chances are that your mind is wandering and distracted – after all, this is the normal adult default state of mind. Research demonstrates that the average adult pays just one percent attention to what is happening when all is running smoothly. Obviously, this level of commitment to one’s life is not sufficient to have a great life – and this is why most people tend to be “not-too-bad”. As a consequence of this, the ordinariness of everyday life provides us with the perfect training ground. Simply stop yourself at various points during the day and become aware of whether you are clear, present and focused or not – how you feel during meditation will be your benchmark for comparative purposes.

If you are not in a clear and present state of mind, bring yourself back to that state by returning to now. Practically speaking, this means that you take a couple of moments to pay full attention to the moment – you could stop and focus your sight, feeling, hearing, senses of smell and taste on what is actually going on, or you could simply take and fully experience a few deep breaths. Our contact with the here and now – and the opportunity it presents us with to live our ordinary day extraordinarily – is through (and only through) our five senses. You must come to your senses!

And, if you do this when nothing stressful is happening in your life, you will be fit and trained to be at your best when things do actually go wrong.

Popularity: 5% [?]