remind yourself that you are doing the best that you can.
I don’t know what is going on for you or what’s causing your stress, but I suspect that you don’t feel in control of your life right now.
The reality is that much of life is out of our control. By its very nature, life is made up of all manner of experiences and feelings. There will be joy, pain, happiness, sadness, confusion, clarity, struggle and ease. It will continue to twist and turn and every now and then it might literally side-swipe us.
With life sometimes seemingly doing its own thing, it can be easy to forget that we have a choice in what we bring in response to it. That’s the bit that is in our control but we forget that. We waste time and energy on things that we can do nothing about. In the name of your own sanity, I urge you to interrupt that habit.
Taking control of your life is about owning it. It is about accepting what is in your control and letting go of what isn’t. It’s about letting go of what you think you should be doing, or could be doing, and focusing on what you are doing. Take full ownership of what you bring to life. Own your state of being, your thoughts, your words, your choices and your actions. Every one of them. Don’t blame them on anything or anyone else ever again. Why? Because that’s the most self-empowering, life-changing thing you can do for yourself.
As you reflect on this, don’t beat yourself up about what isn’t working. Don’t waste time and energy focused on what anyone else is or isn’t doing either. Just focus on you and your life, as it is right now. So often we spend time and energy focused on what isn’t in our control, on the what-ifs. Don’t. Not right now, anyway. The best use of your time and energy right now is to focus fully on you. What you do. Or what you don’t. From now on, take full responsibility for what you can actually do something about.
# The hack
Take full responsibility for your state of being, your thoughts, your words, your choices and your actions. Don’t judge them, beat yourself up about them or get disheartened by them – simply own them, exactly as they are.
If you’ve got a lot going on in life it can feel overwhelming. One of the reasons people find having a lot to do stressful is that mentally they are carrying their entire day and everything they have to do in it into each and every moment. If they are dealing with a particular stressful situation, they carry it with them in every single moment. No wonder that is stressful; or that it is impossible to be focused. But even the busiest of days or most stressful times can only happen one moment at a time.
A practice that I call the single-breath practice is to take one deep, conscious breath as often as you can throughout the day.
Try it now. Just take one, deep conscious inhale, and then exhale.
That’s it. It’s that simple. Use it to remind yourself that you can only be where you are, doing what you can, and that you can get through your entire day by taking it one moment at a time. You do not have to do it all at once. It can be helpful to use it as a way to create transitions throughout the day. For example, you can take a deep conscious breath as you arrive at work to mentally transition out of your journey. Or take a deep conscious breath as you arrive at a meeting to bring your full awareness to it. If you notice you have lost focus during the meeting, you can use it again. Use it as you leave the meeting to transition your focus and energy into what you are about to do. If an email comes in that makes your blood boil, take a deep breath (or several) to help you to step back for a moment before you respond. When you leave work at the end of a day, take another breath and mentally finish the day to make your transition into your evening.
Honestly, this simple practice can change your life! I highly recommend trying it for a few weeks. I once gave this practice to a one-to-one coaching client I was working with. As a managing director of a large organization, he was struggling with the pressure of long hours, lots of work-related travel and the multiple demands coming at him from all areas of the business. I suggested that he used the single-breath practice to keep bringing himself into the moment he was in, and to put space between a demand coming at him and his response to it. He said it helped him to recognize that his desire to respond and resolve issues quickly meant he often did and said a lot of things that weren’t as effective and productive as they could be. Using the single-breath practice transformed the way he managed both his team and his personal life. I have found it to be life-changing. I use it to bring my focus into the present moment. I ask myself: ‘What am I bringing to this moment? Is it what I want to bring to it?’
When you begin to be more fully present, time opens up for you. Busy days feel more manageable and less hassled. You don’t have to do your whole future right now; just this moment. That’s all. I will help you to do this in Part 4 – Living more mindfully.
Hurrying is a state of mind
Have you ever noticed that when you are pushed for time you feel a bit hurried and a bit impatient with anything that holds you up? Have you also noticed that when you are not pushed for time you can feel a bit hurried and a bit impatient with anything that holds you up?! Mmmmmm. Feeling hurried can become a mindset.
Many years ago, I had an aha moment about being busy and feeling hurried. It occurred when I was competing and I was running on a treadmill in the middle of a hectic day. I had raced to the gym to fit a 30-minute session in and still had a packed day ahead of me. I noticed that I felt hurried while I was running. Then I had the realization that, whether I felt hurried or not, 30 minutes is 30 minutes. Clearly I had scheduled it into the day so logistically I had the time to do it. Whether I felt hurried or not, the time impact on the day would be exactly the same. It was a turning point for me because that was the first time I realized that having a lot to do and feeling hurried are not the same thing. It is possible to be extremely busy and not feel hurried or stressed. It is also possible to not be at all busy and to feel hurried and stressed. It’s a mindset shift. If your full awareness is in the present moment and continues to be so, then even the busiest day won’t feel hurried.
How often do you race into a meeting a little late, having rushed from another meeting? Do you feel hurried when that happens? How present is your focus when your day is spent that way? For many people, this creates a bit of what I call the jet-lag effect, in that it takes them time to fully arrive in a meeting because their mind is catching up from racing from the previous one. Then towards the end of their current meeting, their focus is already leaking out into their next appointment because they feel the time is running out in this one. If that is a typical day, it means they are rarely fully in any of their meetings. That is a huge disadvantage. The whole day can have a feeling of trying to catch up. It is no wonder we miss essential information or forget things when our focus isn’t fully there in the first place. Taking a deep breath to bring our awareness into the moment opens up so much more efficiency and effectiveness. It feels so much better too.
# The hack
Use the single-breath practice throughout the day to remind yourself that you can only be where you are, doing what you can, and that you can get through your entire day by taking it one moment at a time. Whatever you are facing in life, you only have to face it one moment at a time. Use it to bring your awareness into the present moment and ask yourself: ‘Am I mentally hurrying right now?’
