The mind is an amazing thing isn’t it?
The Demoralising Preview of Life’s Coming Attractions…that Never Happen!
All your happiness and sadness, success and failure, excitement and boredom come from within your mind, from how you perceive the world.
We can keep ourselves locked in a state of mental anguish, fearful, expecting the worst to happen thinking about a future event…all whilst sitting in comfort and safety in the present moment, far away from this imagined future event.
Why do we do that, make picture of ourselves failing, of being made to look like idiots, feeling weak, small, unable to handle a situation…
…and then feel bad because we feel bad?
It’s like taking Disney Land and making it into ‘The Saddest Place in the World’.
It’s been a pretty busy time of late; lots of project work, negotiating a new contract with a partner, lots of reliance on me to produce an output that others will use to make important decisions, particularly involving spending money.
And I’ve noticed this creeping in a wee bit lately. Not massively so, but enough for me to take note – the mental scenarios of me failing, of being put on the spot and not being able to answer, of being made to look stupid, of making mistakes that cost a lot of money.
And the honest truth of it…
Not one single thing my brain conjured up of failing actually happened – not one!
All that mental anguish, fear, anxiety creeping in about an imagined future event…
…didn’t happen
Here is what actually happened:
– Every situation handled well
– Strong feedback and acceptance of the analysis and recommendations made
– People coming through and delivering the content I needed (worrying they wouldn’t)
– People stepping up and taking care of what they are accountable for (misplaced worry I was accountable for their piece because I was pulling it all together
All that mental stress for absolutely nothing!
We can’t exactly control all our thoughts – it’s a waste of time to try, so don’t bother trying to control all of them…and then getting annoyed when you cant.
You can change a good chunk of them though…
…and consciously trying to focus on successful outcomes in future situations, as well as focussing on thoughts and feelings of being calm, confident and strong in the present moment is very important.
But what has worked for me more over the past couple of months I can boil down to these key points:
– Recognise when my brain is going off on one running mental movies of failure
– Take a few deep breaths, bring awareness back to the present moment and start to let go of that mental movie
– Take a few moments to play a different mental movie – imagine succeeding in that future event and it working out
– Get mind firmly back in the present moment, focussed on the key activity in the present moment, experience and enjoy what’s happening in the present moment
– Leave this future event where it is…in the future
McKenna’s Perspective
Paul McKenna really brought this home to me in his book The 3 Things that will Change your Destiny. the concept was actually the work of a friend of his, but the gist is that most people spend something like 20% of their time/awareness in the present moment only, with 40% of their time in the past (worry/regret) and 40% of their time in the future (worry/fear).
Thinking about and worrying about the past, and thinking about and worrying about the future…completely ignoring the present moment where all their power and all their happiness actually exists.
The present moment – where you actually do what you need to do to ensure success in the future
I was doing that, spending too much time in the future imagining stuff going wrong and then feeling terrible in the present moment as a result.
The solution is to massively change that, make your present moment 80% or more of your awareness, maybe 5% the past and 15% the future.
Yes do some past reflection and learn from it. And absolutely plan and prepare for the future…you need to know where you are going…
…however you only experience the success of your future plans if you work at it in the present moment
That is where all your power is to create your life and where all your happiness is – the present moment
You can’t physically live anywhere else.
Where can you help yourself today by staying much more in the present moment?
Where are you spending too much time worrying about the future, and completely missing everything around you in the present moment?
What has this renewed awareness understanding done for me?
The past couple of weeks I’ve been much happier across the day, much calmer, laughed a lot more, noticed a lot more stuff I was missing before…
…and importantly, much more productive since I’m not wasting my precious time imagining stuff in the future that will not happen!
Hit me up in the comments if this message speaks to you and tell me what success you have had by changing your perspective and enjoying, experiencing and living more in the present.
Paul