With deliberate and repeated effort, progress is inevitable.
When we are in the present moment, we experience life as it happens and as it really is, rather than through filters of anticipation, as when we think about the future, or through filters of analysis, as when we linger in the past. Most of us spend very little time in the present moment. We usually are either thinking about something that has not yet happened (and may never happen) or reliving something that already has. We waste each moment’s opportunity to experience what is real by focusing on what is not.
In summary, creating the practicing mind comes down to a few simple rules:
- Keep yourself process-oriented.
- Stay in the present.
- Make the process the goal and use the overall goal as a rudder to steer your efforts.
- Be deliberate, have an intention about what you want to accomplish, and remain aware of that intention.
Whether we observe our thoughts or they just happen in our minds is determined by habits we have learned. We may consider some habits good, others not so good, but all habits can be replaced at will, if you understand how they are formed.
Habits and practice are very interrelated. What we practice will become a habit.
You can create a “preshot” routine that functions in the same way for our workplace scenario, too. You decide on the reaction you want to execute in the safety and unemotional state of a nonjudgmental frame of mind. In that state, you are fully objective and make choices and decisions without mental or emotional clutter. As with the golfer, it is not a bad idea to practice your response: Imagine your coworker barking at you for no reason or saying something that is totally uncalled for. Now envision him in your mind as having no power over you. Observe him with almost detached amusement as you calmly decide how you will respond.
When you have a predetermined intention about how to react, that intention will, with surprising quickness, come to your rescue and give you that little edge in personal control you need to stay ahead of your reaction. Then your new reaction becomes self-perpetuating. You execute the reaction you want; then your internal reaction to your response feels good because you have protected your inner peace, and you experience the paycheck for your effort. This gives you the emotional and mental stamina to stay with your effort. Thus a new habit begins to form. Eventually the whole process begins to fade into the background as it becomes a natural part of who you are and how you process a situation.
Being aware that all your motions, be they physical or mental, are habits and that you have the power to choose which habits you will create is very liberating. You are in control. Remember also that if you start to experience an emotion such as frustration, you have fallen out of the process. You are back in the false sense of thinking, “There is some place other than where I actually am now that I need to be. Only then will I be happy.” This is totally untrue and counterproductive. To the contrary, you are exactly where you should be right now. You are a flower.
