Self Improvement Made Easy

I’ve just spent a couple of days with a client here in the Alps – an individual who would regard his personal development as his number one priority in his life, somebody who changed his daily routine, going to bed one hour earlier to give himself an extra hour each morning for meditation. He has been regularly meditating for up to an hour every morning for the last two 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 found himself confronted by a major career decision and, as a result, found himself reverting to the indecision and stress that had almost ruined his life some years ago, that had almost cost him everything. So, his point was this – 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 were he not meditating. As he said to me, at the very least, he is one of a tiny minority of people who are fully aware of what they are thinking and fully aware when what they are thinking is unhelpful or damaging.

But the key point is that, unless you put what you learn in meditation into the moment to moment living of your everyday life, you will not get the downstream and all-important benefits of clarity, focus and presence of mind. And, you don’t wait until everything goes wrong to start putting what you have learned in meditation into practice – you have to do it when things are just normal. It’s just the same as training for a big match – you train beforehand to make sure that you can play your best on the day.

This training consists of regularly checking your state of mind throughout the day – every day. If everything is 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 normal adult pays just one percent attention to what is going on 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 result of this, however, the ordinariness of everyday life provides us with the perfect training ground. Simply stop yourself at various points during the day and check to see whether you are clear, present and focused or not – how you feel during meditation will be your guideline for comparative purposes.

If you’re not in a clear and present state of mind, bring yourself back to that state by returning to now. Again, simply, this means that you take a few moments to pay full attention to the here and now – 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 appreciate 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 need to come to your senses!

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