Be Here!

I had a very strange and ironic situation happen to me recently. I was attending a webinar on how to be more productive and some of the basic points of the presentation were to be more mindful and use various tools to help you stay focused.  The irony of the situation was, I was totally distracted and unfocused while the webinar was happening.  A webinar on focus, and I wasn’t even focused on it!

I suspect I am not alone in my confession.  How often have you been in a meeting or at dinner with family and friends and your mind is somewhere entirely different than Right Here? I think this is just the nature of the beast in our world, with all of the ways it pulls for our time and attention. And while it would be tempting to just toss my hands up in the air and say, “oh well!” it seems like there might be an invitation for us to lean in and grow here.

What if we could see all of that distraction and our lack of focus as an invitation to just Be Here as much as possible? To continue to learn how to be present in this moment, with these people, in this situation, without our minds and hearts wandering back toward the past or forward toward the future?

I have a friend who told me that one of the tools she uses to help her Be Here is to take her hands and spread them out with her arms open wide. Then she slowly brings her hands together until they are touching right in front of her. She thinks of it as reaching with one hand toward all the places in the past her mind is wandering, and reaching with the other hand toward the future and all her “what if’s” her mind is envisioning, and she just let’s those fade as she draws herself back to the present. It’s a simple gesture for her to Be Here. 

I’m getting ready to do some traveling in the coming weeks. The plan is to be with lots of family and friends and people I deeply love. I am also going to be exploring some new places in the world. Honestly, I am afraid that I may fall into the trap of allowing things like my phone with all of its notifications and distractions, to pull me out of Being Here. As a result, I think I am writing this message this week mainly to remind myself that I want to just Be Here for the next few weeks (and hopefully beyond). I want to allow myself the joy and beauty of enjoying these moments with these people and see if I can just focus on Being Here!

How about you? Where are you most tempted to lose your focus and drift away? Do you tend to go backwards to the past, or do you wander forward into the future and all the what if’s? What kind of tool would be helpful to bringing you back to Right Here? 

Here’s to doing our best to just Be Here this week (and beyond)!\

Be Well,

Stephen

Center was created to support individuals and teams so they can live from their Purposeful Center.  We specialize in professional coaching and leadership development and we’d love to support you!  Click on our Services page to book a free consultation

Engage!

I was chatting with a colleague last week and they shared this Estonian Proverb with me:

The work will teach you how to do it.

I was also working on a presentation for a group leadership experience I am helping to facilitate this week and was reminded of how important it can be to embrace an experimentation mentality (which I've written about here).

Both of these encounters reminded me just how critical it is to actually Engage in doing the work.  So often we try and analyze and plan how to go about a task, a project, or even a conversation (how many of those have I rehearsed in my head and they almost never turn out the way I think!), but there is no way to completely plan for everything.  That's why there are times when we just have to Engage in the work, because it will continue to teach us as we go.  Then, once we are actually in process, we can learn and grow and modify as we are Engaging.

For example, learning to drive. We can read all the books, study for the written test, and maybe even engage in a virtual driving course, but there is no substitute for actually getting behind the wheel of a vehicle and Engaging in the driving process!  Then as we start driving, we discover that different vehicles handle in different ways. The acceleration and braking on this car are different than on that one. It's basically the same, but not exactly, and we can't figure that out without Engaging.

The work will teach you how to do it.

As you think about your current circumstances or leadership environment, where have you been hesitant to Engage because you are trying to figure out the perfect plan? Is there a way you could figure out what the first few steps or actions are so you could Engage and start the learning journey?  What conversation have you been rehearsing in your head and what would it look like if you just scheduled that conversation on your calendar as a way to push you toward Engagement? 

Here's to being willing to Engage this week!

Be Well,

Stephen

Center was created to support individuals and teams so they can live from their Purposeful Center.  We specialize in professional coaching and leadership development and we’d love to support you!  Click on our Services page to book a free consultation. 

Help - Thanks - Wow

I'm grateful for another opportunity to pop into your feed with a message of growth and encouragement.

I attended a wedding this past weekend. It was set in one of the most picturesque locations I have ever seen. The ceremony was in a beautiful green meadow, next to a pond with horses grazing in the distance, and snow capped mountains as the backdrop!  It was one of those locations that just takes your breath away. Additionally, the young couple getting married exuded a passionate love that was paired with a deep sense of grounding.  Both of them came from loving families who were all there, and you could just sense this was an experience of real joy and gratitude. (And trust me, I've attended a few weddings in my day so I've seen plenty that didn't feel like this experience!)

As a person who frequently explores their spirituality, I found myself reflecting during the weekend on a simple pattern of meditation/prayer I heard a few years ago.  This pattern suggests that all we need for approaching life are three basic words: Help. Thanks. Wow.

Regardless of whether you connect this to spirituality or not, I think there is some real power in these three simple ideas.

Help!

I've written on this topic recently so won't go into too many details here, but will simply ask, Is there any place where you could use some help right now and who could you ask for that help?  Additionally, as you look around at the web of your relationships, are there others in your circle of influence who might need some help, and how could you offer to assist if they were willing to receive it?

Thanks!

You may recall I've also written on the power of practicing gratitude before, but we can always use a reminder to be thankful in our lives. Gratitude is a significant source of emotional lift, and it helps to relieve stress and anxiety. Practicing gratitude helps to shift our focus from what we don't have to what we do have, allowing us to adjust our attention from a scarcity mindset to learning to be content.

Wow!

Again, I've previously reflected on Awe & Wonder, the heartbeat of Wow, and yet how often do we miss the moments that take our breath away? The number of times I paused and just looked around at the scenery in that wedding location was kind of ridiculous by the time we headed home! However, it was a good reminder to not take that sense of Wow! for granted, but to pause and pay attention to it.  Are there some spaces/views/moments of wonder you are tempted to let pass without noticing them right now? How might your life be enhanced if you just paused and said, Wow!?

Maybe in this moment, as you are reading this post, it would be beneficial to just pay attention to which of these three, simple words resonates the most with you? Maybe for right now it's enough to just focus on that one and see where that mindfulness takes you?

Here's to embracing the simplicity of Help - Thanks - Wow this week!

Be Well,

Stephen

Center was created to support individuals and teams so they can live from their Purposeful Center.  We specialize in professional coaching and leadership development and we’d love to support you!  Click on our Services page to book a free consultation.