Reminders to be Present

What's up, Godra? I just want to share a reminder for you all and sort of a success story for my own personal practice of this concept of just being present. It's something that I super value and I know there's more formal ways to train mindfulness, being in the present moment, not having judgment, being intentional. But I just haven't been naturally noticing myself being more present lately and I attribute that to a simple strategy that I've been using. And that's just one word, phrases, cues, or reminders in the moment to lock into the present moment of what I'm doing.

I love the phrase, "Be where your feet are," which can be an idea for a phrase and that's something that I value. My coworkers will laugh because I talk about it all the time, just be where your feet are. That being said, it's easier said than done, of course, than we all could benefit from being more present day to day in our tasks, our relationships, our work, our hobbies, just being more present rather than being a time machine that our mind naturally wants us to be in the past or the future.

And so, I don't even remember why but I just randomly did it one day and it just was like a light bulb moment. It was actually a coworker came to me, came to my office. I was doing a bunch of tasks and in the past I might just stay kind of half listening to a coworker , half still employing my brain on the task, but I just told myself internally, listen. That coworker was coming to me about a personal issue and I serve as kind of an assistant manager at the Performance Center that I work at. And so people just constantly interrupt and when I'm trying to be productive, but in that moment I just had to listen.

And then later that night when I'm talking to my fiance, same thing, listen. And that really helped me just stay locked and put a hundred percent of my focus into what I was doing in that moment. The next morning I did it on my commute to work. I just told myself driving. Some simple, mundane tasks that I do every day commute to and from work, but that one word reminder helped me appreciate and savor that moment for what it is. And just be more aware of internally what was going on in me and also externally in my environment.

So it's a win for me and I hope it can be a win for you is just have those one word reminders to be present. And a cue or a phrase to just lock into what you are doing in the present moment. It can help your work, your hobbies, your relationships, just your overall satisfaction. With life. So that's my success story and I hope I can pass it on to you as well.