Being Present
Being present simply means you’re focused and engaged in the here and now and not distracted or mentally absent.
For me, I see it when I’m coaching my sons baseball team and I look up in the stands and notice about half the parents looking down at their phones, and not at their kids on the field. Think about any time you sit down to watch a game, or a TV show, and you decide now is the perfect time to reply to a few emails. At the end of the game or show you realize you can’t remember what happened. You remember some moments perhaps if something big occurred, but generally it’s a blur and you wouldn’t pass a pop quiz.
Think about a meeting or a conversation at work. You’ve just finished telling your story (or presentation), which happens to be important to the task at hand, and your co-worker / boss / peer looks up and says, “I’m sorry, what?”. They back track a little to make it sound like they were listening, but they weren’t. Multi-tasking is not possible, yet plenty still try to pretend it is even though science has shown that it isn’t - multitaskers do less and miss critical pieces of information. That means that while you think you caught the main points of a story, if you were not present the entire time, you are likely to walk off and communicate an inaccurate message.
If your job demands that you focus on an urgent task, you can stress out because you have a million other things to do and not enough time to do them. Or you can be present, and focus completely on that task, and now there is only that one task and you. Of course, we seem to love the image of busyness. Our perceived level of busyness is often a badge of honor. If we are busy at work, preferably overworked, and communicate the lack of ability to take time off as a result it is perceived as higher status at many workplaces. As a result, it’s not surprising we forego being present while we attempt to perform the impossible; multitask.
Do we even need to mention distracted driving? Yes. There is no better time to practice being present than when driving. Enjoy the moment of peace. Who do we think we are that during our 20–30-minute drive that it is imperative that we respond to a handful of texts and emails?! I’m not talking about an emergency, just the general day-to-day. We are lost in this superficial act of busyness, fooling ourselves as to the importance of our immediate response. Now, there are probably some people whose response time is critical, but likely they have a dedicated driver so they can appropriately pay attention to the present.
To be present is to pay attention. To notice. To appreciate. It’s natural and healthy to spend some time reflecting in the past and considering the future, but it shouldn’t outweigh the present. Being present will help your mental and physical well-being, by decreasing rumination and anxiety. It will contribute to your energy levels and motivation to achieve your goals. Staying focused on where you are in the moment will make you a better listener, which communicates respect and will ultimately help build stronger relationships.
If you find it hard to switch off and be present with what’s in front of you, there are a lot of things you can do to train your brain. Of course, meditation and breathing exercises are some tangible ideas, but it starts with being aware. If you find yourself slipping away, be aware and try again. Reprioritize your day as it evolves to allow yourself to remain present at each interval.
