Coaching Videos & Tips - May 7 2020 No.651
A GOOD DOSE OF REALITY
There's nothing better than a good dose of reality to get your attention. Nothing better than the good dose of reality provided by this moment and this moment and...
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If you've watched today's video - and I hope you have! - you can already guess what today's Quick Tip is.
Get up, get out, walk around a little - not a lot - and use what would otherwise be the brash distractions of the hustle and bustle and noise of everyday life... to pay attention to them. All the potential distractions arise and pass. And if we learn to be distracted by them but to use them as an integral part of our daily mental training, well, we're going to get fitter, quicker, aren't we!
But there's more to it than that...
Let's pick up on today's Quick Tip and, indeed, today's Video - on honing our ability to simply let potential distraction not just pass by but, in effect, become an opportunity, a trigger to enable us become even more disciplined in the approach we take to developing and enhancing our ability to simply focus on the actual reality of the moment.
As I've said above, using the "prop" of distraction, turning it on its head and using it as a trigger will enable us become fitter, quicker. However, let's consider how deliberately using potential distraction during our mental exercising impacts the rest of our day, the rest of our life. If you train yourself not be distracted by distraction when it doesn't matter, you become adept at not only not being distracted by the nonsensical and inappropriate behaviour of others, you actually turn it on its head and use it as an opportunity to only - and I mean only - do the right thing.
And, as we said when we talked about the contagion of state of mind, if you maintain and even enhance a focused state of mind in the face of potential distraction, your appropriate behaviour and action might just impact those who would love to drag you into their normal crazy dramas.
It's a double-whammy! We enhance our own discipline and focus, we build on the inappropriate behaviour of others and, in the process, perhaps enable them see their own behaviour more clearly and even modify it. Everyone's a winner.
I've recently been accused of being judgemental when I suggested to a client that I was a little annoyed with the behaviour of those who were simply ignoring the current social-distancing and travel rules, which are actually enshrined in law in France.
Be that as it may, I was actually amused (up to a point) by a conversation with our ever-so-judgemental neighbour on Sunday.
Our friend was more than annoyed, he was angry with everyone who had flouted the rules by joining the exodus from Paris by those who had the luxury of owning a residence secondaire. Much to the annoyance of local Mayors, all these holiday homes were currently fully occupied.
"It's absolutely disgusting" our neighbour fumed "all these ba***rds" arrive, bringing the virus down on us". And, in the same breath, without any acknowledgement of the contradiction, he continued "I just go out for a coffee with my friends, as normal, for a couple of hours, to the bar, every morning".