8th August 2022

Being is the new doing

"no problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it." Albert Einstein

In this wonderful age of information, gadgetry and technology you might imagine that we would all be exceptionally productive and, importantly, happy and satisfied with what we get done.

But is this really the case? There is no doubt that we seem to value busyness but this is far from the same as being productive in the sense of doing what really matters and constitutes real progress.

So, if we are not as productive as we would like to be then why would this be?

Thought leader Linda Stone coined a term ‘Continuous partial attention’ for a condition that seems endemic in society these days. She points out that rather than multi-tasking in an effective way many of us are driven by an underlying tension that often results in overwhelm, under-performance and a lack of fulfilment.

A good example is the way we use social media. Instead of a tool we consciously use to make our lives better we become slaves to our gadgets. A recent survey (by Android app, Locket) revealed that the average user checks their phone 110 times per day and 25% of users actively use their handsets between 3am and 5am each day!

The quality of our attention is everything

Author Timothy Gallwey (in the ‘The Inner game of work’) used a useful formula in relation to realising our full potential, which is as follows:

Performance = Potential – Interference

Your performance and, therefore, your results will always be defined by your pure potential minus interference. Interference can be defined as unhelpful thinking that results in states such as stress, tension, partial attention, procrastination and preoccupation.

In the business world the most common approach to performance improvement is that people try to change their behaviour – a strategy that is often doomed to failure for one very important reason. Behavioural change does not eliminate interference. In fact, interference gets in the way of sustainable behavioural change because trying to do anything successfully will always be compromised by unhelpful thinking.

Do you take into account the quality of attention that you bring to what you do during your working day??

How useful would it be useful to operate from a feeling of complete presence with what you are doing??

I think the truth is that we rarely consider and are often unaware of the state of mind in which we bring to something – instead we focus on just doing, doing, doing in the belief that pushing harder and harder is the best path to better results. I find that a surprising number of people believe having a busy mind is actually an asset rather than a liability! So, one of the challenges that we might face is even recognising that our state of mind is a relevant factor in our performance.

Life does not work the way we think it does

The reason that so many people have too much on their minds is because they are in the misunderstanding that their feelings are caused by their circumstances. If we think that something outside of us has the power to determine how we feel then it creates an enormous amount of insecurity in people.

The fact is that we cannot feel our circumstances directly. We feel our thinking about our circumstances – in other words we live in the feeling of our thinking, not our circumstances.

This may not sound much but it is probably the most important thing that we will ever realise. I have found that both for myself and my clients that understanding that circumstances have no power over us whatsoever is life-changing because it takes an enormous amount of unnecessary thinking off people’s minds. The result of this is that our mind is clear to bring our very best to whatever we are doing.

Where would you like to make significant improvement?

Now imagine an area where you would like to experience better results. This could be in client meetings, engaging new clients or making faster progress with developing your business. Now ask yourself:

How much difference would it make if I had a completely clear mind?

A clear mind is the foundation of upping our game, whatever we are doing. The problem is that it is a far less obvious factor than what we can see – like our behaviour. However, after coaching behaviour changes for a number of years I could not help but notice that changes did not always stick and people regressed. When I began to factor in people’s thinking and share the understanding of state of mind I noticed a significant improvement in results. Over time the difference between these two approaches has proved to be incomparable and left me to conclude that our way of being (our quality of mind in the moment) is, by far, our ultimate leverage point for better results.

John Dashfield, Dashfield Coaching & Development Ltd

http://clientcentredadvisers.com

John Dashfield, Dashfield Coaching & Development Ltd, Business Development