So now you're out with your aunt but can barley concentrate on anything she's saying because your guilty conscience is now working over time. You're too anxious to enjoy your meal and you're too anxious to be attentive. This time the Chief Director of the voices in your head is now louder than the others and like a stuck record repeats: "you should be studying, you should be studying, you should be st..."
Four hours later you're back home. Empty stomach and anxiety on high. The time spent away from the books should've been enjoyable but instead you decided to spend it fretting. So you've essentially lost four hours of studying for nothing. You have wasted time.
A study(1) by psychologists Matthew A. Killingsworth and Daniel T. Gilbert of Harvard University showed that about 47% of our waking hours is spent thinking about things other than what we are currently doing, resulting in unhappiness. You know that feeling when hours have passed and you question what you have achieved in that time? #dololo
In efforts to change this, halfway through last year I decided to challenge myself and perfect (read as practice) the art of mindfulness(2): being truly present in the moment. I downloaded apps, meditated, read articles, prayed, wrote things down and I think I did well...for all of 5 days! Then it was back to regular programming.
The real test came in August 2016. I was busy living my best life whilst holidaying in Scandinavia when a text came through from one of my colleagues saying: "We made the shortlist for the NT deal! We're presenting the pitch at the beauty parade(3) next Friday." Now this was great news except for one thing; I had an exam on that very day. Don't ask why I was on holiday a week before a major exam - let's just call it good planning and preparation. But now there was this curveball that my airtight plan had not accounted for. Anyway, I changed gears and went into solution mode: went online, changed my exam day to the following day and fortunately got a spot for Saturday morning and that was that.
I spent the first half of the following week studying like my life depended on it and then spent Thursday on and off conference calls with my boss and the rest of the team, prepping.
Friday came and we made our way to Pretoria, stopped at a slick bistro for coffee and did a last minute run-through. We presented and it went well (so well we won the mandate - yay), drove back to Johannesburg and I still went out for breakfast with my then boss. Now this had to happen because I only see him about four times a year since he is based in the U.K. But you know what? Not once did I think of my exam until I told him during breakfast. Then he started telling me about Mindfulness (coincidence?) and how him and his wife instill it in their home with their four children. It then dawned on me that that entire week I had subconsciously practiced mindfulness and it worked out in my favour! I was fully present in every situation that I was in, and the results were involvement in the biggest deal of my career and a first class pass for my exam.
It's still touch and go as I fall off the rail track from time to time but to as far an extent as possible, I do try exercise my version of mindfulness by:
1. Being present, and I mean, fully present in the now
2. Finishing what I started before moving on to the next thing
3. When in a social context - putting my phone away!
4. Enjoying good food/ "taking it all in"
5. Not doing "break things" during study time - and not thinking about studying during breaks
6. If it's out of my control, I let it go
Sources and stuff:
(1). http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2010/11/wandering-mind-not-a-happy-mind/
(2). Mindfulness: a mental state achieved by focusing one's awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one's feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, used as a therapeutic technique.
(3). Beauty Parade: competitive bidding where multiple banks present to a potential client
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