Are You Living a Half-Engaged Life?
Posted on September 24, 2020 by Todd GORISHEK, One of Thousands of Career Coaches on Noomii.
Satisfaction in life comes when we are present in what we are doing. To be fully present we must be choose and engage in those things important to us.
Are You Living a Half-Engaged Life?****
For most of my life I never was fully present where I was at.
Maybe this was from childhood events where I felt I always had to be anticipating what will happen next in order to keep myself safe, or maybe it was because the limited praise I did receive growing up was for being prepared for things that would eventually happen later in the day, tomorrow, or next week.
The price I paid for this kind of behavior was the inability to relax and fully, 100%, enjoy what was happening in front of me. The satisfaction received from living like this was about the same as trying to shower from the drip, drip, drip of an old shower head. It just isn’t enough.
What is so damn important to take our attention away from the things we make a conscious choice to be part of anyway?
Whom of you can relate to being somewhere and feeling like you don’t have time to be where you are? So, what is the end result with this mindset? You aren’t doing the other thing, and you aren’t enjoying the thing you’re doing.
Sounds like a lose-lose set up to me.
After many years of living like this, I finally figured out that living a half-engaged life was not giving me what I wanted. So what did I do to change this?
First, I give myself time for the activity I am doing. Giving myself time means I don’t commit to something else that would make it hard or difficult for me to get to on time because of where I am at now. This allows my mind to relax and focus on the activity or event that I am involved with in the moment.
Second, my schedule is decided by me and no one else. Unexpected requests from others of my time can be handled with a simple statement, “I don’t have any time available now. Let me get back with you when we could meet about that.”
How many of us have a habit to stop doing what we are involved in, or change our immediate plans, only because someone asks us for our time now? How does that affect our engagement in what we are doing?
Basically, the word “no” is in our language for a good reason.
The last thing I do is to be conscious of where I am at and what I am doing in the moment. I look at who I am with, pay attention to my surroundings…the colors, shapes, temperature, sounds. This focus helps me to stay present and fully engaged.
The reminder I give to myself is that I made a decision to be here, now, in this moment, and I am making a choice to participate fully in the experience.
My question to you is, would more engagement create a fuller and more satisfying life experience for you? If so, what is one think you can do this week to make it happen?
