How your daily routine activities can help you become a better leader
Most of our life at work is filled with simple neutral moments. Routine activities that we don’t find interesting and sometimes even boring and that we often want to skip to finally live something pleasant, exciting, interesting. We are rushing towards a potentially desirable future that should bring us success and happiness.
By behaving in such a way, we encourage our mind to form the habit of wandering permanently away from the present moment towards a potentially desirable future, and we are also cultivating impatience.
As a consequence, we cannot really relax because then the body is tense, not wanting to be in the present moment.
What if we did the contrary? What would it be like to take the opportunity of these boring moments to be fully present in the moment and aware of what is currently happening? I know, easier said than done.
In our seminars and workshops participants often say that it is difficult to take or find the necessary time to meditate because it adds a task on top of an already busy schedule.
But those boring moments give us a perfect opportunity to train and rewire our mind in a way that is perfectly integrated into our daily lives!
To try it, start by thinking about the activities you need to do before or during your workday and choose a couple of them.
You could for example use your transportation time to the office to start your day in a mindful way: watch the landscape or read a book if you take the train, or try to discover something new on your journey if you drive, even if you know it by heart, feel your hands on the steering wheel, your back supported by the seat.
If you are stuck in traffic, the first thought is often “I am going to be late, I wish I’d already arrived” and it does not help because you cannot change that situation and get even antsier.
Instead, be aware of that thought and of the emotions and body sensations it brings with it and take a couple of deep breaths to cool down and focus your attention on something else like listening to music or watching your environment to make that moment less difficult.
This may also apply to the office.
If you need to do a task you really dislike, take a moment to check your internal weather and be aware of your thoughts, the emotions attached to these thoughts and the bodily sensations that arise from the emotions.
Often times, when we force ourselves to do something that we don’t want to do, our body feels tense because we’re bracing ourselves against the discomfort that stems not from the task itself but from the thoughts we’re thinking while doing it.
“I hate it”, “This is useless”, “I can’t take it anymore”, are relatable thoughts but the emotional consequences like a bad mood are made by our opinion about the task and not the task itself.
The benefits for aspiring leaders
Gradually increasing awareness of our thoughts in these routine situations will contribute to rewire our brain and progressively change the neural pathways.
Consequently, stress and anxiety will be reduced, because you will be more aware of needless rushes, bad moods and negative emotions and will gradually begin to eliminate them.
This will also help to better manage demanding situation (or people) and increase your ability to choose how to react. Likewise, this increased capacity for concentration will be beneficial for the way of communicating, decision-making and in general the quality of the work carried out.
Those boring standard moments of our daily lives are the perfect training ground for our minds because they’re reoccurring.
Each day provides almost endless opportunities to tune into ourselves, to bring awareness to our thinking patterns and to change what doesn’t serve us and the people around us.
