One of the secrets to billionaire Peter Thiel's success is that he asks himself a rather unusual question. It sounds like this: “Which of my beliefs only a few agree with?” It is this belief that he considers true.
Almost a century ago, Mark Twain expressed a similar thought:
If you notice that you are on the side of the majority, this is a sure sign that it is time to change.
When you hear something or read about something, it's a good idea to train yourself to question it and consider the opposite point of view. In many, if not most, cases, when everyone is going to the right, it is smarter and safer to turn left.
The most common advice turns out to be the most harmful
Most motivation gurus tell us to live in the here and now. They say that only the present moment is important, so we should only do what brings us pleasure.
Although the content of this advice is quite tempting and, undoubtedly, somewhat justified, in reality, following it often does not lead to the desired result. In fact, in most cases it simply ruins our lives. Living here and now, people often get divorced, get into debt, and lose control over their health and over themselves in general.
Instead of living in the present moment, it is better to live for the future and “take care” of your past. Do it in a way that you want to remember. Time really does fly by very quickly. The present cannot be grasped, it can hardly be felt. By the time you become aware of it, it will already be the past.
If you don't want to regret your actions, this article is probably for you. There is no point in analyzing what happened a long time ago. But the immediate past is directly related to your choice in the present.
How were the last two years of your life? What about the last two months? What about the last two days? Think about it.
Today is tomorrow's yesterday. How can what you do today help you tomorrow? Will today's decisions motivate you for tomorrow's work? Or are you simply postponing the necessary changes to some abstract day in the future?
Living for the future and taking care of the past means understanding that you are shaping your past now, and it determines the future that you would like to see.
What is mindfulness and how to manage your own life? Life coach Artemy Zatsepin teaches you to live here and now and proves that it is possible.
FABERLIC STYLE: The word “mindfulness” is in vogue these days. We are constantly encouraged to make “informed choices” and become “conscious people.” It is not clear what meaning this word hides. What is mindfulness?
ARTEMY ZATSEPIN : The ability to be in the present moment. To be here and now. Live every minute of life with all of yourself. Understand what you are thinking now, feeling with your heart, feeling with your skin, what sounds you hear, what you really want. At first glance, nothing special. We all constantly want or don’t want something, we constantly feel something - warmth or cold, fatigue or a surge of energy, a feeling of fullness or a feeling of hunger. But most people don't register this. Reality is a background for them, and their thoughts are not where they are. At home when working, or at work when with family. Or maybe in the past or in the future. Anywhere, but not in the present moment.
FS: But what's the point in me consciously recording that now, for example, I'm interested in talking with you, but I'm worried that my questions may seem naive. That outside the window it is already evening and, apparently, it will rain soon. It will be cold and dank. And here we have hot tea and cookies. Warm and cozy. But why do I need to be specifically aware of all this?
A.Z.: Awareness helps bring you out of automatism. Don’t automatically drink tea with cookies, but be aware of their taste, smell, color. Understand: do I even want this or not? Why and why do I eat this? How does this help me and my body? How do I feel after I eat a cookie? When you are aware of your actions, it helps you understand what you are actually doing and why. That is, awareness helps to fully engage in life and, accordingly, get closer to your dreams and goals.
FS: Sounds tempting! But, you see, it’s human nature to think about the past and dream about the future, and not to concentrate on “cookies.” Moreover, we are strongly advised to plan our lives, set goals, and “prescribe” the path to them. And without analyzing your mistakes in the past, you won’t go far either.
A.Z.: The ability to practice mindfulness does not exclude “trips” to the past and planning for the future. If you imagine the moment “here and now” as a certain point, then being there is determined by what happened in the past. And all our actions in it shape the future. But this is understandable. The problem is different. When we think about our past, we see mistakes in it (and sometimes just mistakes) and perceive them as something negative. Something that definitely needs to be fixed. But, trying not to repeat the “mistakes of the past,” we do not live our present.
STEPS INTO CONSCIOUS LIFE
When we begin to observe our breathing, we connect with the subconscious mind, which controls our actions. Conscious breathing is the ability to be present inside and outside yourself at the same time.
1. Watch how you breathe
When you are calm and sit. When you climb stairs or feel sad. When you feel like screaming. By observing the breath, we connect parts of ourselves, consciousness with the unconscious. And at this moment the doors to our true Self open.
2. Be present in the moment
The hardest thing is not to think. Try to stop the flow of thoughts when you look at the sunset. You observe wind or rain. Just feel the beauty, warmth, coolness, richness of colors. Calm your mind. Let life lead you by the hand, let it happen through you.
3. Come up with an Anchor
Get an object that will anchor you in the here and now. It could be anything: a ring, a pen, even watches like this are sold, where instead of a dial there is an inscription here and now. Pay attention to this item several times throughout the day. If it doesn’t work out, then at the very beginning you can set reminders on your phone. And try each time to increase your presence in the moment by a second, two, three, fifty, a minute, three minutes.
FS: I think it's normal to try not to repeat mistakes.
A.Z.: This needs to be done correctly. A mistake is a very powerful, strong and necessary thing. Yes, every person makes mistakes, but with the help of these mistakes he gains knowledge and experience on which he builds in the future. You know, there is a rule: at every moment of our lives we make the best decision possible for ourselves. Even if we don't realize it. The key word here is “moment”. A few years later, having matured, we begin to analyze the past situation and think: “We should have acted differently!” But the truth is that this is said by another person, more experienced. Then you did the best thing for that moment. Everything that happened to us that we think was “wrong” was not accidental. Even all our negative experiences: quarrels, betrayals and resentments. In order to start moving into the future, you need to remove as many (or better yet, all) anchors that interfere with this movement. You need to perceive all these negative emotions as they are and get the maximum benefit out of them. As soon as you do this, the burden of the past will no longer weigh on you, and you will easily move into the future that you have chosen for yourself.
FS: Frankly, I don’t really understand how...
A.Z.: Imagine that once upon a time you found yourself in a dark and scary cave, and there you were attacked by a wild beast. It was only a miracle that you survived. And when the entrance to the cave comes across your path again, you will not be able to find the strength to enter it. Even if you know for sure that this is where the treasures that you have been striving for all your life lie. Trying to force yourself to overcome fear is useless. This is a security mechanism of our psyche. But there is a way around it. Recognizing that all the wounds of the past were not accidental. Will you stop being afraid after this? Frankly, no. But you will have the strength to think. And after thinking, you realize one simple truth: the cave that is in front of you and the one that was in the past are different. And you are already a different person. You have become more experienced and wiser. And you can step towards your fear by taking a flashlight with you, for example. Or a walkie-talkie to call for help in time. It’s these few seconds between the horror that reaches out to us from the past and the opportunity to think: “What can I do in this new, albeit similar to the past, situation” that gives us awareness! It disenchants us, cuts the shackles of the past and allows us to easily move into the future towards our goals.
FS: I wonder if this is also true in personal relationships?
A.Z.: Of course. Life does not teach us negativity. She teaches you to learn lessons from any situation. For example, a girl was betrayed by a guy. It hurts. Very painful. It seems that what could be useful in a girl’s suffering? Let's dig deeper. It will almost certainly turn out that the young man has never been distinguished by fidelity, and our girl heard or guessed about it. But she already had feelings for him and hoped that for her sake he would change. Sound familiar? But everything happened as usual, the guy left for another. And the girl most likely decided after that that she couldn’t trust any men. And this attitude can ruin her life.
FS: So is the installation to blame? Not a guy?
A.Z.: He is just a way to teach her something. But how to learn? Look, on the one hand, this is, of course, a sad, negative experience. But it’s also positive! He says that a girl can trust herself! It was passion that made her believe that her lover would become different. But her soul always knew that this was not so. As soon as you learn to see the positive pole in any of your experiences, fortunately, you will begin to move through life completely differently, at a different speed. After all, you won’t need to go through the same test many times. Once again: any life experience, if you don’t close yourself off from it, if you live it and feel it, treat it as a gift, can bring a lot of benefit. There is an understanding in management that a mistake is an elevator. That is, we slowly climbed the stairs, each step is a small success. But if we make a mistake, which is important, we realize the mistake, analyze it, then we immediately get a lot of benefits and this gives rapid growth. And we can take the elevator up several steps at once. It’s clear with the managers and with the girl. But there are situations that are not just dramatic, tragic. People are losing their jobs and businesses that they spent their “best years” on, their livelihoods, and they are losing loved ones. They literally lose. What good is there in all this?
A.Z.: I knew a man, a businessman, who always dreamed of having a lot of time for his family, but he could not break out of his “squirrel wheel”. Until I lost my business. The pause that life gave him allowed his dream to come true. And besides, it’s like seeing from the outside what mistakes he made in business. When we lose a position, job or savings, we need to realize our feelings, and then, without focusing on resentment and fears, begin to look for a rational way out of the situation. If a person is distracted and his mind is switched from an emotional state to a logical one, then the emotional state will immediately fade away. And the person will no longer worry and cry so much about his misfortune and will calm down. As for the death of loved ones... You need to give yourself the opportunity to grieve for them. But in order to accept their departure, you need to realize that your loved one lived his life the way he wanted and could. And you are probably grateful to him for a lot. And most importantly, the love for him continues to live in you, and no one can take it away. Yes, he will no longer be around, there will be no physical touches, but our life is not limited to this. The departed one will always be in your heart. And the collision with the finitude of our physical existence always acutely raises the question of the meaning of life. And ultimately helps you become yourself. Understand that we still have two amazing things: our body and our life. This is the positive meaning that the death of loved ones carries.
FS: What if a person experiences a feeling of such strength that it turns off the mind? Anger, for example. It's hard to realize anything when you're angry...
A.Z.: If you practice mindfulness, at least for a few seconds a day trying to fix your consciousness at the point “here and now,” then gradually you will have an experience that allows you to separate yourself from your feelings. That is, not “I am anger,” but “I am now experiencing a feeling of anger.” These are actually different things. Once you learn to do this, you will be able to manage your feelings. And not drown in their whirlpool. It’s good if you have your own “anchor” - any item that you “assign” to this “position”. It could be a keychain, a ring, a rosary... Something that “turns on” self-control. Remember, in the movie “Inception,” Leonardo DiCaprio’s hero had a small spinning top as an anchor that allowed him to return to reality.
FS: Am I understanding correctly that awareness is always a conscious choice. Even if we are talking about emotions?
A.Z.: That's right! When we are sad, angry, afraid, we turn into pain, anger or fear. But mindfulness allows us to separate ourselves from the feelings we are experiencing. And then all these emotions become only a small part of our personality and do not fill its entire space. And now we can already control them.
FS: It seems that the time has come to ask, how to become a conscious person?
A.Z.: You need to start every day with a positive attitude. Firstly, it needs to start with gratitude to everything around: yourself, the world, other people. You woke up, which means you have a unique opportunity to spend this day. Take every day as an opportunity. A chance to change yourself and the world for the better, to improve yourself, to develop. Second, you need to lay the foundation for your day. That is, awaken your body and spirit from sleep, do everything calmly and consciously. And very important: you need to have time for yourself. You can’t do everything in a hurry, you can’t get ready five minutes before leaving and run to the bus stop, finishing your breakfast. If you start your day like this, then it will pass at the same frantic pace, and you are unlikely to have time to do anything. And if it’s like this every morning, then life will go by in the same rhythm, and you simply won’t have time to feel it. After sleep, you need to turn on and get your brain working. Various gymnastic exercises that improve blood flow are well suited for this. Ideally, a person should have at least an hour to turn it on. Thirdly, a person should review his plan for the day and go over in his head how he will act today. Then the day will be successful and everything planned will work out. It’s not for nothing that they say: “How you meet the year is how you spend it.” From this it follows: “How you greet the morning is how you spend the whole day.” If the day begins with stress, bad news and worries, then this is the key to a bad mood and an unsuccessful continuation of the day. But if you give yourself positive attitudes for the day and charge yourself with the right attitude, then the day will be successful. For some, this requires reading a book or singing a favorite song, for others, drinking a cup of coffee in silence and solitude, and for others, meditating.
FS: What do you think about dreams? After all, very often, when a person falls asleep, he likes to dream about a wonderful future.
A.Z.: Dreaming is useful! But it needs to be done correctly. Dreams should be translated into images, images into goals, goals into tasks, and tasks into concrete steps. And then the complete picture of the image that you have built will appear in physical reality. You need to form an image of your dreams, what you want to see in your near future. And already focus on this image, draw energy from it. This image will not let you go astray from achieving your goal; it will remind you of what exactly you want. This image will also show you whether you are acting correctly in the present to ensure your future. For example, sitting on the couch with a beer in your hands and visualizing yourself as a bodybuilder, you will not achieve your goal, even if the image is written in your imagination in the smallest detail, because actions contradict the goal.
FS: You said that practicing mindfulness helps improve your quality of life. How does this happen and how can you understand that this happened precisely thanks to awareness?
A.Z.: Life becomes better only thanks to a whole set of factors. Mindfulness is just one of them. And then... What is quality of life? It is how you experience yourself, how you interact with your body, with nature and with other people. How happy you are. So, awareness helps you feel all this more deeply. Get much more pleasure from food, movement, conversation... Seemingly simple things. When you practice mindfulness, it’s easier to understand whether the people around you are right now. Mindfulness helps you find the points where you converge and where you diverge. After all, it’s natural that people meet and break up. Awareness makes it easier to part with those with whom you are not on the same path or with whom it is time to let go. Because when we become aware of ourselves, learn to see our boundaries, then we come to understand that the people around us, even the closest ones, are not our continuation, not a “function” and not a continuation of our “I,” but completely separate individuals. And this understanding allows you to catch and release people. And accordingly, suffer less. When we learn to consciously live every moment of our lives, it becomes a habit. And gradually you begin to find true pleasure even in the little things. But our life consists of them. With awareness, all your senses become sharper, and you begin to feel everything around you better.
FS: Do you need to focus on everything in the world and experience it? Even if you're just watching TV?
A.Z.: First you need to understand: why do you need a TV? Is it needed at all? What important things can you learn from it? I had a friend who turned on the TV just for background, while he did other things at the same time. This suggests that the person was simply afraid to be left alone with himself. Women often get hooked on TV series because they lack emotions in real life. Watching the characters, they experience their feelings as their own. If this fact is realized, then everything is fine - it is a choice. And man controls it. But if not, then he finds himself caught in the web of someone else's goal. For example, the goals of a TV channel are to increase ratings and earn money from advertising. It would seem, what's wrong with this? Well, it’s just that instead of real life, you are content with a surrogate. And this is important to realize. Just like everything you do.
Interviewed by Daria Eremeeva.
By looking to the past, you will understand how you live in the present.
If you live only in the here and now, you act impulsively. In this case, your behavior is not a consequence of your conscious choice, but only of current circumstances. As a result, you often do things that you later regret.
Conversely, if you are mindful of the past and future and realize that you are creating your memories right now, you approach your life more consciously.
This may sound strange, but our memories of certain events are much more important than these events themselves.
Nothing lasts forever. You won’t even have time to notice how this day will come to an end. All you will be left with are memories of him. Perhaps we agree to certain things precisely for the sake of pleasant memories.
What would you like to remember about today? About the past year? From your whole life in general?
Life is a story that we write ourselves. The present moment is just the mark of a pen on paper. All we know for sure is that this pen cannot be stopped: it will continue to write again and again. In that case, why not take it in your hands and write your own story that will fill the book of our lives?
Important Details
✅ Practice begins and ends with the visual channel of perception. This is because our primary perception is visual. When we look closely at a tree, we do not imagine it in our imagination, but perceive it directly. It’s the same with sounds: while concentrating on sound or silence, the internal dialogue stops. It is impossible to both imagine and perceive things in direct experience. Thanks to this feature of perception, through the practice of “here and now” you pull attention from imagination and thoughts into the present moment.
✅ At the beginning and at the end, try not to look at distant objects. Hold things at arm's length to notice details. It is better to look at external objects rather than your body.
✅ You can listen to sounds with both open and closed eyes - whichever is more convenient. You may find it easier to close your eyes so as not to be distracted by external images.
✅ Maybe at first you will be distracted by thoughts - just return to observation and concentrate on the details of perception. You can do it.
Your memories determine how confident you feel in the present.
If your morning was productive, chances are your entire day will be successful. Conversely, if you hit and snooze your alarm multiple times to give yourself an extra 15 minutes and end up not getting anything done that you planned for the morning, the rest of your day won't be great either.
The emotions that memories of the past evoke in us largely determine how confident we feel in the present moment. So, if you do things now that will make you proud in the future, you increase your likelihood of success in the future.
Taking care of the past allows you to build your ideal future
In his famous book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey advises starting something with a clear vision of the end result. To do this, he invites the reader to imagine celebrating his 80th birthday. At this party, all your loved ones should tell you how wonderful you are, express their feelings towards you, and toast to you for living your life well.
Imagine that you have received many compliments from your loved ones. What exactly would you like to hear about yourself and your life? What would they have to say about your character and your role in their lives? What accomplishments of yours would they like to remember? How have you influenced them?
According to Covey, keeping these questions in mind requires making decisions in the present. And this is completely justified.
In fact, the concept of “living in the moment” does not take into account the very nature of time. The past, present and future are not clearly separated from each other. One of them smoothly passes into the other. A mistake in the present instantly becomes a mistake in the past. It also affects your future.
An optimistic conclusion can be drawn from this. We can build exactly the future we want. And, just as important, we can have the past we would like to have. And be proud of who we have become.
