A person asked Buddha: 

"Are you a God?"

Buddha's reply was 

"No."

"Are you an Angel?" 

"No."

"Then what are you?"

"I am Awake." 

* Why is it so important to live in the PRESENT moment? *

Everything! 

The other night I was having dinner with a friend of mine. He was telling me about a recent audition he had  “It went really, really well,” he said. 

“How do you know,” I asked?  

“Because I was fully and completely present, he replied.” “I just felt it.”

* What if success were as simple as that? Being fully & completely present?” *

Being present is something you feel as my friend says. It’s a choice, really, to leave all obsessive (future and past) thoughts aside and to just go for it. Certainly, this kind of mindset takes adequate preparation, but it also takes a conscious decision TO BE IN IT, fully and completely. NOW.

Positive Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has developed a concept of FLOW to describe this state. Also known as engagement or “being in the zone,” flow is experienced when you are deeply delving into an activity where your strengths are engaged in the pursuit of clear, challenging, and achievable goals.

So for my friend who was on his audition, he was in FLOW because he was acting (his strength) and he was challenging himself on that goal of winning the part (something I know is very important to him).

* What is important to you? What puts you into a state of FLOW? *

While AWARENESS is important - also important is ACTION. What are you doing to put yourself IN THE ZONE?

Think about what you do when time slips by without your awareness - when you are interested, engaged, and fully PRESENT. 

* Don’t really know OR not doing a damn thing to put you more in that zone? * 

May be time to get a coach. FLOW leads to happiness. The feedback loop needed for behavior adjustment is something a coach (or a mentor or good friend) can provide to help someone find the perfect state of “flow” (hence the name!). Think of it as the state of PRESENCE that exists when your TALENTS meet your CHALLENGES . . . when your PAST is what was, your FUTURE is what will be based on your NOW. That is, your PRESENT.

It is also about SLOWING DOWN and being MINDFUL. Being mindful can take many forms as simple as breathing (meditation) or as complex as observing the intricacies of a flower the next time you walk past a bouquet. 

Have you ever noticed how beautiful the detail of a petal is in the moment you experience it?

Do it and

WAKE UP!