12 - Be Mindful of What You Do Mindlessly
50 Years, 50 Lessons
Lesson 12: Be Mindful of What You Do Mindlessly
Your successes and your failures come from your behaviour. That’s it. That’s the secret.
Sure, your behaviours are complex and complicated and layered and trained and genetic and biased and all that good stuff (says the occupational therapist), but they are yours. You need to own them.
Moving around your day mindlessly is dangerous. It’s lazy. It’s ignorant. Being mindless is missing things.
For example…wake up and check phone…hit snooze…driving distracted…responding to dings and pings all day…sitting in a drive-through…buying food and beverages you could have brought from home…posting online…TV on, legs up, bag of chips…
Sure, we might do other things mindlessly too, such as noticing the birds on the dog walk, smiling at strangers, getting back to people quickly, even when we have other, more important things to do, saying “love you too…”
But the point is that mindless can become meaningless without noticing. That’s where behavior is dangerous.
We all have those things that take very little effort to do. The question is what of those things are healthful and what are harmful?
If you can’t notice, you can’t change.
Coaching Thoughts:
What do you do routinely? Of those, which ones, if left unchecked, will accumulate to be good or bad for you five years from now? If good, keep it up. If bad, change.
Notice when you are checked out. What do you need to do in those moments to engage?
Tally the time you spend on the mindless things. Is this time well allocated?
What does mindlessness cost or give you in dollars, relationships, and momentum?
Your turn:
If you can be vulnerable, name a mindless activity you want to change or one you have already trashed. Then name one you want to keep.
To All: Thank you for being on this journey with me – past, present, and future.
Julie
