Let’s try something easy: sit calmly for two minutes.
Be present in the moment and concentrate only on your breathing. Inhale, exhale and again inhale exhale….
Where was your mind? To Where did your thoughts go?
How long did it last before you thought about something else?
Now let’s imagine ourselves driving.
Watching the traffic from behind the steering wheel, paying attention to the road.
We are present in the moment, right?
- “Blllliing” (the sound of our cell phone alert for a text message)
We know the rules, we don’t touch the cell phone. But where is our mind now?
Probably somewhere around “I wonder who texted me”, “I get home in 10 minutes, will it still be relevant?”, “Is there a place to stop here?”, “what are the chances there’s a police around…”
Enough driving, now we’ve made it to our destination: A fun evening of basketball with friends. You start to play. You feel good, drill smoothly, score some points,
As you are going up to a jump shot…….and someone outside the court yells “OUT!”
The ball is in? Out?
Where are YOU now?
Do you find yourself looking around to check who yelled it? In which moment are you present now?
On your drive back home, you catch yourself thinking about your fun evening with your friends, basketball, your jump shot, Kobe Bryant……..YEAH! Now he knows what “being present in the moment” feels like!
This is what I’m talking about: http://youtu.be/zn-XgrDkbwA
Back to real life, back to cycling,
Being present in the moment in bicycle racing means you are paying attention to the details in front of you right now. You process the moves and you practically able to view the next move.
Now in bike racing, this moment can mean a winning move, but it could also be the moment you save yourself a big crash.
Milano – Sanremo, Peter Sagan and Fabian Cancellara, last weekend.
“Being present in the moment” :
So apparently it isn’t that easy to be present in the moment and concentrate on only one thing for two minutes or a whole basketball game, and not to mention a 305 km long bicycle race…
But here is the challenge, we can get better at it!
Practice, practice, practice.
Do you have more examples of “being present in the moment” situations?
Share it with me, I would love to hear from you.