The Importance Of Being Present

One of the biggest skills I have learned in my life that sets me up for success is to always be present.

I know it sounds really easy, but actually it is so easy to think that we’re multitasking but actually, we’re not giving anything our full attention. It doesn’t serve anybody well if you aren’t 100% present in what you do. 

I actually had a rude awakening and learned this firsthand when I was doing Strictly Come Dancing, so let me walk you through the story!

So I did Strictly – talk about giving a job to a busy woman! At the time in my life that I was doing Strictly, I already had a lot going on. I had a business that I was managing, I had my investment portfolio, I still had a lot of filming commitments, I had two young kids at home, and I was trying to juggle all of that and fit in 40-50 hours of dancing a week. Plus,I also had all of the filming commitments that go with doing Strictly, so it was no mean feat. 

So in order to fit this all in, we used to start my dance training at six o’clock every morning. Poor Aljaz had no idea that there were even two six o’clocks in the day so it came as quite a shock to the system! I have always been used to getting up early and this was my suggestion to get the most out of the day. 

So, the two of us used to train from six until around 12pm and then after our training session,I would either go into the office for a few hours or I would get a bit of work done and then pick the kids up from school so I could have some time with then and continue working in the evening. 

Having that ‘protected’ time to train on a morning was great, however I learnt the trick of being present the hard way.

Every morning I used to get up, get myself ready, and then drive to the studio and I’m a big fan of a WhatsApp voice note so while I was driving to the studio on a morning, I used to voice note my personal assistant and some of my key staff with everything that was in my brain that were things to do at that time. 

I used to do all of these things so that when I arrived at the studio and I started doing my training, I could give Aljaz 100% of all of my attention and focus on the training. I remember him saying to me, the aptitude that I had for learning was off the chart. He said, I’ve never known someone pick up steps so quickly. He put it down to the fact that he’d never trained with somebody that early in the morning, and I said, well I do know there’s a theory around your brain, like you know, synapses really click a lot better that early in the morning. 

However, interestingly, he said to me, you’re brilliant from six till eight and then something just happens to you at eight o’clock, and you’re not as good with the steps. 

It takes a brave kind of person to give you that sort of feedback but he said ‘you’re not as good at 8 o’clock for a couple of hours and you kind of lose it a little bit and then you pick it back up at 10 o’clock’. I tried to analyse what was changing at eight o’clock and actually it dawned on me. 

At around this time, we used to have a bit of a break and I used to go and make us a cup of coffee. Aljaz would check his emails and then while he was busy doing that I’d drink my cup of coffee and have a look at all of the replies to my voice notes from the morning. 

I would go from thinking about dancing to all of a sudden, thinking about the office.

I thought about who I would need to speak to about a meeting, would start thinking about a shipment coming in and other issues that we had going on. 

So, there was all sorts going through my head and I would fire off a few emails, a few WhatsApps at eight o’clock and I had my Apple Watch and it would ping as people were starting to respond to me following my replies.

After our break, I would go back to dancing and even though my body was physically present in that room, my mind was already back in the business. It was already on what I was going to have to deal with that afternoon when I got into work and splitting yourself in two like that, as I learned to my detriment, means you’re not doing either thing well. 

Realistically, if I look back, did it make any difference that I was able to shoot off emails at eight o’clock? Me spending the morning worrying about whether we were going to sort out that shipment, whether that meeting was going to get moved or whatever it was wasn’t worth it because I couldn’t actually do anything about all that stuff until later in the afternoon. 

Nothing got done any sooner and nothing was any better.

However, my dancing lesson was compromised. I wasn’t learning. I didn’t have the same aptitude for learning because I’d split my brain in two. ‘

It was only when Aljaz pointed it out to me that I came to realise, you know, I might think I’m a brilliant multitasker. I’m a woman, of course I’m great at multitasking! Actually, trying to do multiple things means I’m not doing anything well.

From that day onwards, watch off, I disabled my notifications and I didn’t look at my phone anymore. I committed to giving Aljaz 100% of myself in that time and I found that being present and giving something 110% of my attention meant I could learn and I could perform so much better.

When I was training for Strictly, I didn’t have hours and hours and hours of training that other people could do, what I could do was make those hours count. And, especially as a working mum, I don’t have an endless amount of hours in the day that I spread over everything. 

What I do is that the time I give something, I’m a hundred percent present in what I do and it honestly makes all the difference. 

So if you want to succeed, my biggest piece of advice is to be present!

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