There is no past, no future, only now. Yet we spend most of our time ignoring whats in front of us and instead thinking about what has been or what might be.

I have been reading a selection of books on apparently different themes and they all boil down to that point. From The One Thing to The Way Of the Seal, Change Yourself and even An Astronauts Guide to Life on Earth, the crux of the matter is most of the time we aren’t in our heads.

When coaching clients in new movement patterns, I use 2 key words  as triggers. Attention and Intention. What is my attention on and what is my intention. For example, moving the shoulder joint, the attention is on the joint, the way it feels and glides, while my intention is that the arm should move slowly and under control at all times. Many find this very hard to do as the mind tends to rebel against focusing on just one thing.

Several of the books also discuss the importance of routines, or rituals in the morning and evening to create focus points in the day for improved productivity. Again, I relate this to clients and ask them to do their movement exercises when they know they are going to be undisturbed and able to concentrate for a few minutes.

So ask yourself. Where is my attention? What is my intention? Not just in a movement pattern but when working as well, it may for some interesting results.