How Connecting with the Present Moment Can Create Lasting Change

When I was a little girl, (don’t you just love stories that start like that?) I remember adults regularly asking me what I wanted to be when I grew up. In the 1980’s it seemed that the majority of adults had an obsession with what children were going to become when they grew up. Suffice it to say, this question was a popular conversation starter at the time and even to this day you wouldn’t bat an eyelid to overhear an adult engaging in this line of enquiry with a child.

Since children are typically in the moment most of the time, this is a surprisingly loaded (albeit innocent) question and believe it or not, it can set the tone for the rest of your life. This question prompts a child to think about the future, an abstract concept that is impossible to grasp for those who are living life with their focus predominantly in the ‘now.’

But the question; “What do you want to be when you grow up?” is repeated by many of the adults you meet as a child and so you get the impression that ‘this thing that I want to be when I grow up (as opposed to what I wish to be right now) must be really important.’ 

So, right from your childhood you are conditioned to begin attempting to project into an imaginary future. You try to conceptualise what that future will look like, what you will look like, how you will feel and what you will be doing. This can be very difficult to do accurately, as the future does not exist and cannot exist except as a construct in your mind. 

When the future does finally arrive, it will do so in this moment. The future arrives when it arrives and when it does so, it arrives in the here and now, as this moment that is unfolding, right now. 

You can do your best to plan and prepare for the future and as an organised person I certainly advocate for this, but as you do so it is good to remember where your life is unfolding. Your life is unfolding only here, only within the sphere of this moment. And if you deny this moment, you deny your life. If you perpetually deny your moments and constantly seek fulfilment and satisfaction in the future, you become anxious and disconnected from that deep well of peace that is already within you. 

I wish I had a dollar for every time a fully grown adult has said to me “I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.” This can be quite the dilemma, especially if you have ended up with the impression that this future you is really important. It is ‘normal’ in Western society to be looking towards the future, to be setting goals and to ‘make something’ of yourself. 

Even in the business of Life Coaching there is a huge emphasis on setting goals or else we might become “aimless drifters.” But let me ask you this; have you ever achieved a goal that you considered to be significant, only to feel let down, empty, unfulfilled, disillusioned or disappointed with this achievement? 

In my early adulthood there was a lot of pressure on me to be the first person on my mother’s side of the family to graduate from university. After graduating from a Bachelor of Applied Science with a Major in Food and Nutrition, I found employment with a large food company in Sydney and commuted to and from the Blue Mountains every day. I tried to find a home in the city at one point because the commute was long, expensive and stressful, as in, I was fearing for my life every day in the dodgem car style of driving that was on display. But I didn’t have any success with my rental applications and eventually gave up and continued braving the infamous ‘Western Sydney Commute.’ 

So, there I was, having achieved my big dream to graduate from university and get myself a ‘good job’ in my field and I yet I was miserable. That was precisely the moment that I began questioning the values and goals that I had been inadvertently conditioned to believe in. 

There are many positive steps that I took towards moving into and creating a new life for myself, which I will share with you shortly. But the takeaway and what I have learned is that more often than not, it isn’t the thing that you wish to create that brings you fulfillment but rather your commitment to enjoying your life as it is unfolding in your here and now. 

Yes, you can set goals for your future but it is important to remember that these goals will not ever be the reason that you are happy or fulfilled. These goals may be the reason that consider your circumstances to be acceptable but unless you learn the key to peace and fulfillment you will be constantly attempting to create from a sense of lack, a need to alleviate suffering or an attempt to address a deep sense of discontent. 

Achieving goals from this space is most certainly possible, with grim determination and effort. But wouldn’t you rather enjoy the process? Wouldn’t you rather achieve your goals with delight, with joy and with ease? Wouldn’t you rather decide what is important for you, what you value (not just what your society values, especially when that society places a high value on struggle, effort and suffering) and what goals will truly make your heart sing?

For a long time, when I was working in Sydney, I was miserable. I did a lot of crying, a lot of worrying, a lot of complaining and I was sick and off work a lot. But I had bills to pay and so I couldn’t see a way out. I couldn’t get accommodation closer to work and so the commute was unavoidable. 

But after a year or so of hating life I knew that I had to do something. I didn’t know how I would make a change so I just decided to embrace my ‘now’ and make the most of a bad situation. 

On my days off work, I enjoyed swimming laps at the pool so I decided to start getting up at ridiculous O’clock to drive to the local swimming pool each morning (which was thankfully open at ridiculous O’clock) where I would swim a kilometre in the heated pool. Afterwards, I would get into the car with a towel around me, still dripping wet, still in the dark and drive to work where there was the best hot shower and facilities. And just like that, I went from hating going to work to loving my mornings!

This early drive also meant that I would avoid the bulk of the traffic, which made my journey extremely relaxing. I loved being in the office alone. I would have my shower, get dressed and have breakfast, all at a leisurely pace. I dubbed it my pre-work ‘Zen’ time. 

When it was time to clock on, I would set the office up for myself and my colleagues ready for the day ahead. I started taking my allocated one-hour lunch breaks. I would go into the gardens, eat lunch, read a good book and meditate. I would come back to my desk feeling refreshed. 

My colleagues gave me a hard time for taking my break at first because it was a badge of honour to work through your lunch but this was what I needed for my sanity and emotional well-being. Also, I wasn’t getting paid for this allocated break time and so it was my time that I would have been donating to a large well-off private company all for a ‘good on you’ from my work mates. Yeah, nah. I asserted myself and pretty soon the lunch break thing started to catch on. 

Unfortunately, I could see no way around the end of day commute, so each day before I would leave the office, I would get changed out of my work clothes and into something comfortable, which represented leisure time for me. 

Instead of begrudging the traffic jams and angry commuters, I mostly observed and did my best to offer no resistance. I listened to calming music. I made a commitment to enjoy my time as best as I could. 

Before I would arrive home (with the extended daylight hours in the summer time) I would ask myself ‘What do I feel like doing now?’ in order to break up my routines and spend some time in nature. There were lots of beautiful walks, waterways and lookouts on my way home and so quite often I would forfeit cooking a proper meal in order to have some time grounding myself in nature and recovering my energy. 

I finally went from being miserable to being happy. I was unable to change my situation but there was a lot of wiggle room that I was not able to see until I had shifted my perspective, accepted my situation and made a decision to embrace the good things that were available to me. I took full advantage of this wiggle room and it paid off. 

One day, driving home, I could see a big storm cloud forming off in the distance and I knew there would be a stunning sunset on offer, so I excitedly drove to a lookout; the perfect lookout from which to view the stormy spectacle. And that is where my life changed.

As I sat dangling my feet off a railing that was overhanging a 400 metre drop to a river below, a man approached me. He was worried I would fall. We started talking and I told him about my hobbies, my love of nature, my work situation and my desire to find a new path. It turns out he was a TAFE Industrial Heights and Safety teacher who was on his way home from a trip out West and just happened to stop at this lookout to have a break from driving. 

He told me of a course I might like to do called ‘Outdoor Recreation’ in order to become an adventure guide. I knew right away that this course was exactly what I wanted to do. I had finally found my pathway out of my situation! I researched the course and completed my application and everything fell into place. I was delighted when I was finally able to hand in my resignation. 

This chance meeting would never have happened had I not listened to my inner longings, had I not taken the time to connect with myself and had I not decided to make the most of a bad situation and fully embrace my moments. 

If you want to make a shift in your life, it is good to remember that your life is not happening in the future, your life is happening now. Unless you learn to enjoy and embrace your now, your future will be experienced in exactly the same mindset you are currently operating out of, regardless of how many goals you achieve. 

So, I would encourage you to include some goals that address this. Include a goal to ‘be in my moments more’ and to ‘connect with my soul more often.’ We only get to be here in this life, in this current form, for a relatively short while. If you remain outside of your moments, your life will just fly by without your awareness. Take the time to connect deeply with you, your inner voice, your inner whispers. Connect deeply with the present moment. Therein lies the key to your happiness. All else will fall into place from there.