This book reiterates one key message throughout its entirety: present moment awareness. It was short, simple to understand, and incredibly eye-opening. If you are someone who is prone to overthinking or deals with anxiety, I highly recommend this. Unlike typical self help, I found this book to be deeply spiritual, providing me with meaningful insights about how to separate the ego mind from my true self. I really enjoyed how the author was able to seamlessly blend important concepts of eastern philosophy to his own life as a musician, businessman, and father. His advice refreshed my mindset and gave me a whole new perspective on how to approach my my life.
Thomas Sterner describes life as just one long practice session. Although the word “practice” is typically associated with hobbies such as learning an instrument or playing a sport, the same principles apply just as well to common day-to-day struggles such as dealing with an over-burdened work schedule, cleaning the house, or incorporating new habits into our lifestyle. When we practice, the process of practicing itself is the real goal, not the outcome. Sterner emphasizes that this is the mindset we need to apply at anything we do in life. When we apply the principles of “practice” into everything we do, all of our tasks automatically become stress-free experiences of joy and calmness.
“When you focus your mind on the present moment, on the process of what you are doing right now, you are always where you want to be and where you should be. All your energy goes into what you are doing. However, when you focus your mind on where you want to end up, you are never where you are, and you exhaust your energy with unrelated thoughts instead of putting it into what you are doing.”
– Thomas Sterner
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
- Stop focusing on the end result. Almost everything we do has an end goal, whether it’s working on a project for work, cooking a meal, driving to a destination, etc. When the goal is to get to an end point, we often can’t wait to get the task done and over with, so our mind is constantly fixated on achieving the result rather than enjoying the process. Sterner notes that we should instead make our goal the process itself. When we pay attention to only what we are doing at that moment, as long as we are doing just that, we are reaching our goal in EACH and EVERY moment. Focusing on the process itself allows us to experience a sense of success in every moment instead of feeling down each time we make a mistake that comes in the way of the “end goal.”
- Become aware of your true self (“the Observer”). We can’t improve our daily thought processes if we aren’t separate from them. Sterner tells us that the part of our mind that is constantly thinking and judging is the “ego” while the part that is quietly aware is who we really are, “the Observer.” The more we become aligned to the quiet Observer, the more our internal dialogue begins to shut down and the less we judge. By doing this, it allows us to not only live more in the present moment, but also observe our sensory experience in a neutral, unbiased manner. As we learn to stay with the observer side of our mind, we become less overwhelmed by the negative thoughts and emotions of the ego.
- Pursue the 4 S’s in any task. In order to put the concept of “present moment awareness” into practice and develop patience, Sterner gives us the 4 S’s: Simple, Small, Short, and Slow. When we work on a specific task or activity, we should first simplify it by breaking it down into sections. We should make these sections small so that they can be achieved with a comfortable amount of concentration. Lastly, we should demand ourselves to focus only for a short period of time and work at a slow place that allows us to pay attention to what we’re doing. Sterner notes that if we can pursue these 4 S’s in any task, large or small, we can find ourselves in the “flow state,” where time disappears, we are focused, and we enjoy accomplishing the task. And if this is done well, it actually takes less time, because we are less distracted and perform better.
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