STAY FOCUSED ON THE PRESENT

“Don’t let your reflection on the whole sweep of life crush you. Don’t fill your mind with all the bad things that might still happen. Stay focused on the present situation and ask yourself why it is so unbearable and can’t be survived.”

Marcus Aurelius, MEDITATIONS, 8.36.

This one is a huge deal in our generation. I feel like our generation have a big tendency to feel overwhelmed, which often leads to overthinking. In fact, sometimes focusing in the big picture is really important, to take a step back on things and feeling in control, but sometimes it’s definitely counterproductive.

There are a lot of situations in life when you may have felt like it was too much. Too much of an achievement to get, too big of a goal to reach. But that famous quote says “where there’s a will, there’s a way.” but how ?

The most simple thing you can do in that case is to focus on the present. Focus on the most little thing you can do that day. Even that thing will make the difference in the end.

Let’s do a parallel with weight loss here. For the example let’s take Louis. Louis has a base metabolic rate of 2000 calories a day. This is what he needs to maintain his weight, and his goal is to lose 10 kilos of fat, which is the equivalent of 7.7k calories to burn, which is a huge amount. Of course he couldn’t do that in a day, or in a week, but he has to count in month in order to get that healthy weight loss rate.

I guess you could imagine how hard it can be for him to figure out how long it’s gonna take and that can be quite overwhelming. But in order to achieve his goal, he just have to think little by little, think about the next step only.

One of the best advice I’ve ever received during my football career is “Next play” just think about what’s next, not what’s after and not what was before, and no matter what will happen or what happend, focus on the next play.

Focusing on the present may feel sometimes a bit discouraging though since you are not seeing your results yet. But trust the process, trust yourself and be confident in what you can achieve thanks to the power of habits. There is a real power in getting 1% better each day, which can lead you to places you couldn't even imagine yet.

Look at the most scary, impressive things you’ve done in your life, even the things you’ve endured. How was that possible ? You were staring at the details, seeing the little pictures every single day and focusing on the most simple thing to do inside that set of hard things to achieve.

If we take step back here, we realize that the only thing that is really ours is the present time. The time that is past is gone forever and the future may never see the light of the day. Focus on the present, this is absolutely the only thing we have, the only thing we own for real. Present time may offer you the most invaluable thing of this world. It may give you love, it may give you everything that you ever wanted, as soon as you give it a chance, and accept that reciprocity.

Thanks a lot for reading the article until the end, I really appreciate it.

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Tomorrow’s article will be called “Calm is contagious”. So for all of that, and more, see you tomorrow :)