Trust the Present Self:

Trusting my “present” self is one of the core attribute in my personal transformation journey. Earlier, I used to trust more of my “future” self than my “present” self. When I was assigned a task, I had a tendency to postpone the activity to some other day. This was the case for the most of tasks especially when the task demanded considerable amount of my effort. A clear sign of trusting my “future” self than my “present” self!! On long term, many such tasks piled up and most of those were not accomplished leaving me in a state of inertia. A clear sign of “no growth” state!!

One of the greatest learning in my personal transformation journey is the realisation that “future” self is a faraway being and not within my reach at any given state of time. In fact, it is just a delusion and non-existing entity of mine. What is existing in reality is my “present” self which is true & real. When I start to manipulate with my “present” self, the results are always in my direction of growth.

 If you see yourself in a state of inertia then you may be stuck in a similar state of reality of mine where we trust our “future” self. Let us analysis and see the driving forces that act behind the scene. Let us take an example of doing regular workouts. The full enthusiasm that we witness at the earlier stage fades away as we progress through. We might tend to take an excuse to cut the practice and allocate time for some other activity. In few months, we would notice that we were completely off the track and stop doing the workouts altogether. Sounds familiar? There are only two good reasons for this kind of behaviour.

The act of mind: In performing an action for a task, everything is set right as long as the action allows staying in our own comfort zone. If the action demands and pushes to our discomfort zone then the mind comes into the play. The whole purpose of mind is to keep us in a comfort zone so that we stay protected. All the excuses and stories are the act of mind to keep you safe in the protected zone.

Once, we are aware of this process, we know how to push ourselves into the discomfort zone mindfully. In fact, practice of yoga develops such a kind of mindful awareness.

The reward incentives: Whenever we perform a task, we expect rewards. We get motivated when we get the desired results or rewards. In fact, this activates the “pleasure” circuit of the brain which helps in pushing this task in vigour to the next level. In the case of regular workouts, we may have an expectation of the result and after few weeks when we don’t get that expected result, we tend to lose the interest. Here is the time again all the excuses and stories will come into play.

The best way is to experience/feel the present moment of action than focusing on the end result. The awareness on the experience is lot more significant than the result itself.

So, if you are in a state of inertia like how I was, hitting the “no growth” zone then become aware of the two underneath currents that play within us. Trust your “current” self than your “future” self and do the action NOW.