Distraction creates OVERWHELM.
It’s a pandemic these days how many of us feel continual overwhelm.
I see it in the executives I coach, I see it in leaders everywhere, and I see it in school children.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Focused, Engaged, Present
I recently spent time coaching a team of scientists leading a large scale project for NIH and we uncovered an unlikely conversation. I asked them to distinguish between what they mean when they say “focused” versus “engaged” versus “being present” at a meeting or with the teams they lead. I was surprised to learn that in their particular frame of reference “being present” meant nothing more than a body in attendance – physically there. They defined “focused” as thinking about how the conversation applies to you and “engaged” as thinking about how the conversation applies to the purpose of the meeting/team and others.
Intrigued, I brought this conversation to several Leading Coach colleagues, and we determined that for us, “being present” had a different meaning, and that it’s useful to begin with a baseline understanding of your clients’ distinctions around terms we often use very casually. My scientist clients were initially unwilling to accept the concept of disarming their always discerning, evaluative, analytical mind in favor of any other kind of being or listening.
Most Leading Coaches, I surmise, would distinguish “Being Present” as fully attending to someone, empathetic, with suspension of your assessing, judging evaluations. No attention on your own thoughts/processing. No analysis. No judgment. It is active in that when you are present in the conversation you are really seeking to understand. Probing questioning looking for clarity. Proactive listening. Listening for the deeper layers so you can take the conversation to another level. Right? What am I missing? Be sure to login and add your comments below this post, I really want to hear what you have to say about this!
Being Present is the Antidote to Overwhelm
Here’s my premise:
“Being Present” is the antidote to DISTRACTION, which is the culprit that creates overwhelm in the first place. Overwhelm and distraction act as a virtual mobius strip…bending and melding into one another in a seamless circle of motion where one becomes the other and vice versa. Think about it: you are working on a project for a client presentation and you are doing a bit of research online. You are focused on creating your Powerpoint deck or webinar slides and suddenly an email catches your eye that requires you to quickly check something online and respond. Then, before you know it you’re 20 minutes into emails and YIKES! you remember that you’re supposed to be working on this presentation. You return to your task at hand now overwhelmed by how much is left to do. Or maybe you’re focused on reviewing a series of deliverables from an employee, analyzing their work product and you’re paying attention to their work on all cylinders when someone pops his head into your office for a quick question or joke. You’ve now lost your train of attention, and when you return to your previous state of focused flow, you’ve lost 20 minutes of productivity time. Ay! Distractions are what cause overwhelm. And life in the Age of Social Media is fraught with distractions. We can’t even read something online without being tempted to go down various rabbit holes by clicking on extraneous distractions that are seemingly connected to what we came to the internet to do in the first place.
So what’s the distinction between Focus and Being Present?
Focus is an active act requiring effort. You command your brain to attend on all fronts to the task or person at hand.
Being Present is an inactive act requiring letting go. You release distractions and just BE. As human beings we can’t exactly eliminate distractions, so that’s not the goal here. We can, however avoid distractions by actively BEING present.
The secret is the early detection of distractions.
If you can detect a potential onslaught of distractions prior to their causing overwhelm, you can intervene at the point of loss of focus. When you or a client is experiencing overwhelm, there are two things to do: 1. avoid distractions and 2. get present.