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Great Leadership Remains in the Moment

Jul 12, 2016

Too many professionals I encounter add stress to their lives and reduce their effectiveness by forgetting to be in the moment. You cannot change the past but you can control what the future looks like by being present in the here and now.
Blurred clock face indicating the passage of time

There are no time machines when it comes to leading. Great leaders and high performing professionals act in the moment. They think ahead, but they understand that the only way to create the future is to act now.

They understand that:

  • Lamenting past mistakes keeps these errors alive and compounds the damage.
  • Preoccupying on old victories keeps people stuck pining for the past.
  • Last year’s or last quarter’s results are meaningless.
  • Worrying about the future is best left to economists and weather forecasters.
  • Preoccupying on this year’s big targets wastes precious time and energy. The summit is the goal, but we get there by navigating one step and one challenge at a time.

Reminders to Help You Act in the Moment:

You can only control what we are thinking and doing right now.

You are alive in the moment.

You can do good right now.

You can solve a problem or act on beginning to solve a problem in this instant.

You can listen carefully to the person in front of you and help them grow and learn by carefully choosing your response.

You can accept that in most instances, you are on the hook for adapting to the needs and approaches of others and not the other way around. (Quit waiting for people to change to meet your needs. That’s wrong-headed thinking.)

You can momentarily examine a failure and commit to learning from it. And then do something about it.

The Bottom-Line for Now:

There are no other paths to success beyond acting in the moment. There is no better way to create a brighter future than by acting positively in the moment. There are no better sources of joy than being present in the here and now with others.

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