ReflectionJuly 17, 20130100% Commitment — 07/17/13

Some of you may have noticed that there was no Insid­er List at the end of June- and for those who have been with us for awhile, you prob­a­bly fig­ured out that it meant I was on vaca­tion, since this is the 3^rd year in a row I’ve tak­en a June vaca­tion-relat­ed hia­tus from the Insid­er List.

It was great to unplug for 10 days or so, and I’m get­ting bet­ter at doing it. But I have to con­fess, I still felt a bit guilty not writ­ing the com­mu­ni­ca­tions I’ve com­mit­ted to writ­ing on an ongo­ing basis: the Insid­er List, the Forbes blog posts, the Eri­ka Ander­sen blog posts, and my week­ly emails to the Pro­teus team. Noth­ing bad hap­pened as a result of not doing that writ­ing, and I tru­ly believe it’s impor­tant to take com­plete breaks from work — even work you love. But still…I noticed I was­n’t com­plete­ly OK with it.

Ful­ly Doing: Ful­ly Not Doing…

Based on dozens or per­haps hun­dreds of con­ver­sa­tions I’ve had over the years with col­leagues, clients and fam­i­ly mem­bers, I know that this is a pret­ty com­mon prob­lem. We tend to think about vaca­tions when we’re work­ing; we tend to think about work­ing when we’re on vaca­tion.  We think about fam­i­ly and friends when we’re with our col­leagues; we some­times think about col­leagues when we’re with fam­i­ly and friends.

And the prob­lem with this is that when we’re not 100% present in any giv­en moment, every­thing suf­fers: our expe­ri­ence, our results, our relationships.

To get a sense of this, think about a moment in the recent past when you were ful­ly engaged and present.  Per­haps it was a moment play­ing with one of your kids, when every­thing else fell away and it was just the two of you hav­ing fun.  Or maybe a dis­cus­sion at work where your brain was on fire, you and your col­leagues were com­ing up with great stuff and you com­plete­ly lost track of the time.  Or it could have been a soli­tary moment at the end of a day, sit­ting and look­ing out a win­dow; relaxed, a lit­tle tired, but just enjoy­ing tak­ing in a beau­ti­ful view.

Think about how you felt in that moment — phys­i­cal­ly, men­tal­ly, emotionally.

I can’t speak for you, but I know how I feel in those moments of being com­plete­ly present: aware, open, full of poten­tial; as though the best of me is more acces­si­ble. Won­der­ful expe­ri­ences can find me when I’m present: I’m here to be found.  I do my best think­ing; get my best results; pro­vide best sup­port for my most impor­tant rela­tion­ships when I’m all here.

So, my com­mit­ment to myself (and this is a life­long com­mit­ment — vaca­tions are sim­ply a demon­stra­tion to me of how much I need to keep re-com­mit­ting to this) moment to moment, is:

show up.

I’ll see you there…

Eri­ka