We live in the age of distraction, yet one of life's sharpest paradoxes is that your future hinges on your ability to pay attention to the present.

You Are Not Your Thoughts.

Life unfolds in the present. But so often, we let the present slip away, allowing time to rush past unobserved and unseized. We're living in a world that contributes in a major way to mental fragmentation, disintegration, distraction, decoherence. We're always doing something, and we allow little time to practice stillness and calm. We need to live and work more in the moment.

Most of us don't undertake our thoughts in awareness. Rather, our thoughts control us. Ordinary thoughts course through our mind like a deafening waterfall. In order to feel more in control of our minds and our lives, to find the focus that eludes us, we need to step out of this current, pause, get some advice (coaching) and move forward with clarity.

Most everyone agrees it's important to be in the moment, but the problem is how. Overriding the distraction reflex and awakening to the present takes intentionality, practice and coaching.

Breathing with intention forces you into the present, so you can't worry about things that aren't there. In other words, you can’t breathe the past or the future. Breathing can only be in the present.

Here are 5 quick steps to finding the “moment”:

1.   APPRECIATE what you already have

2.   BREATHE with intention

3.   ACCEPT what you cannot change

4.   FLOW into the current situation

5.   ENGAGE with purpose

Here's the most fundamental paradox of all: Mindfulness isn't a goal, because goals are about the future, but you do have to set the intention of paying attention to what's happening now.