DOing vs BEing

I work a lot with my clients on the distinction between DOing and BEing. Most people, when they think about it, think of BEing simply as the absence of DOing.

I invite you to consider this instead: DOing and BEing are different mental approaches to the same activity. In other words: they are mindsets. 

How often do you find yourself missing your exit or arriving somewhere but you don’t remember driving there?

Do you find yourself ruminating and analyzing a conversation you had with a friend, a family member or a colleague?

Or perhaps you are trying very hard NOT to think about that conversation?

Maybe your thoughts are telling you awful things about yourself, and how there is something fundamentally wrong with you. And you consider all of your thoughts to be 100% factual in that moment.

Whether you’re on autopilot, over analyzing, trying NOT to feel your emotions, or letting your thoughts run away with you completely, you are firmly in a DOing mindset.

You can choose to sit on park bench and sense the wind on your face, hear the birds singing, smell the blooms, feel your feet on the grass, notice your breath, feel your belly as it swells and subsides with each inbreath and each outbreath. You know that there is nowhere else to be in this moment.

Or you can choose to sit on a park bench, mentally go through your to do list, trying to remember the other three things you were supposed to get to today, and decide to get a head start by making a few calls now.

BEing is not another task on your to do list, it is a state of mind.

I would love to hear what comes up as you consider this, and as you play with this.