Yay! It’s 5:36am Monday morning…

It’s gloomy outside, and I’m a little groggy as I sit down to write this to you.

Maybe you’re feeling something similar…

Tired, irritable and anxious about the week ahead?

And that’s no surprise.

War and conflict is all over the news…

Then there’s all that AI stuff to worry about…

Never mind your work and family responsibilities… or worries about bills, debts and the price of your next trip to the supermarket or petrol station.

All these anxieties make it hard to muster up the energy to get stuck into a major project.

Surely, now is not the right time?

It feels like all you can do is grit your teeth, get through the week, and wait until things get better… or easier… or clearer in some way.

The Spanish like to say, “Mañana”, which refers to that indefinite future you can always put off until tomorrow.

When we’re stressed and busy, we tend to shunt everything important into Mañana.

“I’ll start when things settle down.”

“I’ll start when I’ve got more energy.”

“I’ll start when I feel more confident.”

“I’ll start when I’ve developed more skills.”

These thoughts are totally understandable…

But they’re a massive obstacle to your progress.

Because the future is really just a concept – a projection your mind creates.

You can think about it…. plan for it…. and worry about it endlessly.

But you cannot ACT there.

The only time where you have any control over what happens is THE PRESENT MOMENT.

Not next week… next month…. or next year….

But NOW.

So, believe it or not, right now is the most important, significant moment of your life.

And what you choose to do – or NOT to do – in this very moment will matter hugely.

Let me show you why…

A Stressed Roman Emperor’s Advice About Living In the Present

Marcus Aurelius was a Roman emperor who ruled from AD 161 to 180.

His days were filled with war, political shenanigans, economic pressures and barbarians rattling the gates of his massive empire.

So his life was about as stressful and uncertain as it gets.

Yet in the middle of all this, Aurelius kept a private journal which later became known as Meditations, and was filled with nuggets of his Stoic wisdom.

For the Emperor, there was no benefit to gain from worrying about events that hadn’t happened yet.

“Confine yourself to the present,” he wrote. “Do every act of your life as though it were your last.”

This is a core idea in Zen Buddhism, too, where practitioners of meditation must return their attention to the breath and focus only on the moment they are in.

After all, the present moment is where life actually takes place.

Everything else is memory or anticipation!

Modern science shows that these ancient thinkers were onto something.

Researchers have found that when we focus our attention on the present moment, something interesting happens in our brains.

The ‘default mode network’… a system linked with rumination and mental projection… begins to quieten down.

Instead of replaying the past or imagining possible disasters in the future, the brain redirects its energy toward problem solving, creativity and practical action.

In other words, when you focus on the present moment, your brain powers up.

This is why ‘present-moment focus’ is used today in everything from elite sports psychology to military training and business leadership coaching.

Because the truth is…

The future is meaningless speculation…

You Only Have True Control Over Now

In the 1990s, Eckhart Tolle wrote a book called The Power of Now, which became a massive bestseller.

Perhaps you’ve read it?

If not, his starting point is the Buddhist idea that identification with the mind and the ego is the main source of human suffering.

He argues that we spend a lot of our time dwelling on our unchangeable past, or speculating about imagined futures.

We constantly create stories about what might happen.

“What if this fails?”

“What if I lose money?”

“What if I don’t know enough?”

“What if everything changes?”

“What if AI replaces everything anyway?”

These thoughts seem convincing. But really they are just mental projections.

They exist only in your imagination.

So if you want to progress towards your big goals in life, you need to find a way to push aside these fruitless worries about the past and future….

Instead, concentrate on what can be done right now, in the present.

You don’t need to become a monk or meditate for hours to benefit from present-moment focus.

In fact, I wrote an email recently about using 60 second techniques to find stillness at any time of the day – you can read it here: WRMM MicroDosing Mindfulness

And here’s another practical technique you can try out.

The 15 Minute Reset

Sometimes you will feel overwhelmed by thoughts about the sheer scale of a major goal.

You’ll panic about all the risks involved… all the work that needs done… and all the tricky parts you don’t yet know how to do.

Then you’ll imagine that you’ll fail, get stuck, or make no money from it.

It’s paralysing – because suddenly all you want to do is stop, run away, or distract yourself with something else.

When this happens, just pause for a moment.

Take three slow breaths, then ask yourself a single question: “What is the most useful thing I could do in the next 15 minutes?”

That could mean:

• Asking AI to do some research…
• Downloading an essential tool…
• Drafting an email…
• Watching a tutorial…
• Writing the first paragraph of a sales page…

Whatever it is, focus on that ONE task for 15 minutes.

You’ll find that the big speculative worries fade away, at least for those 15 minutes.

Then you’ll come out of it feeling like you’ve made some progress.

There’s also something else you can do right now…

The Monday Commitment

Each Monday morning (starting with today) decide one significant task that you will complete by the end of the week.

It needs to be an achievable goal, so make sure you sketch out what elements need to be done, and how long they are likely to take.

Then schedule in some specific time-slots, either on a paper planner or using a digital calendar.

Think of these as commitments that you cannot get out of…

Yes, even if the shower starts leaking, you get asked out to the pub or the cat becomes ill.

Examples include…

• Writing and sending an email newsletter…
• Setting up an Etsy shop and listing a product…
• Creating a digital ‘how to’ guide using AI.
• Researching a niche market for a potential Amazon product to sell.

If you make your Monday commitments a weekly habit – and stick to them – you’ll find yourself progressing at a surprising pace.

After all, that would mean achieving 52 goals across a year…

Which could easily result in the creation of a successful product or service.

But the only moment where you can decide to do this is right now.

There’s no time like the present, as they say!