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When I cast my mind back over all the different questions from and discussions that I've had with clients over the last fifteen years, a common theme emerges. It emerged again last week and that's what has it top of my mind.

Anyone with whom I have worked has gained an appreciation of the importance of being focused. However, that word - focus - is much used and abused. What I mean by it is: attentive, mindful and present in manner that enables you both fully enjoy the present moment and be at your most effective in that present moment.

I know that lots of people invest time and energy in developing their focus or mindfulness. I also know, however, that, even when they do, they still find themselves wondering why they are still encountering the kind of distraction, worry, furstration or downright crisis or catastrophe that passes for their everyday life.

Yes - it is nice to mindful first thing in the morning and, God knows, it's much better for you that setting out for a day of complete (and normal) mindlessness. But or psychology is not on our side. We get through the day using the twin faculties of habituation and automtaticity - which means, in general, we pay attention to nothing. That means that, as the day progresses, we are unattentive, mindless and absent without leave from the only place and time that exists - the present moment.

And that is why so many of us - I include myself in this - find ourselves doing stupid things that perpetuate all the things that we don't want in our lives.

In other words, there is a missing link - between the mindfulness that we might cultivate first thing in the morning - and the creeping mindlessness that overwhelms us as the day progresses. The only way to bring all of your power and potential to bear on the current events of the here and now is to constantly remind yourself, during the day, of how you should be and how, by comparison, you may have drifted.

You must call yourself to attention because, if you're not present and correct throughout the day, the trouble that you're thereby asking for will surely find you.