Did you leap out of bed this morning? Did you find yourself motivated and inspired for the day ahead? Chances are that this only happens sporadically... if at all.

It doesn't matter how you felt first thing. What matters is what you did about it. Perhaps you did nothing! That doesn't matter either.

What matters is what you choose to do now. In fact, that's the only thing that matters - but in each now, every now matters.

So take a moment, take a few deep breaths, get in touch with the moment - because now is the only place that you can be.

This morning, I want to recount a story told me about fifteen years ago by a client - a conversation with him over the weekend reminded both of us how his reality had been back then!

John headed up a large salesforce but, unlike any other sales manager I'd ever met, his perceived wisdom was that he had sixty bosses... not that he was the boss. As a result, he was run off his feet at the behest of his "bosses", whilst his actual boss was tearing his hair out trying to get John to focus. As a result, John thought his real boss "that ba***rd" was trying to detroy him. This was John's reality! A slightly extreme case of normallity... but only slightly!

Each evening, John would struggle through his own front door... exhausted. His two little children would bound up the hall "Daddy, daddy, come into the playroom". But Daddy was not only too tired, because, Daddy had, in his own words, "difficulty getting in the front door for the big sack of crap slung over my shoulder... the day's cares."

Instead of going into the playroom, Daddy would head for the kitchen, "pour myself a large glass of wine, dump the sack of crap on the kitchen table and tell Maureen (his wife) what that ba***rd" had done to him today. I'd share the pain - just to make sure that Maureen was as depressed as me. And so would begin another wonderful family evening!!!"

This might be an extreme example of normal crazy living. But, as I said, it may not be that extreme. The question is this: when you are at work, are you doing what's required? And, when you are at home, are you doing what's required?

As normal people, using our mind ordinarily, we tend to live down to our expectations. If you don't agree, think about your own self-image. Consider how perfect, wonderful and deserving you believe yourself to be. Think about how effortlessly successful your life is, how perfect your work/life balance is, how boundlessly happy you are. OK - now that we've got the self-verification process out of the way, let's consider why it is we don't value ourselves as we should and, more importantly, how we can change it.

I recently read an article by Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs biographer, who pointed out to the great and the good at Harvard that we can't emulate Steve Job's good bits whilst discarding his well-known emotional shortcomings. Steve Jobs was great, because he was Steve Jobs, warts and all. You can't change who you are by pretending you're somebody else - the whole area of behavioural modelling (whereby you model yourself on a role model) is flawed... "don't like the mask you're wearing? Try another one for size!"

You've got to be true to yourself to achieve the boundlessly achievable. The problem is, when it comes to knowing who we are, we're a little confused (or a lot). Our own self-image is an illusion - the smoke and mirrors of what was done for us and to us during our formative years. And, even though most of us were brought up with love and care, psychology tells us that, left to our own devices, we will always dwell on the negative - as Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi points out, a few minutes alone time will reveal the inherant dysfunction of our minds.

But, the reason we may not be comfortable in our own skin is that the one we think we're wearing isn't ours! You might have spent all of your adult life cosying up to it, but your personality is not you. And there's little point in becoming overwrought about your faults and failings - your inappropriate behaviour is the product of your personality. It's not your fault - but, now that you know, it will be if you don't do something about it.

To be true to yourself, you've got to get to know yourself - the real you. You can only do this be letting go of the noise in your head. Your learned personality won't go away, but you can bypass it by not paying attention to it. I know that this is easier said than done - but if you train yourself to pay attention to the reality of the moment, if you develop your own mindfulness, you will (sooner rather than later) get to know you. Then you can start living up to the expectations of somebody who has the world at their feet, somebody who has (up to now) been drowning in a sea of opportunity. You can start living up to the expectations of somebody who is worth it.