I assume that you have goals and objectives! This evening set aside a little time to evaluate how you have behaved and what you have achieved today in light of your objectives. Also note down things that you know you should not have done today. Write your findings down - prefereably you should handwrite them.

From now on, every Thursday evening, do the same exercise for the previous week - by doing it on a Thursday you'll still have a whole day to catch up, before the weekend.

Constantly evaluating our behaviour is an integral part of the self-discipline we need to develop the self-awareness that enables us become more focused and mindful.

I've mentioned mindfulness in this morning's Reflection. The modern practice of mindfulness derives from Buddhism where it has been practiced for the last 2,500 years. The University of Massachusetts Medical School defines mindfulness as: paying attention, in a deliberate and non-judgemental way, to the reality of the present moment... of words to that effect! A huge and growing amount of research confirms the mental and physical health benefits of mindfulness, whilst business and financial research is now confirming the economic benefits of being mindful. Mindfulness is developed through the practice of mindfulness meditation and the structured development of a state of mind that pays attention to the hear and now as the day progresses.

Following your feedback regarding the recent Goal Setting and Goal Getting series of Ezines, we will be starting again, in another couple of weeks' time, a new series: this time we'll be focussing on mindfulness, what it is, how to get it and what it can do for you or, more to the point, what you can do for yourself and those around you.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, in his exploration of what the University of Chicago calls "flow", uses the word ecstacy to describe the flow state of mind. It's not a word that we associate with everyday life - a word, in fact, that we would rarely use in the context of life in general - even its highs... unless, of course, you're referring to the tablet form!!! Yet ecstacy is something that, according to years of research, should be part and parcel of your regular life experience, something you feel almost as a matter of course. OK, let's not be too over-the-top about it: why don't we talk about excitement and satisfaction - the rush of peak performance. Are these things that you experience regularly? If surveys the world over are to be taken at face value, probably not: for example, when it comes to work, a recent US survey confirmed that 18% of people are "satisfied" and, in my own work, I have yet to meet a single person who is satisfied with her or his work / life balance.

So, what are we doing wrong? The answer is a simple as it is difficult to put into practice. Have you ever experienced the great satisfaction of flying through a mountain of work when you're up against a deadline? It could be a product launch or a major conference or it could be a self-imposed deadline like a big holiday. Have you ever discovered that some big things, that you knew you needed to do but you kept long-fingering, seemed to get done with a lot less effort than you would have expected?

The key attribute that the foregoing examples have in common is that you can readily see the fruits of your labour - you get almost an instant kick out of your achievement. And, unfortunately, that is not a feature of everyday life... unless you decide to make it so. The flow research explores the extent to which people doing mind-numbingly mundane jobs have turned the normal perception of that job on its head by rewarding themselves for each little task that they do. When I say mind-numbing, I'm talking about spending every working day twisting a nut on a piece of machinery that passes you on the production line's conveyor belt!

You may say to yourself that, surely, these guys are simply playing mind games, tricking themselves into some form of imagined satisfaction. But that's what you're doing anyway - the ordinary mind plays the biggest of all tricks on us every day by feeding you a version of reality that has been filtered by the mental preoccupations that you've survived on since your formative years. If you're not experiencing satisfaction, that mental low is as imaginery as the other guy's mental high. It's all about attitude, how you see your world. If you see your world through a fog of childhood conditioning, as most of us do, then you are doomed. If you see you world for what it is, right now - the essence of mindfulness - everything is renewed, everything is fresh, everything is exciting... who knows, you might even feel a little twinge of ecstacy.