To be mindful is to be calm... but not relaxed: calm with your intentions firmly in mind. As we hit Week 8 on our journey, we explore the application of mindfulness in the cut and thrust of life's daily rollercoaster. As we do, remember, you can revisit earlier installments using the links below:

Stop whatever you're doing. Take a piece of paper and write down everything that you've done, so far, today. Place a tick against those activities that correspond to the big goals that you have in mind (for life, for this year, for today) and a big ugly black mark against everything else. Mindfulness is all very well, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating!

When I started doing my Workshops - eighteen years ago - some of my clients were intrigued by the emphasis on what is now widely known as mindfulness: "No doubt, what you're doing will become mainstream someday - but I don't know if that will be in our lifetime!" is one particular comment that has stuck in my mind in the intervening years. What I was teaching then - and what I am still teaching now - is the need to be calm, to calm our minds.

A calm mind is a prerequisite to success and happiness. An ordinary mind is wired to be the exact opposite of calm. For a start, we have 70,000 thoughts running rings around us every day - the most dangerous thoughts being those that question our ability, self-worth, goals or objectives; the most insidious being those that prevent us do the small novel things that will change our lives. We are wired tobe averse to change - to even fear it. And the means by which we stay put in our all-too-uncomfortable comfort zone is this noise in our head.

This is why becoming mindful of the moment - in as thought-free a manner as is humanly possible - is so vitally important. Yes, mindfulness engages the key neural components that can coordinate our actions to get us to where we want to go but mental calm is a prerequisite - what if your brain was firing on all cylinders focusing on your 70,000 thoughts!

Calm, however, in this context, is not the same as being relaxed - in fact, it is the opposite: it is the epitome of being cool under pressure, of being so alert to what is happening that, in each moment, not only is one on top of one's game, but that level of awareness enables us spot the opportunities to move us forward that the ordinary thought-bound mind will never spot.

Today's video explores acutely-focused and acutely-aware calm. This is the state of mind you must be in to get you to where you want to go. As a client said to me on Tuesday: "The funny thing is, once you get that level of calm, all the things that you need to do become effortless".