This morning at the gym, a man complimented me, “You just have this presence.”
It was very interesting to hear.
Just short 2 months ago, on my birthday, that would’ve sounded like a joke.
People kept asking me habitually, with no ill intent, just observing, “So where are you off to next?” As if I was always boarding a flight, never actually arriving.
I realized, approaching my life like a waiting room wasn't really working for me.
I was well prepared, yes. Happy? Not exactly.
Happiness doesn’t live in the waiting room. It lives in the room we call "now".
So this birthday I made 2 pacts with myself. Not vague aspirations - practices I could see, track, and reflect on.
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Don’t rush.
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Trust - myself, people, and the larger unfolding.
I didn’t write “be more present.”
A good coach, or any decent behavioral scientist, never stops at an intention.
You design behaviors you can repeat and review. That’s how you create lasting change: action first, outcomes follow. Implementation-intention research mirrors this - specific “if-then” plans dramatically improve goal follow-through. “If I catch myself speeding up, then I pause and take one slower breath and repeat, "here, right now”
Simple. Trackable. Effective.
Practice #1: Don’t Rush
Rushing steals the quality out of the moment you are in and the moment you’re racing toward. The minutes you “save” rarely buy you anything that matters. Time-affluence research shows it’s how we experience time - not how much we cram into it - that predicts well-being. Choosing time over hustle is often the wiser trade. If your happiness is what you want.
What it looks like in my day:
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When I notice the speed-urge, I tap the brakes: one slower breath, one slower rep, one slower sip. Right here, right now.
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Between tasks, I add a deliberate 20-second reset-pause before I touch the next thing. I design "time slack" in my day.
Presence isn’t mystical. It’s a few practices repeated. Happiness is an outcome.
Practice #2: Trust
When anxiety spikes about what I can’t control, when I start worrying about how things will go, I ask: What’s mine to do? Who can help? What must I release? Then I act, I ask, and I let go. Trust - of self and others, of the unfolding - isn’t naïve; it’s a choice that expands capacity to be in the now. When you do what you can and lean on others - a trust fall if you wish - you can enjoy now, trusting you'll be ok.
2 months of practice so far.
Outcomes: I feel joy every day no matter what sh*t happens. And I seem to now “have presence”.
Which I never had before.
Actions over intentions.
That’s how you change yourself and what you are working on.
What practices can YOU implement, that might create the fairy-airy outcome like being happy? You can't assign "be happy", but you can shift what you do and how you look at things, your attitude - and THAT will lead to different destinations, different life.