Last week we were asked to focus on intent while doing our Kung Fu. I needed to work on this area more than what I was expecting once I started to be mindful of it.
At work I have been concentrating on "where am I and what am I doing" but the last few days I have added "what is my intent for this 15 minutes?" and this has been improving my focus. I use the "where am I and what am I doing" as a tool to catch myself when distracted and bring my attention back but by adding the "what is my intent for this 15 minutes?" it gives me direction and purpose. If I use more than 15 minutes, it is too easy to let something else become the priority. Any less time and I cannot complete a task.
Let’s talk about distractions..... I do not multitask well. I am easily distracted so I need to focus on one thing and do it well and then move onto the next. I am an auditory learner. So this means when my thoughts are racing around in my head, I will try to talk them out to get them organized and bring them into some kind of logical plan. So it should come as no surprise that my team has given me squirrel posters, they know how to distract me when I start bugging them about vacation hours, and they have bets on how long I can keep our team meetings on track. Now that being said, I have an awesome team that works well together and really does support each other.
Using Kung Fu techniques at work has helped me tremendously this last year and I know that I will be pulling on these more as the year proceeds. We always talk about how we can bring Kung Fu into our everyday lives but I want to talk about how we can bring our everyday things into Kung Fu. I know that I am easily distracted so during class I have been trying very hard to make sure my attention is dedicated to my Sifu and my lesson. I am trying to be aware of events or actions that may trigger a response (mental, emotional, etc) and ask myself "why is this happening, does this happen outside of the kwoon, and what can I do to change it". We all have things that we bring into the kwoon but it is how we deal with these that makes the difference. I am using opportunities in the kwoon to improve self-awareness and work on things I need to change and this becomes easier when I think of intent.
Jackie Kohut