Session 006: A Practical Way To Making Your “What’s Truly Important” Part Of Your Daily Life

Banner Photo Source:  Leo Rivas on Unsplash

In our series of talk + guided meditation sessions so far, we have talked about the inevitable, impending death (sooner or later) that we all face as beings who have taken birth which makes us acutely aware of the limited time we have on earth and the importance of using that time towards that which is important to us.

In this talk + guided meditation session, documented by video and blog (including a downloadable and printable PDF below), we share with you a practical way you can make “what’s truly important’ part of your daily life instead of relegating it to some future “one fine day”.

Talk

Guided Meditation

Handout

The 6-page handout that we gave out in today’s class is posted below as blog content for you.
You can download it by clicking on the button below:

A Practical Way To Making Your “What’s Truly Important” Part Of Your Daily Life

Talk + Guided Meditation Session 006: Feb 12th, 2020, by Sophia Ojha Ensslin and Cristof Ensslin

In our series of sessions so far, we have talked about the inevitable, impending death (sooner or later) that we all face as beings who have taken birth. From the Buddhist point of view, a human life is rare. And a human life is also one of the best if not the best form of life that is suitable for “taming” the mind which leads to deep inner-peace, joy, and freedom from suffering. We can make great progress in this life if we make the efforts to meditate and to think good thoughts and take good actions to be helpful to others.

Even if we put those Buddhist notions on the side for a moment and realize that we have limited time on this planet, why would we invest our time in activities that don’t help us or others? Knowing that our time is short, we would carefully curate how we invest our time towards those things that are of importance to us, towards those things that we value. (“Things” here, of course, is a placeholder to mean - activities, projects, people, experiences, and things or whatever that’s important to us). We spoke about minimalism as a method to finding out what’s truly important, if we don’t already know what it is. Meditation is yet another method to get clear about what is of essence in our lives.

Then in last class, we spoke about getting to know the right conditions for making that which is truly important manifest in our lives. And also a bit about the three pillars:  of being convinced of the benefits of the goal, igniting a desire to experience the benefits in our own lives, and the power of habit and doing it over and over again to get good at that said activity that helps create the conditions for the goal to happen. We focus on the efforts we can make while letting go of the results we are seeking.

Seeing Daily Progress Happen Towards What’s Truly Important

What’s truly important to you may be:
- to be a better listener
- to be a better writer
- to be good with your animals
- to be a better meditator

To make these goals part of your daily routine is hard because the goal itself seems intangible. 

When you can’t measure things or see progress, it may even lead to a sense that you are not doing anything towards your goal. There is no sense of progress, no sense of satisfaction. You may even drop off making any efforts towards creating the right conditions towards that which is truly important to you.

If becoming a good writer is what’s truly important to you, well - that’s difficult to measure with numbers and stats. But that you wrote everyday for the last 8 months - well, that can be measured. If, what’s truly important to you, is to be more peaceful and compassionate - well, that’s again difficult to measure. But the conditions that lead to such a state, meditating daily - well that can be measured quite easily.

A Practical Tool: The SMST-Daily Method

So I want to share with you a method I’ve come up with to help you practically make ‘what’s truly important’ in your life actually take up place in your calendar. It’s a method that will also help you feel a sense of completion and a sense of satisfaction. It’s a method that will show that you are making efforts on a daily basis. I call it the SMST Method. SMST stands for: Single Most Satisfying Task.

SMST-Daily = A Single Task That is Most Satisfying Done Daily. 

This task has to be most satisfying towards your aim at making ‘what’s truly important’ part of your daily life. It’s most satisfying in the sense that when, at the end of the day, you look back and see this one thing crossed off, you know that you have made real progress towards ‘what’s truly important’ to you. Of course, this task can’t be too huge that it cannot be done in that one day. It also can’t be so huge that all other obligations and tasks of that day are neglected. There’s certainly got to be a balance. Now it may be that it is the same task everyday:

For the goal of being a better writer - it’s the same task: writing 30 min daily. For the goal of becoming a better meditator - it’s the same task: meditating 30 min daily. But it may also be that there are different things to be done on a daily basis for your particular ‘what’s truly important’.

An Example: Better Listening

For some other goals, you may need to identify all the conditions that are needed. With Cristof’s example of making a fire, it was wood, kindling, spark, and oxygen. For becoming a better listener - it would be something like: once a day when my daughter or son calls me, I serve as a true listener. Not thinking of the next question I want to ask or know, but just being there, fully present. Turning down the TV. Stopping doing the dishes or this or that. Just sitting there, maybe even eyes closed, just holding the phone and listening attentively. The conditions that will support this is practicing being present and mindful every day. If you want to be a better listener, you can every day learn a bit from mindfulness teachers online or read a book about how to listen deeply. You do some kind of deep listening every day and make it your practice so when your daughter and son is on the line the next time, you have already practiced being truly present with them and now are deeply listening to what they want to communicate with you.

Another Example: Being Good With Your Animals

For the goal of being good with your animals - it could be that each day I invest a certain amount of time, let’s say 1 hour for their care, which includes going on a walk with them, checking if they need any medical care, making sure their fur is clean, playing with them, etc. Every day you are doing something or the other towards that which is important. For most people, this is already part of their lives. But if it’s something one wants to get better at, then they need to identify the conditions.

So now that you know your SMST, pick a time of day that you will devote towards it. And then track it. Many productivity and habit coaches teach that tracking your new habit is a foundational element of building a habit because it creates a visual chain that you can see and don't want to break.

Steps For Using the SMST tool:

This is how you use it:

1. Find out what matters most to you.

You can use minimalism or meditation or both as methods for finding out what matters to you most. Ex: Being more active. Taking time for mental wellness. Writing a book.

2. Determine what task or a set of tasks you can do to implement that into your daily life.

Ex: Writing every day or walking or meditating every day or the 10 things that make you a better listener

3. Then identify the SMST or the single most satisfying task for the day with triggers.

Ex: Walking for 20 minutes from 7 to 7:20 am right after brushing teeth. 

(Shower and Breakfast is from 7:30 to 8:30)

Ex: Meditating for 30 minutes from 8:30 am to 9 am right after breakfast.

Ex: Writing 2 pages from 9 am to 11 am right after meditating.

Tip: It is important to create triggers. A trigger is something that happens right before your new habit. So 'right after breakfast' or 'right after meditating' are both triggers. So once you have breakfast, you know what happens next. This is not something you have to think of each time, it’s pre-decided and because you don't have to decide this every day, the new habit has an easier time to form.

If you create a clear trigger for your SMST then it is more likely to happen. I’ve found that it’s an easier way to build a new habit. As you can see in the above example, with triggers and clear tasks, you can even build three different habits on top of each other. Start with one habit at a time though. When that one is in place, add another. Don't go doing all three new habits at once - that's not sustainable in my experience.

4. Then, record and track it in your calendar (see free calendar handout).

Ex: Walked for 20 minutes from 7:15 to 7:35 am

Ex: Meditated for 30 minutes from 8:45 to 9:15. 

Ex. Wrote 1.5 pages from 9:15 am to 11 am.

The idea behind tracking is to simply see that you did the task, not for judging yourself for being late or even for missing out on it completely. Tracking encourages you to pick the habit again and keep going but if you miss, just start again.

Now Is All We Have

So when you are doing a single most satisfying task towards what’s truly important to you daily, then, you are taking advantage of each day - not relegating the goal to one day in the future. By tracking your efforts, you begin to see momentum and you start seeing a visual chain. This fuels your sense of satisfaction with your life, a sense of completion with your day. So even if you were to die that night, you lived your life doing what truly mattered to you and when you are doing what’s truly important, you are much happier and those around you have then already felt a positive ripple effect of your efforts and hence you have made a positive difference in this world.

So make what’s truly important to you part of your daily life!

Thank you! See you in class next week!

~ Sophia + Cristof

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