This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to "The Confidence Gap" by Russ Harris. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading.
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Want to know how to be more mindful and present? How can you practice this if you’re plagued by negative thoughts?
According to psychotherapist Russ Harris, you can’t get rid of the negative thoughts and feelings that distract you in everyday life—especially the feeling of fear. Harris stresses that learning how to be more present and mindful of your thoughts and fears requires continual practice.
Read on to learn how to be more mindful and present, despite negative thought patterns, based on Harris’s advice.
How to Be More Mindful and Present
In The Confidence Gap, psychotherapist Russ Harris provides an approach to dealing effectively with the negative, limiting thoughts and fears that prevent you from achieving your goals. Rather than trying to speak to, tamp down, or ignore negative thoughts—all ineffective methods—Harris recommends you relate differently to your thoughts by learning how to be more mindful and present. This will allow you to pursue your goals without your thoughts interfering with your efforts.
Harris is a trainer in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and has held workshops on this approach all over the world. He’s also authored several other books, including the best-selling The Happiness Trap. The Confidence Gap is for people who struggle to carry out their life goals and seek to change their thinking to be more empowering.
For Harris, being more mindful and present consists of paying attention to what’s happening in your mind and around you, being open to learning about what’s happening, being curious about how it’s happening, and flexibly adapting your attention to the situation by broadening or narrowing it, depending on what’s most helpful to you in the moment.
(Shortform note: Harris advocates being mindful and present primarily when pursuing goals. However, the Dalai Lama feels you should be present at all times (or at least as often as possible). This is because the ability to be present is the foundation for leading a spiritually fulfilled life, in which you act on spiritual teachings on a daily basis. For the Dalai Lama, being present consists of having a calm mind that lets you see clearly and without the filters of thoughts and feelings what is happening around you. In practice, this is similar to Harris’s definition of being present, except that Harris adds the step of adapting your attention based on what best serves you now. He likely has this step because he focuses on being present when pursuing a specific aim.)
Let’s see what being present might look like if you’re about to perform a stand-up set: First, you’d pay attention to the thoughts running through your head, how your body feels being on stage, and how the audience is reacting. Then, you’d be open to recognizing negative thoughts, noticing that your palms are sweaty and that the back row is disengaged.
You’d next be curious about why these things might be the case. You could note that your mind sends out negative thoughts when you’re performing and that perhaps the reason the back rows aren’t laughing is that you’re not loud enough. Finally, you’d adapt your attention to focus on what’s most likely to let you succeed on stage: You’d detach from the negative thoughts, stop thinking about the back rows, and simply focus on the laughing front row. When you later rehearse your set, you can act on your discovery that you might not be loud enough and practice projecting.
Being Present Requires Practice
As we’ve already seen, Harris believes that you must practice the cognitive skills we’re talking about to become better at them, and the skill of being present is no exception. You can practice being more present in two ways:
Perform breathing exercises. Harris recommends an exercise in which you first take 10 deep, intentional breaths and then breathe naturally, keeping your attention on the in- and outflow of the breath for as long as possible until you become distracted by a passing thought. When you notice this, just gently redirect your attention to the breath.
Perform mundane tasks mindfully. Practice being more mindful by paying close attention to what you’re doing—the motions you perform, the colors you see, smells, textures, and so on—as if you’ve never performed this activity before.
Harris notes that staying present will be difficult at first because the mind constantly serves up thoughts that draw your attention away from the present moment. When this happens, simply acknowledge that your attention has been drawn away and return it to the present without admonishing yourself.
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Like what you just read? Read the rest of the world's best book summary and analysis of Russ Harris's "The Confidence Gap" at Shortform.
Here's what you'll find in our full The Confidence Gap summary:
- How negative, limiting thoughts and fears prevent you from achieving your goals
- Why trying to ignore negative thoughts doesn't work
- The three steps to detach yourself from your negative thoughts
