Situational awareness is a lost skill in an age where nearly everyone has earbuds or headphones on. We stare at mobile phones while we walk, work, and eat.
Situational awareness–knowing what is happening around you right now–is not a natural state for a modern society unaccustomed to the dangers of the wild. We don’t have to worry if a bear is nearby or an enemy is stalking us. We just have to passively cross the road when the traffic lights tell us it is safe.
One of the things I learned when I was a student pilot was the importance of being aware of what is going on in and around the plane at all times. It was easy to settle into a “maintenance” mode while flying instead of always actively looking at the instrument panel, watching for birds or traffic, and paying attention to wind and my course and my paper flight plan.
Our technology doesn’t force us to be operating in a daze, but it allows it. We choose to be unaware.
When We Don’t Pay Attention
Why aren’t we aware of what’s going on around us?
Probably because we’re distracted, we’re tired, and we feel overloaded. We purposefully tune things out. It’s easier to mentally process a fun game on your phone than deal with the people, noise, activity, and obligations clamoring for your attention. We actually notice very little of what goes on around us.
Eye witness testimony during court trials has been a favorite of memory researchers. It is surprising how often our memories are tricked into believing something to be true when it isn’t. According to writer Laura Engelhardt, we often fill in the blank spots of what we’ve observed and remember with what makes the most sense whether it is true or not.
…psychologists have long recognized that gap filling and reliance on assumptions are necessary to function in our society. [...] We are constantly filling in the gaps in our recollection and interpreting things we hear. For instance, while on the subway we might hear garbled words like “next,” “transfer,” and “train.” Building on our assumptions and knowledge, we may put together the actual statement: “Next stop 53rd Street, transfer available to the E train.” Indeed, we may even remember having heard the full statement.
Think about that. When we are going through our day mindlessly, performing the tasks we have to do without paying much attention, we fill in the gaps of what we observe with what we think to be true. Much of what we’re believing is happening or happened might not even be true.
That gets us into real trouble at work, both in how we relate to other people and perceive their feelings towards us, and how we judge our own performance. It seems that what we’re basing our opinions on isn’t based on purposeful thought, but careless unthought.
Why Being Mindful Matters
A recent article in the Harvard Business Review, Mindfulness in the Age of Complexity, got me thinking more about our default mode of tuning things out. The article featured researcher Ellen Langer, in which she talked about the different studies she’d done which revealed differing results based on whether the participants were purposeful and mindful of what they were doing.
What did she learn about being mindful?
You Get Along Better With People
Mindfulness means we don’t make snap judgments about people; we’re willing to thoughtfully consider them rather than give them a surface treatment or “fill in the gaps” of what we noticed with what we think is true about them. Being mindful made people more likable, according to Langer, and with good reason. Do you like it when someone makes a judgment about you that isn’t correct?
How many times have you thought “they can’t say that, they don’t even know me!”?
We prefer people who are mindful and willing to consider us in depth, rather than making assumptions, to get a full picture of who we are.
You Have Less Guilt And Regret
We often beat ourselves up over the things we do and the things we think we should be doing. Langer explains why being mindful about what you are doing is so important:
The idea of procrastination and regret can go away, because if you know why you’re doing something, you don’t take yourself to task for not doing something else. If you’re fully present when you decide to prioritize this task or work at this firm or create this product or pursue this strategy, why would you regret it?
I can attest to this. If I purposefully decide to do a specific activity, I have more confidence that this is what needs to be done, and the rest can wait their turn. On the other hand, if I find myself stumbling around from one rote task to the next, I feel a bit guilty, as if I’m not being productive enough. The ambiguity of why I’m doing what I’m doing is attributed to not doing anything at all.
You Will Do Better Work
When you are operating on autopilot, you’re somewhere between getting bored and being completely bored. A state of boredom isn’t a place where creative excellence is found. You get things done, but that’s about it, and even worse, we get a bit comfortable in this low-effort zone.
Boring is drudgery, but it is also safe. We show up, we do the same thing we’ve done before, we can shut our mind off…once you’re in this kind of a rut, creativity and problem solving wilt.
Being mindful and thinking about the what and why of your work keeps you attentive to ideas or strategies that you’ve not tried before.
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Make a point to be mindful as you work. Notice things. That whole “take time to smell the roses” idea? You can’t smell the roses if you don’t even know they are there. You can’t be fully aware of your current situation if you never take out your earbuds, if you never put away your phone, if you never pause and look and think about what you are seeing.
And even at your desk, as you work at your computer and there is no life-threatening reason to be mindful of what’s going on, try it anyway. It might help you beat those 2:30 pm doldrums that shut down your brain. Think about what you are doing, and why. Notice what’s happening around you. Listen to what people are saying.
via:http://todaymade.com/blog/paying-attention/
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