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Accept imperfection
I don’t think that one achieves presence. So I don’t think that you get to a point where you are permanently present in a monk-like state of presence. And I say that because I actually think that in the second half of the 20th century, a lot of the writings about presence kind of implied that that’s what you’re going for. Either it’s stage presence and charisma, which is a totally different thing, or it’s this permanent state of presence that you achieve if you work for it your whole life, and maybe the day before you die you suddenly become present. And that’s daunting. No one can be present all the time because we’re human and we’re distracted. There’s too much going on, so of course we’re going to be distracted. So the first thing is to recognize that achieving presence is about being present in this next stressful moment that you have coming up. It’s not about what happens in a year, it’s just about this next moment. And it’s ok if it’s not perfect, but you want to become more present with each challenge. So first, let yourself off the hook a little bit. Allow yourself to do it as well as you can in that moment, with the knowledge that over time it will get easier and easier for you to become present in those moments. So that’s the first thing.
Self-affirm
The second is to truly identify and affirm your core values. Let me explain what I mean by core values. I’m talking really about the things that make you who you are. So if you were asked to list the things that make you who you are, what do you care about the most? What things really move you? Make a list of five of those things. Rank them. Then take the first one or two. Write about why they matter to you. What is about them that make you who you are? And also, write about a time when you were able to express them and how that felt. So say your core value is helping people. Write about why that matters to you so much. Write about a time when you helped someone and what kind of joy did you feel. How complete did you feel when you did that? So that is called self-affirmation. The way psychologists define self-affirmation is not that you self-aggrandize and lie to yourself. It’s not, you’ve never played tennis before but you tell yourself, “I’m going to be the best tennis player in the world.” Of course that doesn’t work. That’s what non-psychologists think of when they hear “self-affirmation.” They hear, “Tell yourself how great and powerful you are. Look in the mirror and tell yourself that.” That’s not the kind of self-affirmation that I’m talking about. The kind of self-affirmation I’m talking about is where you really do identify what are your core values. What are the things that no one can really change about you? Why do they matter to you? And you kind of anchor yourself in them. And there literally are hundreds of studies on self-affirmation and most of this was done by Stanford psychologists lead by Claude Steele. And what they find is that when people self-affirm – it’s the simplest exercise. It really is just (1) What are your core values? (2) Why do they matter to you? (3) Write about a time when you expressed this. When people do that it dramatically lowers their stress and anxiety – self-reported stress and anxiety. It lowers their neuroendocrine measures of stress and anxiety, like cortisol and epinephrine. And it allows them to perform much better in a stressful task. So somebody might self-affirm and write about why family matters to them. And then they go take a really hard math test. Not only are they less stressed out, they actually do better on the math test. What’s funny about it is, it’s not somebody saying to him or herself, “I’m a math genius. I’m a real Einstein.” It has nothing to do with math. The self-affirmation can have nothing to do with math. Why does it work? It works because when we are reminded of who we really are, it’s ok to not be perfect. You can go into that stressful situation and know that no matter what happens, you are leaving it as yourself.
Embrace your power
You’ve self-affirmed, now you know who you are. The next part is really how do you access that. In your day-to-day life when you’re not facing one of these big challenges, you’re naturally expressing who you really are because you’re not afraid to tell your friends what you care about, or show your family who you really are. When you get into those stressful situations, the last thing you’re thinking about is, “I need to make sure that I show them exactly who I am.” And so instead, showing them who you are becomes very threatening. And that wall goes up and now you can’t access those things. Even if you want to, you can’t access them because you’re in fight or flight mode. So it all turns on feeling powerful. And what I mean by power is not power over others – that’s social power. Personal power is power over the self, so it’s power to access the resources that you already possess – your values, your skills, your knowledge, your personality. When you feel powerful, you can access those things. When you feel personally powerless, suddenly you can’t access those things. So the really important difference between social power and personal power is that social power is zero sum and personal power is infinite. Everyone can be personally powerful. In fact, I would argue that you want people to be personally powerful because you’re getting the best version of everyone when they feel that way. Personal power doesn’t make people competitive in this zero sum, fixed pie way. It makes people open, and action-oriented, and creative. Frankly, just more interesting people. Power activates the approach system, which means that you’re more likely to act. You’re more likely to see challenging situations as not as threats, but as opportunities. You feel generally more positive, more optimistic, more confident – not just about yourself, but also about others. You’re more likely to believe that your actions will have an impact, so that they’re not just going to hang out there and do nothing. And all of those things make it much easier for you to reveal who you actually are.