Crash goes the backpack against the side of my head.
Just another clueless passenger making their way down the center aisle of the Southwest 737 I fly nearly every week.
You see, when you’re walking down the aisle with a backpack on your back, you whack the person in the aisle seat in the head as you turn around to make sure your family members are still behind you. It happens all the time and it’s painful and annoying to me.
Most of us are pretty clueless about annoying behaviors we display. My wife gets mad at me when I don’t turn my shirts outside-in before throwing them in the dirty laundry basket. I get annoyed at her when she pulls all the gardening tools out to work in the garden and then leaves them out there for me to put away.
We don’t intentionally try to annoy each other (at least I don’t think we do), but it happens.
Mindfulness on the other hand means that we pause and reflect on what’s happening in the moment without succumbing to distractions. The practice of Mindfulness, which I initially thought was a bunch of crap, is actually pretty important and best explained by Cheryl Mirabella on a recent episode of my HR Oxygen podcast.
On a practical note, maybe we’d all benefit by being more aware (Mindful) of how what we do affects those around us, rather than just do it without any regard (Mindless) to how others are impacted. Imagine what might happen:
- A dentist would realize their assistant never gets a lunch break because they have to clean up the room when the dentist moves too slowly in a procedure.
- An employee would realize nobody enjoys the smell of their microwaved Salmon in the break room.
- A Boss would realize when they think “out loud” that employees respond to that as if it’s a request.
- An HR professional would realize what kind of message it sends to employees when their door is constantly closed.
- A passenger would realize how tired Mack is of getting hit in the head by backpacks and just walk briskly past his seat.
This week, think about how what you’re doing might be impacting others without you even realizing it. Mindfulness in theory is good, but in practice it’s a game-changer!
