Two skills, one target
This program develops two skills: noticing what is happening and choosing actions based on what matters to you. Together, they build psychological flexibility, and both can be learned.
If this is not therapy or a productivity method, what does the program actually teach?
It focuses on two skills. The original training was designed “to target two related skills: mindfulness and values-based action.”
The first is the ability to notice. It means paying attention to where you are and what is happening, including your thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations.
The second is the ability to choose your direction. It means knowing what matters to you and taking practical steps towards it.
Together, these skills build a capacity that researchers call psychological flexibility: “contacting the present moment as a conscious human being and, based on what that situation affords, acting in accordance with one’s chosen values.”
In simpler terms, you can be present, feel what you feel, and still choose your direction.
Why does this require training?
During a pressured day, much of life happens on automatic pilot. You may drive home without remembering much of the journey. You may eat lunch while reading messages and barely notice the food.
Automatic pilot is efficient, and using it is not a personal failure. However, when an entire day runs this way, your choices can be guided by whatever demands the most attention. Under pressure, that is rarely the thing that matters most to you.
A well-known mindfulness exercise involves spending several minutes eating a single raisin with full attention, as if you had never seen one before.
People often find the exercise amusing at first. Then they are surprised by how much there is to notice and how much of everyday life usually passes without their attention.
You do not need a raisin to practise this skill. Choose one routine activity today, such as drinking your first coffee or walking to the station, and give it your full attention.
Sit upright for two minutes. Aim for a posture that feels dignified rather than rigid. Notice the feeling of your feet on the floor, then your hands, and then the movement of your breath in the lower part of your body. Your mind will wander. This does not mean you are failing. It is simply what minds do. Notice where your attention went, then gently bring it back. Every time you return your attention, you complete one repetition of the skill.
Two minutes of this practice provide the foundation for the program. Everything that follows uses these two skills with increasingly difficult experiences.
Before these skills can help, it is worth looking honestly at the strategy they are intended to replace. You already have a way of responding to difficult thoughts and emotions, and it is probably the same strategy most people use.
