Being present isn’t easy, but it’s the difference between living your life versus just watching it happen. Episode 352 digs into why it’s so much harder than anyone tells you, and how to actually be more present. So, Let’s Talk About Mental Health!
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Episode Overview:
Being present sounds like the simplest advice in the world… until you try to do it, and it turns out to be the toughest thing ever. This episode is about why being present matters, and why it’s so hard to be present even when you try to be.
This week in the Let’s Talk About Mental Health podcast I’m digging into the practicalities of living in the present more as a tool for better mental health. This isn’t yet another list of breathing tricks or five-minute rituals that never sticks; it’s about why being present actually matters (hint: it’s got far less to do with your mood, and a lot more to do with who you’re becoming), and why it’s genuinely so hard to do, especially when the world feels heavy and uncertain… and when the idea of ‘presence’ can start to feel like an unattainable goal. I’m taking an honest look at why your mind resists the present by default, and I’ll step you through a handful of realistic and practical ways to actually show up for your own life… instead of just supervising it from a distance. If you’ve tried the usual ‘be present!’ advice before and it never really stuck, this episode is the missing piece.
👉 Ready to start being more present in your life? Then let’s talk!
💡 TL;DR: Being present is tough because your mind isn’t built to make it easy. This episode explains why, and how to overcome that challenge so you can be present more. 🙂
New here? Hi! Let’s Talk About Mental Health is your weekly dose of practical mental health advice for real life. I’m Jeremy Godwin (hello! 👋) and I keep things simple, honest, and doable so you can feel more in control of your life and your mental wellbeing. If you’re not already a free subscriber, sign up below to have episodes and transcripts land in your inbox every Sunday:
Episode Transcript:
How do you live in the present more?
How do you actually live in the present more?
Because ‘being present’ is pretty common advice, but understanding how to do it is a lot tougher… and let’s be real: life often gets in the way, and you can find yourself in a never-ending cycle of wake, work, dinner, bed, repeat.
It’s exhausting, and it can be draining.
But letting that cycle dictate your life is actually costing you much more than you might realise. So this episode is about how changing the way you approach your life changes absolutely everything.
So let’s talk about… how to live in the present more.
Hello and welcome! I’m Jeremy Godwin and this is the Let’s Talk About Mental Health podcast, where every week I help you understand and improve your mental wellbeing.
And look… I know what you might be expecting from an episode with a title like, “How do you live in the present more?”: probably a neat little list of five things to try before bedtime… but that’s not what this episode is about.
Because before any of that can actually work, you need to understand something a lot bigger: why this stuff even matters, and why it’s genuinely so much harder than anyone ever tells you. Get that part right, and everything else starts to fall into place. Get it wrong, and you’ll keep trying the same tips and life hacks and then wonder why nothing ever sticks.
So before we go any further, here’s something for you to really think about: the life you end up with isn’t built from the big and dramatic moments. It’s built from thousands and thousands of small, ordinary decisions that are strung together, one after another. Which means that how you show up for this moment, right now, is not some minor detail. It’s actually a statement about who you are.
Your life is built from ordinary moments, not big ones.
Just sit with that thought for a moment… and it’s something that I’m going to be coming back to later, because once you really take that on board everything else in this episode is going to make a lot more sense.
Alright, so with that in mind, let’s talk about…
What does it actually mean to be present?
And I think that a lot of us have probably got the wrong picture of it in our heads; certainly if you have a look on social media or, you know, go take a walk down the self-help aisle in any bookstore!
We tend to think of ‘being present’ as this sort of quiet meditative thing, like sitting and breathing slowly, maybe even cross-legged, there might even be an organic candle or two involved somewhere. And look, if that’s your thing, great, fantastic, you do you. But that’s not actually what I’m talking about when I say ‘being present’; and honestly, it’s not what ‘being present’ has ever really meant for most people.
Being present is much simpler, and it’s much bigger than that. It’s whether or not you’re actually in your life while it’s happening, or whether you’re just technically there; going through the motions, present in body but absent everywhere else.
You know what I mean, right? You’re sitting with someone that you care about and they’re talking and you’re nodding along, but your mind is three conversations ahead, or it’s back going over something that happened yesterday, or it’s off in the distance worrying about something that hasn’t even happened yet. You’re there, but you’re not there. Or it could be when you get to the end of the week and someone asks you how your week went, and you genuinely cannot tell them; not because it was bad, necessarily, but because none of it really stood out. It happened to you more than it happened with you.
That’s what being present actually is: it’s the difference between experiencing your life versus just supervising it from a distance.
Being present does not mean ignoring the past or refusing to think about the future. Far from it! That is definitely not what this is. You’re allowed to plan ahead. You’re encouraged to do so. And you’re allowed to learn from what’s happened. In fact, I strongly encourage that because, well, it’s how we grow, right? And it’s how you learn to stop making the same mistakes over and over again… pretty big part of being a human being and growing!
Being present isn’t about switching the past off or the future off completely. It’s about not letting them dictate today, not letting them quietly take over every single moment that you actually have… which is this one: right here, right now.
Because what’s easy to forget is this: the past isn’t happening anymore. It’s done. And the future isn’t happening yet, and it might not happen the way that you think it will at all.
The only place your actual life exists, the only place that it’s ever existed, is right here… in the present moment, in whatever’s in front of you right now.
So when your attention constantly lives somewhere else other than the present, whether it’s focused on what’s already gone or what hasn’t arrived yet, you’re not just distracted when that happens… you’re absent from the one place that your life is actually taking place: here, now, in the present. And that’s not a small thing, right? Because if most of your moments pass you by without you actually being in them, then most of your life is passing you by too… regardless of whether or not you notice it happening.
So with that in mind, now let’s talk about…
Why living in the present is so hard, and why it actually matters
Alright, so why does any of this actually matter? Well, let’s start there and then I’m going to talk through the ‘difficulty’ bit shortly. There’s a study out of Harvard, and it’s one of the more fascinating pieces of research that I’ve come across; researchers tracked thousands of people throughout their actual days, checking in with them randomly to ask two things: what are you doing right now, and is your mind actually on what you’re doing or is it somewhere else? And what they found was that people’s minds wander off task nearly half the time. Not occasionally. Half. That’s huge!
And here’s the part that should genuinely stop you in your tracks, because it did me: how happy people were had almost nothing to do with what they were actually doing. It had far more to do with whether or not their mind was actually there for it. In other words, you can be doing something genuinely good and enjoyable, like spending time with someone you love or doing something you enjoy, and if your mind’s checked out, then you don’t actually get the benefit of it. You’re there on paper, but the good bit passes you by completely.
So that’s why it matters, and the data backs that up pretty clearly and plainly: your happiness isn’t mostly about what you’re doing with your life, it’s about whether or not you’re actually present for whatever you’re doing.
But here’s the deeper reason why being present matters that I want you to really think about and sit with, because this does go a lot further than simply ‘happiness’. How you show up for the moment in front of you isn’t just about your mood. It’s about your identity. Every time you choose to actually be here, fully, in this moment, for whatever’s happening, you’re making a statement about who you are. And every time you check out or drift off or disappear into worry or regret or distraction, you’re making a statement as well. You’re just usually not paying attention to what that statement is or how disconnected it makes you feel from your actual life… which can only ever exist here, in this present moment.
Because here is the fundamental truth of all of this: the version of you that you’re becoming, and that you want to be, is not decided by some great big dramatic turning point. It’s decided in all of these small and unremarkable moments, the ones that often feel too insignificant to matter.
Who you are is simply the sum of how you’ve shown up, moment after moment.
Now let’s talk about why being present is genuinely so hard to do, because I don’t think anyone’s ever really been completely honest about that part. It is not easy! When your brain isn’t actively focused on something, it doesn’t just go quiet; it switches into what researchers call a kind of ‘default’ setting… and in that state, it tends to drift towards exactly the stuff that drags you down: it replays what went wrong, it rehearses what might go wrong next.
None of that is your brain being weak or melodramatic; it’s just what an unoccupied mind tends to do when it’s left to its own devices. Which means that when your mind pulls you away from the present moment, it isn’t a character flaw that you need to fix somehow or a lack of willingness or desire to be present. Instead, it’s closer to a default setting kicking in that you need to learn how to work with.
And look, let’s be honest here, this has been harder for a lot of people lately, myself included, because the world often feels genuinely heavy right now. There’s a lot going on that feels completely out of anyone’s control. And so when things feel that heavy, emotionally, like I talked about in last week’s episode, being present can start to feel almost inappropriate…. like you don’t have the right to enjoy this moment while everything else feels so uncertain and messy.
But that’s the trap. Because if you’re waiting until the world feels safe again before you let yourself actually show up for your own life, the problem is that that day might never come. And if you keep waiting for it, you’ll have handed over every single moment that you actually had in your life to a future that was never guaranteed to feel any better anyway.
So be really honest with yourself about this: where, right now, are you letting that whole cycle of worry or rumination or even that whole cycle of wake, work, dinner, bed, repeat… where are you letting all of those things decide who you’re becoming without you ever actually choosing it?
That is exactly what we’re going to work on next, right after this quick break.
[AD BREAK]
And welcome back! So now let’s get into the ‘how to’ part of this episode, and let’s talk about…
How to actually live in the present
Earlier on, I told you I was coming back to something which is the idea that your life is not built from big dramatic moments, but that it’s actually built from thousands of small and ordinary ones. I want you to really hold onto that idea now as we’re talking through things, because everything I’m about to walk you through builds on that idea. So, first…
Catch the drift.
Most advice tells you to notice when your mind has drifted off, and gently bring it back to the present moment… and that’s fine, as far as it goes.
But I want you to go deeper than just noticing. I want you to ask yourself something much sharper, which is: “Who am I being right now?” Because when you catch yourself half-listening, or being half there, or going through the motions, that’s not just a lapse in focus; that’s a small and quiet decision about who you’re choosing to be in that moment… whether you meant it to be a decision or not.
Asking yourself that question, in that way, turns it from some sort of technique that you’re supposed to remember into something that actually matters to you… because now it’s not about focus, it’s about your identity. And you’re far more likely to actually catch yourself for a reason that matters, like what kind of person you want to be and what kind of person you don’t want to be, rather than just for some sort of rule that you’re simply trying to follow. OK, next…
Stop letting your thoughts dictate your life.
A lot of us tend to unconsciously wait for things to feel better, or look better, or whatever, before we let ourselves actually be present in our lives; you know, we wait for our work to ease off, or for the cost of living to settle down, for the news to calm down, or for whatever’s weighing on us to lift.
But the reality is that that day may never come, not fully, because there’s always going to be something, some crisis or some source of stress to make life feel like it’s harder than riding a tricycle off-road.
No amount of worrying about the future will ever change it… and no amount of ruminating over the past will change what has or hasn’t happened, because it’s done. Overthinking like that, those random and racing thoughts that pull you away from the present moment, it’s simply that: thoughts. And you can either let your thoughts drift past like clouds, or you can choose to grab onto them and dig your fingers in and hold onto them for dear life, riding them like an out of control rollercoaster while they’ll whip you about and make you feel miserable… and probably a bit vomit-y in the process! Right?
This is not about pretending that everything is fine when it isn’t. It’s just about deciding in the moment that you refuse to hand over any more of your life to the past or the future when your life is only ever lived here in the present moment. Next…
Notice the trade-off.
And by that I mean to start noticing what you’re actually trading your attention and presence for. Because most of the time, you’re not choosing to disappear from your own life or your own present; something’s quietly pulling you out of it, and you probably don’t even notice that trade-off happening when it’s going on in the moment.
So let’s say you sit down to have dinner with your family or your partner, and your phone goes off so you glance at it “just quickly.” At least that’s what you tell yourself! And 40 minutes later, you’ve read three articles, replied to two messages, and you cannot genuinely tell anyone what was actually said at the table while you were sitting at it. Now, nobody necessarily decided that 40 minutes of a group chat and articles was going to be more important than being present for, you know, dinner with the people in front of you. It just happened, one small tiny choice at a time. But the result is that you traded being present for being distracted. So the practice here isn’t “put your phone away,” because the phone is just a symptom.
The practice is noticing the trade-off itself in the moment, right, before you make it; thinking, “Oh, I’m about to hand over the next chunk of my actual life to this. So is that really the trade off I want to make right now?” Sometimes it will be, genuinely, and that’s completely fine, but at least then it becomes a conscious choice instead of something that just happens by default and which ends up meaning that you’re technically in the room but not actually present. Next…
Live one moment fully each day.
Every day pick one moment, just one, and choose to actually live it instead of supervising it from a distance. It doesn’t have to be anything big. It could simply be the first five minutes of a conversation with your partner, or being fully present for the walk from your car to your front door. The point isn’t the specific moment itself, it’s the practice of consciously choosing to be fully in something rather than letting it just happen to you while your mind’s off elsewhere.
Do this every day, at least once a day, for a couple of minutes, and then you’re not just ‘adding a new technique’; you’re actively rehearsing the version of you that shows up… the same way that you’d rehearse anything else that you actually wanted to get good at. Because nobody gets good at playing the piano by just thinking about tinkling the keys once a month… it takes practice, and this stuff works the same way. Next…
Break the blur.
Remember that cycle I mentioned earlier: wake, work, dinner, bed, repeat? That could very easily be described as ‘a beige existence’: it’s fine, but it’s bland and unexciting and maybe a little bit boring. And a big part of why that cycle feels like it swallows you whole is because every day quietly blurs into the last one… and when nothing distinguishes one day from another, your mind has got no reason to actually show up for any particular moment.
So you need to add some colour, some texture, some flavour, some crunch. Build in something small: one deliberate point of difference each day. It doesn’t matter what it is. It could be taking a proper break instead of eating at your desk, having an actual conversation with someone instead of just a nod in passing, going home a different way than usual; just please don’t go through any sketchy neighbourhoods!
It might sound really small, and it is small… and that’s the point. Distinctiveness, no matter what size, is exactly what stops your day from just dissolving into the next like some sort of boring beige bonanza… and it’s what stops your whole life from quietly sliding past you without you ever really noticing it. Next…
Let yourself feel OK.
And by that I mean letting yourself actually feel OK, even when things around you maybe aren’t. If you’re ruminating about the past or carrying worries about the future, that’s understandable, and I talk about how to deal with that in Episode 321 about overthinking and thought spirals. But you don’t have to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders; like I said last week, it can be easy to let all of that overwhelm you to the point where you either forget about living in the present or it feels like being present is just impossible to do.
But it’s not. You just have to let the little moments in.
Watch something utterly stupid that makes you laugh. Play with a pet. Read a book that brings you joy. Go out and touch grass, and reconnect with nature. Roll your eyes at the absurdity of politicians and loud mouths taking themselves seriously. Remind yourself that your job is just a job, not the meaning of life. Look up at the never-ending expanse of stars in the night sky and realise just how insignificant the stuff that we fixate on really is.
Feeling OK for a moment doesn’t mean that you’ve stopped caring about whatever you are caring about. It just means that you’ve decided to stop letting the hard stuff dictate absolutely everything, and that you refuse to allow the past or the future to take you away from the present moment… because this is where your life is actually lived. And next…
Swap your nightly wind down question.
I would encourage you to ask yourself this, as the last thing every single day: “Did I show up today as the person I actually want to be?” Now, I don’t mean ‘were you some sort of perfect person’ here. Nobody manages that, and that’s not a healthy bar to set for yourself; anybody who ‘looks’ perfect is full of crap. The question is, on balance, were you actually here for your own life today? Were you present? Or were you mostly somewhere else, running on autopilot, handing your attention away without noticing?
Now, whatever the answer is, do not beat yourself up over it… because that would just be another way of not being present; you’d be worrying about what you did in the past and what you should do in the future instead of just being in the moment that you’re actually in. This is simply about being honest with yourself, because that honesty is what actually drives the change far more than any single technique on this list ever will on its own.
So look, none of this stuff is particularly complicated. None of it requires you to download an app, or meditate for six hours a day. It just requires a shift in how you think about the whole ‘being present’ thing: not as a box to tick once and forget about, but as an ongoing choice that you make about who you’re choosing to be moment by moment, day by day… because your choices are what your life is actually made of.
Conclusion
Here’s what I want you to take away from this episode. Being present is about understanding that this moment, whatever it looks like right now, is your life, not a rehearsal for it… and how you choose to show up for it decides how present you are.
So, ask yourself: if you added up all of your ordinary moments this week, the ones nobody else even noticed, what would they say about how present you are?
Because when you boil it all down, you’re not waiting for your life to start, because it already did. The real question is whether you’re going to show up for it.
Each week I like to finish up by sharing a quote about the topic, and I encourage you to take a few moments to really reflect on it and consider what it means to you. This week’s quote is by Marcus Aurelius, and it is:
Each of us lives only now, this brief instant.
Marcus Aurelius
Let me repeat that:
Each of us lives only now, this brief instant.
Alright, that’s it for this week. If you’d like more practical advice like this, check out my book Life Advice That Doesn’t Suck, and join me on Patreon to support my work and get ad-free access to episodes a week early. They’re both linked in the description.
Thank you very much for joining me this week. Look after yourself and make a conscious effort to share positivity and kindness out into the world… because you get back what you put out. Take care and talk to you next time!
Join me next week so we can talk about what finding balance really means. And check out my episode on how to actually improve your mental health next; it’s linked in the description. I release new content every Sunday, so follow or subscribe to never miss an episode.
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