Random Thoughts: Focus on Quality + Ignore the Outcome

When was the last time you breezed through a project or household chore? Do you even remember doing it? Were you only focused on getting it done, assuming that, since you’ve done it before, you’d do well?

Interestingly titled Be All You Can Be (remind you of the Army?), a blurb on page 20 of Yoga Journal Magazine’s June 2009 issue focuses on just this subject. Written by Founder & Co-Director of San Francisco’s Healing Yoga Foundation, Kate Holcombe, the half-page piece is about a particular passage from the Yoga Sutra describing the concept of Ishvara pranidhana (nonattachment to the fruits of one’s actions).

The concept is quite simple, but nevertheless difficult to accomplish by most: do you best 100% of the time and embrace the effort you put into each moment of your day.

Patanjali [author of the Yoga Sutra] advises us to focus on the quality of an act, rather than on its outcome, leaving the “fruits” of our actions to something greater. From this perspective, everything we do becomes an opportunity for practice: We do the very best we can, whether we’re running a race, giving a big presentation, or doing the dishes. Regardless of the outcome, the mind is calm, clear, and present because our joy comes from the act itself, rather than the result.

Such wonderful words. Thanks to Kate, I’ve never been more inspired to do the dishes … mindfully.

I’m often guilty of doing too many things at once, and sometimes sacrificing the quality and pleasure of work as a result. It’s time to slow down. Filling our lives with list after list of to-dos will never make us happy or content.

That’s not to say that we shouldn’t work. I’m not suggesting that you give up all your worldly posession and move to a mountaintop to meditate. But how about taking a long, hard look at your to-do list. Do you really need to do everything on there? Is it going to make your life better, simplier, happier? If not, why is it there? Talk about a serious waste of time, money, and energy!