One morning in the galley, I heard a crew member arguing with the first officer. He kept going even after they told him to stop. Watching it, I thought he must want to get fired to leave the ship.
A couple of days later, when we reached port, they told him to pack his belongings. He came to the galley to say goodbye, upset and close to tears. I realized I had misread him. He didn’t want to get fired, but in that moment he could not stop himself from arguing.
One Useful Thought
We can care about the outcome and still act against it. When emotions rise, what we say next may matter more than the point we are trying to make. Learning to pause gives us a chance to see where our words are taking us.
One Question Worth Carrying.
When I feel the urge to keep arguing, what am I hoping my next words will accomplish?
The One-Degree Turn
The next time a conversation becomes heated, take one breath before speaking. Ask yourself whether your next sentence will help you reach the outcome you want.
Are we choosing the direction of our lives, or are we simply drifting through our days?
Without awareness and purpose, it is easy to become busy, productive, and responsible while still moving further from the life we truly want. Living intentionally means making conscious choices, setting meaningful goals, and regularly checking our direction.
We cannot control every circumstance, but we can decide how we respond, where we place our attention, and what course we choose next.
Living Intentionally or Drifting.
There are two ways to move through life: intentionally or by drifting.
Intentional living means choosing our direction.
We decide what deserves our attention, which values will guide us, and what kind of person we want to become. We cannot control everything that happens around us, but we can influence how we respond and what we choose to do next.
This is where purpose and goals become important.
Purpose is the deeper reason behind the direction we choose, the meaning that guides our journey.
Goals are the specific destinations we set along the way. We may reach a goal and replace it, but purpose keeps guiding us beyond it.
Without goals, purpose can remain only an intention.
Without purpose, goals can become achievements that take us somewhere we never truly wanted to go.
Drifting is different. When we drift, the day determines our direction for us. We react to whatever appears in our path: the latest problem, someone else’s expectations, an unexpected emotion, or the endless demands competing for our attention.
One unplanned day becomes a distracted week. The weeks become months, and eventually, we may look back and realize that years have passed without taking us any closer to the life we wanted.
Drifting does not always feel like being lost. Sometimes it looks like being busy, responsible, and productive. We can accomplish many things and still be travelling in a direction we never consciously chose. Activity alone is not evidence of intention. We must occasionally pause, check our bearing, and ask whether our daily actions still agree with our deeper purpose.
The difference between intentional living and drifting rarely comes from one dramatic decision. It is found in the small choices we make repeatedly: where we place our attention, what we say yes or no to, what we continue to tolerate, and whether we pause long enough to correct our course.
Intentional living does not mean controlling every circumstance. Life will always bring changing conditions. It means refusing to surrender the direction of our lives to those conditions.
We will either choose our course or allow the current to choose it for us.
Every day offers another opportunity to take hold of the wheel, check our bearing, and move deliberately toward the life we want to build.
Fair winds,
Chef Martin
Takeaway:
The future we dream of is shape by the direction we choose to navigate today.
Self-awareness is the first step toward understanding ourselves and living more intentionally.
Much of daily life happens on autopilot, guided by habits, thoughts, emotions, and reactions we rarely notice. Developing personal awareness helps us recognize these patterns and begin to understand what may be influencing the direction of our lives. Before we try to change our habits, beliefs or behavior, we first need to see them clearly.
This inside journey begins with three simple questions:
What am I thinking?
What am I feeling?
What am I doing?
Awareness: The First Step of the Inside Journey.
Most of us spend more time on autopilot than we realize.
We wake up and move through familiar routines. We think familiar thoughts, react in familiar ways, follow established habits and make hundreds of small decisions without giving them much conscious attention.
There is nothing inherently wrong with this. Autopilot is useful. Imagine having to consciously relearn how to brush your teeth, make coffee, drive to work or tie your shoes every morning.
The problem begins when autopilot moves beyond simple routines and starts choosing the direction of our lives.
Old habits begin making decisions for us. Emotions determine how we react. Assumptions influence what we believe. Fear tells us what to avoid. Familiar patterns quietly repeat themselves.
And because these processes happen automatically, we may not even realize they are happening.
We are sailing, but we are not always consciously steering.
If we want to live more intentionally, one of the first places we need to explore isn’t somewhere outside us.
It is inside.
Before we can understand ourselves, we have to learn to notice ourselves.
That is where awareness begins.
Awareness is the ability to observe what is happening within us while it is happening:
What am I thinking?
What am I feeling?
What am I doing?
These sound like remarkably simple questions.
But how often during an ordinary day do we actually stop and ask them?
We can spend hours thinking without noticing our thoughts.
We can become irritated without recognizing that we are irritated.
We can reach for our phones without consciously deciding to.
We can eat when we aren't hungry, procrastinate on something important, become defensive during a conversation, or repeat an old behavior without stopping to notice what's happening.
The behavior happens.
Then life continues.
Self- Awareness is the Beginning of the Inside Journey
Imagine our life as a ship that has been travelling for many years.
Over time, we have developed ways of navigating. Some serve us extremely well. Others may have been established long ago under very different circumstances.
Habits became automatic.
Beliefs became assumptions.
Repeated reactions became familiar responses.
Eventually, we may stop questioning who, or what is actually steering.
Awareness Brings Us Back Into the Wheelhouse.
Awareness is like walking back into the wheelhouse and looking at the instruments.
Where are we?
What direction are we travelling?
What has been influencing our course?
Are we consciously steering, or are we simply continuing along the heading we have followed for years?
We decided we want to become a more conscious and capable navigator for the journey ahead.
Don't Fix It Yet. Notice It.
This distinction is important.
When we begin working on ourselves, our natural tendency is to fix things immediately.
We notice impatience and decide we need to become more patient.
We recognize a bad habit and immediately try to eliminate it.
We notice anxiety and want it to disappear.
But awareness comes before correction.
For now, we are simply gathering information.
Instead of:
Why am I like this?
Try:
Interesting. I noticed that.
Instead of:
I shouldn't be feeling this way.
Try:
This is what I'm feeling right now.
Instead of:
I have to stop doing this.
Begin with:
I noticed myself doing it.
There will be time later to explore triggers, beliefs, causes and recurring patterns.
The first skill is simply learning to see what is already there.
From Autopilot to Intentional Choice.
An automatic reaction often looks something like this:
Something happens → I react → I behave → I move on.
Awareness introduces something incredibly important into that sequence:
Something happens → I notice → I pause → I choose.
That small space ( I pause ) between noticing and responding is where intentional living becomes possible.
Awareness doesn't guarantee that we will make a different choice.
Sometimes we will notice ourselves doing exactly what we have always done.
That's okay.
Because yesterday we may have done it without noticing.
Today, we saw it.
That is movement.
Something that previously operated entirely in the background has entered conscious awareness.
And once we can see something, we can eventually begin to understand it.
Observe Before You Steer.
An old navigational principle is hidden inside this practice.
Before changing course, we first need to establish our position.
The same applies to the inside journey.
We don't begin by deciding everything that needs to change about ourselves.
We begin by discovering where we actually are.
Awareness leads to understanding.
Understanding creates possibilities.
Possibilities give us choices.
And repeated intentional choices gradually change the direction of our lives.
But the journey starts much more quietly.
It starts by paying attention.
Boarding Pass 365 Card 002: Awareness.
For this exercise, don't try to analyze yourself.
Don't search for explanations.
And don't try to change anything yet.
Several times throughout your day, pause for a moment and record:
What am I thinking right now?
What am I feeling right now?
What am I doing right now?
That's all.
At the end of the day, look back over your observations and ask:
What did I notice about myself?
You may discover something important.
You may discover nothing surprising at all.
Both are perfectly useful.
The objective isn't to produce an insight on demand.
The objective is to begin developing the habit of noticing yourself while you are living your life. Don't fix. Don't judge. Just notice.
Awareness is not the entire inside journey. It is where we begin.
Because before we can intentionally change course, we first have to recognize what has been steering us.
Fair winds,
Chef Martin
Takeaway:
We cannot intentionally change what we have not yet learned to see.
Awareness is the first step of the inside journey. Before trying to fix our habits, thoughts, emotions or reactions, we need to notice them. Every time we pause and observe ourselves without judgment, we step out of autopilot and create a small space for conscious choice.
