Mind Your Safety

Be In The Now

In her efforts to improve me, my amazing better half encourages me to read Self-Help books. (Like the dinosaurs before me and, being closer to extinction than birth, I see no real need to change, much to my better half’s chagrin.) One of these self-help authors, Eckhart Tolle, writes about the Power of Now. This is a common theme that other self help gurus state as “Be in the now”.

Tolle is on to something when you apply “Be in the now” to physical safety. I have interviewed many victims who initiated accidents and always ask them the same question, “Just prior to the accident, what were you thinking about?”. 80% of the time, they respond they were thinking about what they were going to do next.

We live in a world of activity; we worship multi-tasking. It is incredibly easy to be working on a task and allow our minds to be bombarded with extraneous flotsam and jetsam. This not only leads to accidents, but it causes numerous errors. When these errors are apparent, individuals defend themselves by saying, “Everyone makes mistakes!”, yet were a surgeon to make a mistake during an operation, we would immediately declare “Malpractice!”.

Anyone can make a mistake in judgment when facts are unclear, but physical mistakes occur when our muscles move a part of our body into danger... and our muscles are controlled by our minds.

Learning to control our minds is a lifelong task for all of us. Being in the now means I am not thinking ahead to future actions; my mind is not mulling over events unrelated to my task, and I do not entertain random thoughts, feelings, pictures, movies, sounds, voices, music, etc., running through my head. I am, instead, focusing on what I am doing right now.

I once interviewed a driver who had ruined some equipment by turning too short. Knowing he had been the lead singer for a disbanded rock band, I asked, “Your head was full of music, wasn’t it?”, and he ruefully agreed. His head is, in fact, always full of music, to the point that the rest of the world exists on the outskirts of the melodies. He is rarely in the now.

To achieve a state of being in the now, I mentally tell myself, “Be in the now!”. I believe this is one of the most powerful safety tools I have ever experienced.

I live in moose country, and it’s rutting season right now. Big bucks are crashing onto the highway with only one thing on their minds. And when you hit one of them with your vehicle, you knock out their legs from under them, and their bodies continue up the hood and through your windshield—crushing you. There have been horrible instances where the moose is locked with the vehicle; a leg is lodged inside, thrashing and shredding the vehicle’s occupants. Even knowing this, it is easy for a driver’s mind to wander in moose country. Be in the now!

Today I was working on a 25kV breaker. It was deenergized, but I was going continuously up and down a stepladder with my fingers close to pinch points, my hands near sharp edges; a multitude of small risks that, although not life-threatening, could really hurt. My mind was off focus numerous times, yet every time I reminded myself “Be in the now!”. My mind would shoot right back to the task at hand, and I would be instantly conscious of my body, my position and my surroundings... in total command of my mind and actions.

No matter where you are or what you are doing, if your mind can put your body into danger, tell yourself to be in the now!

Until next time, be ready, be careful and be safe©.

Canada Training Group has been providing consulting services to industry since 1980; Dave Smith, the president, can be reached at davesmith@canada-training-group.ca.