Yes, try what I call “still points” into your life.

A still point is a moment of reflection or practice we intentionally build into our day. Because so much of what drives us happens below the surface, we can’t brute-force internal change any more than we can will ourselves into a new habit overnight.

What we can do is create small interruptions— tiny shifts that help our thoughts settle into better grooves over time. That’s what still points are. You can think of them as the fundamental building blocks of a new way of thinking: tiny disruptions that pave the way toward new horizons.

The formula is simple: When-Then. The “When” is a prompt. The “Then” is your chosen response.

Example: When I check the time, then I’ll ask myself: What am I thinking and feeling right now?

Here’s a still point that I used for years. When I walked from my car to the office, I would Then do a practice called “Grounding in Our Senses.” It simply meant noticing five things I could see, five I could hear, and five I could feel in my body. The goal? To practice presence.

Doing this once made no difference, but doing it twice every day, once on the way in and on the way out, started to change my capacity for presence. I found myself more able to take a step back from the stress of the day to notice the sway of the red oaks. The wrens in spring. The crocuses and tulips and marigolds. The bounce of my soles, the beat of my pulse. The grand natural cycles that couldn’t help but make my emails and meetings feel trivial— which had the side benefit of making me feel a little more ready to handle the day’s business. All of that, and I never actually had to carve time out to access this still point. It was found time, a pocket of autopilot action and thought I co- opted for something a little more useful.