What's Important Now?

One of the first tools we taught to new SASR soldiers to improve their performance and decision making in combat was a simple question.

What’s Important Now?

One of the things I saw repeatedly throughout my career, was that once a mistake was made, in combat or in training, people and teams were significantly more likely to make another one.

This was because they were no longer thinking about what they were doing but were instead ruminating about the mistake or catastrophising about the impact it would have on them and their reputation.

So, we taught soldiers to ask themselves, “What’s Important Now?”

This switched the networks that were active in their brain from thinking about the past or the future, to being active and present in the challenge they were facing now.

For example;

Situation: Someone’s been injured.

What’s Important Now? Not what went wrong or how that person is, but how do we get them out quickly.

Situation: I’ve bogged a car.

What’s Important Now? Not how this will affect how my team think of me, but how do we get out of this situation safely.

This also works for prioritising in chaos.

It helps us switch from focusing on the overwhelming number of things we are dealing with, but to what is the most impactful decision I need to make right now, and once that’s done, what’s the next?

This is an incredibly simple tool that makes a huge impact.

So next time you’re feeling overwhelmed, when you (or someone in your team) has made a mistake, or when you just need to get control of the story your brain is telling you, ask yourself “What’s Important Now?”.

You’ll have to do it a few times, but you’ll be amazed by the impact it has.