We’re sick of stress, right? Life’s busy with a long ‘to-do’ list so we want to practise mindfulness, meditate, relax, be kind to ourselves. We’ve read all the personal development books/blogs/articles … how hard can it be?

My friend recounted her recent experience. Invited to a special concert: it was an intimate crowd, the setting was beautiful, the night perfect. One of those moments you want to remember forever.

So she kept reminding herself: “Now’s the time to be mindful. Remember this. Opportunities like this don’t come around every day. Savour each minute! Pay attention. Soak it all in. Stay present!”

Halfway through she realised she couldn’t even hear what he was playing. She’d been so busy listening to the dialogue in her head about being mindful!

“I’m not sure I even know what mindfulness is,” she said to me in exasperation. “I clearly wasn’t doing it right.”

Then she described the times her mind had ‘drifted’, caught up in the music and the magic of the evening, lost in it.

She said she couldn’t remember those moments exactly, she couldn’t quite hold onto them. Perhaps that’s the trade-off of being truly present in the moment itself. Had she’d actually stumbled upon the presence she was striving for in the breaks when she’d stopped trying so hard?

I was recently doing a ‘gratitude exercise’ (another popular buzzword of my field). I’m there, trying to compile a list of things I’m grateful for.

I found myself getting really resentful and resistant. I couldn’t think of anything! Listing the old standards: my health, children, things I should be grateful for, felt false and laboured.

My inner voice started screaming: ‘What? You’ve got such a great life but you’re not grateful for it? What an unappreciative brat!’

Wait! I had to stop myself from spiralling. There are so many things I appreciate. I have moments so filled with joy for things I’m lucky to have in my life that I think I might burst. Like being well and healthy, being a mum to a little boy who I adore, having family and friends who I love and can count on … the list is endless.

So what was my problem?

I was getting caught up in the wording. ‘Gratitude’ feels like a duty to me. I get a sense of ‘should’. Like being forced to write thank you cards for presents as a child.

If you ask what I feel fortunate for, my response is totally different. I simply changed the wording and the exercise flowed.

Getting stuck in semantics or caught up in ‘getting them right, working hard at them, achieving an outcome’ only perpetuates anxiety and self-judgment; the antithesis of what these wellbeing practices are intended for.

If we’ve just added mindfulness, gratitude, meditation etc to our to-do list, we’re just adding to our stress.

We can’t create new ways of being by using the same mindset that created our old patterns. Perfectionism, comparisons, self-criticism must make way for gentleness, self-compassion and openness to experience.

We need to remind ourselves it’s about doing it, not doing it right. About finding what works for us, call it what we like.

These are not new to-do’s we can tick off, they are new to-be’s — an ongoing journey of practice and patience towards personal peace.

• Julia Pitt is a trained success coach and certified NLP practitioner on the team at Benedict Associates. For further information contact Julia on 705-7488, www.juliapittcoaching.com