The passing of time is fast and inevitable. It can feel like it has already happened. Think about reading this column. You see a few hundred words and think it will take some time to get to the end. But in the blink of an eye, you will have read it and moved on to the next thing.

Research in the United States showed there were 768 million days of unused holiday but that 50 per cent of people in a leadership role felt burned out. Research also shows if you don’t take regular breaks or holidays for two weeks or more over the course of a year, it increases your chance of getting heart disease.  Taking a break is really important.

But we work hard, exercise, earn money and seek recognition. Society rewards us for doing and achieving. Robin Sharma, the author, highlighted on our High Performance podcast that we tend to be “human doings” rather than “human beings”. We focus so much on doing that we forget to simply be. We chase idealised versions of ourselves, our careers, relationships and possessions.

So many of us live in an idealised world focusing on future goals and not on savouring the moment. It’s a challenge to stay in the present when we live in a world where we are told to cultivate our skills to achieve great things in the future.

Yet the number of people on High Performance who talk about the power of being mindful is incredible. One of the biggest game-changers that Jonny Wilkinson, the former rugby player, said to me was: Instead of going to something an hour long and thinking, “Oh, I can’t be bothered”, think that you are going to be in that meeting or at that event for an hour regardless of whether you are mentally present. The choice is, you can get an amazing amount out of that hour if you approach it in the right way, or you can just throw that hour away. Which is going to give you more joy in your life?

Being skilled at “being” rather than “doing” is vital. We need to settle into the moment and awake to how rich our lives are — because in the blink of an eye, those moments are gone.  My daughter recently started senior school. My wife sent me some photos of her walking into school on her own. That was her request on day one — she didn’t want mum and dad to walk her in. Then Abba’s Slipping Through My Fingers came onto my Spotify, and I was in floods of tears.

I feel that maybe I have spent too much time as a human “doing” rather than a human “being” with her. I don’t remember how her hand felt when she was three years old. I don’t remember what her voice sounded like when she first learnt to speak. I don’t remember what she was like when she was wracked with the self-doubt and fear about the world that you have when you’re five or six years old. The only thing I know now is that beautiful, confident, funny, drama and art-obsessed 11-year-old that I have.

I’m not asking you to stop being ambitious or trying to achieve great things. But I am asking you to just stop — not monthly, yearly or even weekly, but almost every minute of every day to live in the present as much as possible. If you write a list right now of all the things you have to be grateful for, I guarantee you it will be a long list.

Remember what I wrote at the very start of the column about how quickly you would be at the end? Well, you are there already. In the blink of an eye, that moment has come and gone. So, from here onwards, do all the great things that you are doing, but do them with a mindset of being in the present.

Jake Humphrey is the host of the High Performance podcast and co-founder of Whisper Group.