It's a big subject, and everyone is different but perhaps let me offer a suggestion rather than me get too long winded.
One useful place to start is to notice the sensation in your body. What I mean by that is whenever you feel a sensation in your body note the situation, the circumstance, the event that triggered it and label the sensation.
It could be something someone says
Take for instance you are busy, struggling to meet this weeks deadline and your account manager calls to say he needs to sit down with you and have a word about any further extentions to your contract. Its useful to stop a second and take note of the alarming, attention-grabbing, in-the-body-experience you are making receiving such a call.This moment is clearly not the I'm-unstoppable-leaping-out-of-my-body experience we would naturally prefer, I'm sure you will agree.
Yes but.. some will say.. I listen to what goes on in my mind. Yes. This is important too. I agree. Take the next situation as a case in point...
It could be something you did
For instance you are just about to pack up and go home after a hectic few weeks and you noticed somehow you managed to leave out a changed database component in your migration package causing the wrong version to be released into production tonight and you are frantic trying to get in touch with migrations to back it out before end-of-month is scheduled to run this evening, but the person you want is on the phone. Its useful to stop and take note at this point of the chatter going on in your mind and how it governs the experience you are making a moment like this.I'm sure we can all imagine the sudden surge of inner dialogue that comes with the handwringing, pounding heart, sudden hot flush, sweat beads on our brow and sheer panic contemplating "what are they going to think!!".
So I agree, more accurately stated, the experience we are making this last moment is not just about body but about mind as well. One area that was always guaranteed to give me a body-mind experience that had me wrestle to get it back was whenever the contractors association newsletter came out with contractors explaining in their testimonials their chilling tax office experience discovering they are-not-a-business and we (taxoffice) are going to treat your last-seven-years-as-a-paye. This went on for over a decade but was still always good for getting a rise out of me, and guaranteed to have my body-mind go rogue on me for at least a few brief moments anyway. Thankfully these days its good having the internet, the taxoffice website, and places like UmbrellaSupermarket to bypass the droves of obscure woolly makers and go direct to get the correct clear picture.
However, as true as that may be, wouldn't the question we should really be asking ourselves be: to what extent does the mind-body-experience we make an event like this, impact the likely success of its eventual outcome? Are we more likely to make it a thorough positive experience having ourselves overrun by panic, hot flushes and frenetic chatter? or by taking back our body and our mind and putting it back on task calmly, clearly, orderly?
Is this something that would be important to learn how to do?
So would that be at least one good reason why it is good to get to know a bit more about thyself to build on what we call a winning mindset for success in IT, and a good place to start is to notice the body and mind experience that you are making your IT Contracting Career or am I off track?
