Well friends, I have to admit it’s been a while since I wrote a post on mindfulness. I think my last one was ‘How to Stay Present While Traveling‘, which I wrote after a trip to Europe with my family.
Last year I was committed to talking about it more frequently because of my Mindfulness Challenges. If you’ve been following me for a bit, you probably know what I’m talking about. If you don’t – every month in 2018 I challenged myself and all of you to make mindfulness more prevalent in one particular area of life. I learned SO much and so many of you said you did too!
My Mindfulness Challenge blog posts were very detailed and written with a lot of depth. I broke down each small mindfulness habit and discussed several ways in which it was beneficial or worth focusing on. That said, I thought it would be good to do more of a broad blog post that provided a few overall tips for living mindfully. You might recognize a few of these from the challenges. 🙂
Before getting into it… mindfulness is crucial because it helps us stay present. When we’re present we have the ability to appreciate life and live it fully! Gratitude stems from mindfulness and is so important for our happiness.
Four Simple Ways to Live a More Mindful Life
Stay aware of screen time
Let’s just get the elephant out of the room right away. Our devices (phones especially) might be the biggest distraction from the present moment. Actually I’m like 99% sure they are. The second we look down at our phone we’re taken away from what’s in front of us and can’t be fully present. I recommend setting realistic boundaries for yourself so you can be aware of your screen time. For example, I’ve been working on staying off my phone for at least the very first and very last hour of the day. It helps me start and end my day right, along with many other benefits that I laid out here.
Another screen-related tip: recognize the urge you have to pull out your phone whenever you’re waiting in a line, in a drive thru, at the bus stop. Instead, choose to keep it in your pocket, observe your surroundings, and maybe even say hello to a stranger! More on this here.
Aim for five minutes of meditation per day
Meditation doesn’t need to be some overwhelming, time-consuming thing where you sit cross-legged in a quiet place. You can meditate anywhere! It’s best to be able to close your eyes, but even that isn’t necessary. What’s most necessary is clearing your mind, taking deep breaths, and just being aware.
If you’re new to meditating, I recommend trying out an app like Calm or Headspace to guide you in the beginning. Meditating on things like gratitude, peace, love, etc. can also be very helpful in changing or resetting our mindset.
Work on acknowledgement and acceptance
Mindfulness is truly about awareness – of emotions, thoughts, sights, smells, sounds – and acceptance. Highly mindful people are sensitive of these things but don’t always feel the need to change them. Instead of reacting impulsively to situations, interactions, altercations, etc., – they respond thoughtfully.
Practice taking in everything about the present moment but realize you can’t necessarily resist or control it. Let yourself feel emotions and know that they’re okay. This way you’ll be able to work through them instead of burying them where they can stew and become a bigger problem.
Avoid multitasking whenever possible
Ooooh my word this is a big one. For some odd reason we have a need in our society to multi-task constantly. Think about it – we watch TV and scroll on our phone simultaneously, talk while we eat, listen to music while we drive – it’s so rare to simply be doing one thing.
When we multitask, we can’t be fully mindful because our attention is divided. I’m not saying we can never multi-task – sometimes it’s necessary. I’m just saying that in the moments where we choose to focus on one thing at a time we can be more productive, thankful, relaxed, engaged… whatever it may be.
I encourage you to incorporate these tips into your daily life! Living more mindfully enhances our gratitude, happiness, and ability to take in the beauty around us.
XO Sorelle