Bring your mind to the present to experience happiness, reduces stress, and leads to ultimate fulfillment in life. Being in the present means that you experience and express value any given moment right now rather than dwell in the past. The truth is, we are only guaranteed now, this very moment, so it is crucial to use your time wisely.
Below are four tips that you need to follow if you want to learn how to stay in the present moment:
- Pay close attention to your thoughts and emotions – As soon as you think about something that happened in the past immediately change your thought to something you are doing now that feels positive. You can even practice looking around the room and naming at least five physical items you see that bring you joy and happiness. This practice will allow you to forget about the past so that you can focus on the now.
- Create a vision board – A vision board is usually a collage of images that represent your goals and dreams or desires. However, your goal is to practice mindfulness, so fill up the vision board with images that make you concentrate on the now. Maybe you can immerse in the moment when you are surrounded by the environment in trees or the ocean. If that is true, then go outside and take some pictures to use.
- Extra Credit: While you are there, have fun and just enjoy the moment. Don’t even think about completing it. Eventually, it will get done and, in the meantime, you are doing exactly what you wanted to do in the first place — and that is being in the present.
- Practice – Practice savoring the moment with mindfulness meditation. Go through the list of people, places, things, and focus on each item for which you are grateful. Meditate or do yoga to help you focus.
- Don’t dwell on the past – Try to only think about the past when there is a significant reason to do so. For example, it’s not staying in the past to investigate your metrics and data so that you can do better on a future project. However, if the result of this is only negative and is not useful to you now, as a lesson to improve your life, then learn to let it go. Mistakes happen.
While you follow these tips, you may need to change your routine to be successful. You now have a daily goal to shoot for, so if your current routine doesn’t support you to bring your mind to the present, you may need to make a few changes. For example, now you need to take the time out to add in daily exercises that you never did before, but when you focus on being in the present, it will pay off.
