We, humans, have extraordinary potentials but use only a tiny fraction of our potential. Do you wonder why? Because we are not focused.
We are distracted by millions of irrelevant things. If we have to realize our potential and accomplish extraordinary feats, we need to focus our attention single-mindedly on our vision.
How are we going to accomplish that in this age, when our minds are attacked by millions of distractions every day?
The answer is simple: mindfulness.
Break the Vicious Circles in Your Life
Mindfulness requires being aware of what’s going on in our minds and being able to guide our thoughts at will. This might sound easy if you haven’t tried it yet.
In reality, our minds jump from one thought to another like crazy monkeys jumping from one tree to another.
We don’t have any control over our thoughts. Most of the time, we aren’t even aware of them. That’s why our thoughts cycle around vicious circles. So, do our lives.
To break the vicious circles in our lives, we need to cut the vicious circles in our minds.
Downward Spirals
Let’s think about the following scenario. Suppose that you have a stressful day at work. You get depressed. You get yourself some junk food, a can of beer, and switch on the TV.
After hours of watching TV and drinking, you realize that it is already too late to go to bed and you have to go to work the next day. As a result, you have a bad day at work again.
Do you see the vicious circle here? Maybe, you don’t need to medicate yourself with junk food, alcohol, and TV after a hard day at work.
Why not read a book or listen to an audiobook instead? Breaking habits can be hard. However, it all starts in your mind. It requires mindfulness.
Think about mindfulness as a mental muscle. Your mindfulness muscle is weak if you haven’t used it much. It’ll get stronger as you exercise it.
Improve Every Area of Your Life
Think about an area of your life you want to improve. Suppose that you’re inclined to drive fast.
The desire to drive fast can be very sneaky. It can be too late before you become aware of it. You might have exceeded the speed limit and receive a ticket.
Overcoming a habit requires mindfulness. You need to be focused on your driving all the time, pay attention to your speed and to the speed limits.
You need to let go of all the other distractions. You need to switch off the radio. You need to let go of all the thoughts in your mind. You need to let go of your annoying colleague or the project that runs late.
You need to concentrate your whole attention on your driving. Driving can be an excellent mindfulness exercise.
Work is also an excellent mindfulness exercise. If you want to do a great job, you need to concentrate single-mindedly on the task at hand and let go of all the other distractions and thoughts in your mind.
The same holds for relationships. If you tend to be angry with your loved ones, you need to be mindful of this fact, when you’re interacting with them, even when you’re thinking about them.
The Greatest Benefit of Mindfulness
Mindfulness results in success and growth in every area of your life. The greatest benefit of mindfulness is the feeling of peace that becomes your default mental state. Who wouldn’t want to go through life in peace and feeling relaxed most of the time?
The Ultimate Mindfulness Exercise
The ultimate mindfulness exercise is meditation. There’s nothing metaphysical, fancy, or esoteric about meditation. Get over the image of a monk in an orange robe sitting in a complicated posture on top of a mountain. Make meditation a part of your daily life.
- Set your alarm clock to a specific duration, for example, 20 minutes.
- Sit upright on a comfortable chair.
- Close your eyes.
- Focus on your breath, in and out.
- Be aware of your thoughts, but don’t pay attention to them. Let them go.
If you find 20 minutes too long, you can start with a shorter duration and work your way up. If focusing on your breath is difficult, you can download a guided meditation program and listen to it.
Meditation exercises your mindfulness muscle and makes it stronger so that you can be more mindful during your daily life. It’s also a great way to rest your mind.
Improve the Quality of Your Life by Letting Go
You might say that you don’t have 20 minutes to meditate every day. This brings me to another practice to improve your mindfulness, the practice of letting go of what doesn’t serve you.
Distracting habits don’t serve you. Quitting them will improve not only your mindfulness but also the overall quality of your life.
- Quit smoking, using recreational drugs, drinking alcohol and caffeinated beverages.
- Quit watching TV, reading mainstream newspapers and magazines.
- Quit listening to the radio in your car, while working or resting.
- Quit checking your email all the time.
- Quit surfing the Internet mindlessly.
- Let go of toxic thoughts, situations, and people in your life.
If you do these, you’ll have more than 20 minutes every day to meditate. It might require some willpower at the start, but once you get used to it, you’re going to look forward to your daily meditation session.
Burak BilginSoftware developer with a Ph.D. and 15 years of experience. I write daily on personal development and life lessons. Sign up to my email newsletter to receive a weekly overview of my latest content on personal development and life lessons.