Life is a journey, not a destination, is a quote attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson, meant to make people realize how life is always about living and never much about having a particular end result in mind and forgetting to focus more on the present.
And more often than not, many of us find ourselves getting lost in the momentum, the thrill, the…dopamine of an ambitious result and forget that it’s not the end goal that matters the most, but all the days we faced and worked hard to bring it forth that do.
Let’s look at what the world today is all about:
- fast-paced
- goal-oriented
- in love with superficial, outer and unauthentic stuff
- always chasing the next outcome, as if on a hedonic treadmill
Let’s look at what this mindset leads to:
- stress and anxiety
- burnout, sometimes raising the risks of psychological disorders (i.e. depression).
- missing out on the present moment
- regret
Now let’s just see what this guide will help you with:
- daily mindfulness tips and how to live in the now
- lessons on how to shift your whole perspective towards life
- learn how to find fulfilment in the journey
Table of Contents
Daily Mindfulness Tips: How to Live in the Present Moment
Practice mindfulness and live in the now
Mindfulness is that one human ability that all of us should have but many of us don’t, where we consciously try to live exactly in the moment we are, where we don’t worry about what happened or what’s going to happen. We must live the day as it is, where we are.
There’s a term called Popcorn Brain which is used to describe a psyhcological condition in whch the person’s mind is distracted and unfocused all the time.
This quite frankly means that the person isn’t able to focus on the things they’re doing and instead their mind is runing at the speed of a million miles an hour, overthinking, analysing the past and the futrue, fantasizing, worrying, planning, regretting, making up unnecessary scenarios in their heads, daydreaming, self-destructing. I think there are more, such as: manifesting negativity and toxicity, jinxing our own comfort, self-obsessing, catastrophizing, over-generalizing and…
…we invent many more.
Now that you’ve gotten to kow me perfectly (from the above description), let’s just move on and try to figure out how to even cure this popcorn mind thingy, huh?
Why are we so distracted all the time? Why do we find it so hard to focus on the stuff that matters when we’re literally willing to spend our quality, productive time on trivial things? (I’m talking to you, social media.)
This is where mindfulness comes in. We have to practice these daily mindfulness tips to keep ourselves grounded in reality. No other thing, only the present is the truth.
Daily mindfulness tips #1: Tune into your senses and the world around you
It goes without saying, when you’re brushing your teeth, you better only be brushing your teeth.
Here’s what I do when I’m brushing my teeth: I think. It’s grander than it sounds. Because I’m thinking, what else do I need to do? Here’s what I used think about:
- Stuff that happened yesterday and is never going to happen again, but forms an “important” part of my life, for whatever reason.
- Stuff that will happen tomorrow
- My to-do list for the day
- What I suck at big time in life
- What book should I read next?
- What book should I write next (momentarily ignoring all the ones I’ve already started but haven’t finished yet)
- What happened yesterday in my favourite TV show
- What will happen in college which I’m starting next week
- What my friend said to me two weeks back (shoot, I forgot another friend’s birthday)
- How to promote my book on Wattpad (right, I should promote my book on my blog, here’s the Amazon link: Buy Say Something)
- Why my poetry eBook on Amazon got no sales (it will, if you click on the link above)
- Am I thinking too much?
Nothing much, just all the stuff that forms the daily routine of a chronic overthinker.
And here’s what I now try to think about:
- Life is about the journey, so live in the now
- Just brush your stupid teeth or you’ll have to visit the dentist again.
Let go of worries about the future
I have a motto that I’m trying to live by now: whatever happens, happens for the best. There’s no doubt for this in my world. Everything is happening right on time. Everything is happening for the best. I’m ready for whatever I’m facing. This is meant to be.
This helps when I’ve been a chronic overthinker all my life. It helps to have a saying I believe in, a saying I might as well call my own axiom: whatever happens, happens for the best. So better just live in the now, without worry.
Every morning, All that I’ve got to face are the twenty-four-hours right in front of me.
That’s all. That’s not too much, I can definitely manage it, right? Only twenty-four hours. I don’t have to think what might happen next week, or next month, or next year. What does it matter now? It will matter enough when it will, and even then, I should be busy only focusing on the twenty-four hours right ahead of me.
Life is a Journey: Find Joy in the Process
Shift your focus from the outcomes to the process
So many of us remain fixated on what’s going to happen rather than what is happening right now. Are you always anxious regarding what the outcome of your circumstances will be, instead of focusing really on what’s going on around you?
You have to shift the focus of your effort and your attention not on the outcome but more on the process. It’s not to disregard the outcome completely and not plan for the future, but it’s more about taking an active measure to live more in the present so that we don’t end up regretting our mental absence when the future does arrive.
Focus on what you’re doing, focus on your hands, your mind, your body. Where are you right now? On the sofa, on the bed, in a busy cafe, standing in a grocery line, or waiting for your taxi. Ask yourself in every moment: where are you? Are you enjoying yourself? Are you looking up the sky and focusing on your breath and moving your body and using all your five senses?
If not, then you better start right now.
Celebrate small wins and progress along the way
You have to celebrate every single, no matter how small, win that you get along the way. It’s crucial, let me tell you.
I’ve spent a lot of my time worrying that what I was doing wasn’t enough and beating myself up for it. And now if I could go back and live all those days again, those days of my early and middle teenage, being kinder to the girl in the mirror, then I would. I definitely would. This is what it’s about: you can’t afford being angry to yourself as if you’re your own enemy.
No, you can’t.
If someone spoke to you the way you speak to yourself, would you want to remain their friend?
You have to be kind to yourself, you have to treat yourself to your favourite stuff, be genuine in your pursuit of reality and authenticity.
You’re on your own, so you better save the day.
Engage in your daily activities and hobbies
Even if your hobbies and favorite past-time activities have nothing to do with your career or professional front. Even if they don’t add up to your skills or your resume. Just do them for the sake of it, because they make you happy, because you’ve always done them, because you just want to.
Life isn’t always about moving forward at full speed, with laser vision. They are pretty important bits too, but sometimes all you gotta do is keep still without any worry, sit somewhere comfortably, take a midday nap, have tea, binge watch a kdrama a whole night, spend hours fixing a friendship bracelet because they gave it to you when you were just kids and now it’s the only thing you have of them.
Sometimes life is all about stillness and tranquility in the place we are right now. And when we come to experience it once, we find that it’s pretty damn amazing.
Cultivate Gratitude
Daily Mindfulness Tips #2: Keep a gratitude journal or practice daily gratitude.
Life is a journey not a destination, and the longer and happier your journey is, the more grateful you should be. Keep appreciating all the amazing people and experiences and blessings that you’ve been given.
Isn’t all of that beautiful?
Count your blessings. Keep a gratitude journal. When you’re grateful for what you have, you get more. And that is something I have experienced, so it’s not like I’m just bluffing.
If you learn how to be happy and satisfied with where you are in life right now, then everything magically falls into place. You start being happier and more content. You understand the importance of all of it. You realise how so many people in the world don’t have what you do, and for them, even the things you’ve got are like a distant dream. So who are you to complain? Isn’t this enough?
Affirm this: There is no lack in your life. You’re abundant, successful, satisfied. And you’re constantly becoming better, getting more, moving closer and closer to where your aspirations truly lie.
Redefine Success
Broaden your definition of success beyond just end results
What does success meant to you? Fame, money, health, happiness, family? Emotional peace? Inner fulfillment, social media followers? A Porsche?
What does success actually mean to you? At what stage would you finally decide that you’re successful and everything in life is perfect? What do you have to do to establish that? Define what would make you successful.
There’s no right or wrong definition, I don’t think so. Every person for their own. You can’t be judged for being in love with money just because your dream is to be rich. Similarly, you can’t be judged either if success to you means inner peace and spiritual freedom. Every person had got their own dreams and situations while growing up, we want in life or adulthood what we desperately wanted in our childhood or youth.
Daily mindfulness tips #3: Whatever success means to you, stay true to it.
Let it be your life’s aim and always be willing to change as needed to accommodate it. Don’t focus on the results of getting successful. Focus on the process of working for it. Because in the end, the result is sweet, but the memory of the process is just a tad bit sweeter.
And you don’t always have to measure your success with whether you’ve achieved what you had set out to achieve or not. You don’t measure it on the basis of whether you conquered the storm or not. That’s not what the storm is about.
Here’s what the storm is truly about:
“And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about”.
-Haruki Murakami
If you grew, developed, changed, became just a little bit braver, made yourself prouder, consider it a win nevertheless, regardless of whether you hit the mark or not.
Daily mindfulness tips #4: Life is all about how you spend your days, whether you make yourself happy, push yourself closer to your goal.
Since these are the amazing things that life is all about, why don’t we just make use of them to focus on how to life in the present moment with meaning and truth?
Daily mindfulness tips #5: Celebrate the journey, not just the destination.
Learn from Setbacks
Reframe “failures” as opportunities to learn and grow
Fail, fail, fail. Fail as much as you can. All your failures are just making way for the day when you won’t.
In addition to that, build resilience, learn how to get back right up after falling some way. The day might be tough, or difficult to go through, but choosing to go on is what makes you grow into a person stronger than you’ve ever been.
If you fail and end it at that, then you end up cutting off your happy journey in between. And you don’t get to enjoy the full process, the ups and downs of the process, the failures and finally the successes. You don’t get to see any of that, and that really sucks.
Develop resilience and a growth mindset
So, develop a growth mindset, live in the now and grow in the now. Don’t think about how your huge, gigantic dreams are going to be achieved and instead just focus on the day in front of you. What can you do today to grow? To get closer to your goal? To get just a little bit better than yesterday? What’s that thing that you can do?
Do it.
Daily mindfulness tips #6: Life is meant to be lived, not to be frowned upon. Life is a journey not a destination and so, what actually matters at the end of the day is what you did on every single day during that journey.
What was it?
Are you proud of yourself for how you’re spending your days? Are you willing to change?
Find the lessons and silver linings in challenges
Every opportunity comes disguised as a challenge. So, all that you need to do is to find the silver lining in the grey clouds. To do that, if your day isn’t going right, just look up at the sky, regardless of whether it’s cloudy or not, close your eyes, take a deep breath and remember that you got this.
Live with Intention
- Clarify your values and align your actions with them
And this is important, you got to live with intention.
You gotta do it only if you wanna do it. You can’t go around your day with your shoulders slumped and your mind hazy and your legs shaky. You can’t go around like you don’t know where you’re going to begin with.
You have to live your life like you mean it, like you love it, like you would be envious of the person you saw living it, like you’re crazy after the person in the mirror because they get to live this amazing present and are building this fascinating future.
Daily mindfulness tips #7 : You have to align your actions with what your thoughts are like, make sure you do what you say, what you think, what you want to do.
So make conscious choices of how you spend the time you’ve got. It’s limited, so make it memorable.
Infuse your days with meaning and purpose and make sure you don’t regret a day that you live. That’s how you make the journey memorable.
How to live life moment to moment?
This moment is the only one that matters. One day, all these countless, little, some-happy-and-some-sad moments will make up your life. The average of it will be how you lived it.
So it’s up to you to decide. Do you want to keep going as it is, living life in mundane spurts of meaningfulness, or do you want to live in the now, the present, by implementing these daily mindfulness tips?
Life is a journey, Not a Destination: Embrace It
By adopting a mindset focused on the present moment and the process, you can find greater joy, fulfillment, and meaning in your life’s journey. Life is meant to be lived, after all, and no matter how obvious this seems, I know all of us some time or the other end up losing ourselves somewhere in the trivial and worrisome matters of daily life, forgetting the big picture.
Start implementing these daily mindfulness tips today to start savoring the path, not just the end destination. Ready to start enjoying the journey? Share your experiences with us!
