To live in the moment means to stay highly focused and concentrated on the present. You have to be mentally strong in your strategies to drive your present. Have little or no concern about your future, nor worry about your past.
You have to sustain the practice of living in the moment. This is great and tough art, but when you follow, it results in a happier, rewarding, and more fulfilling life. You gain control over your emotions that wander around the past for no cause.
It is okay to worry about your past as long as it constructs your present and portrays a brighter and successful future. You have to be consciously aware of the factors that are driving your present.
9 Ways to stop worrying about the past or future and live in the moment
Here are a couple of ways in which you can refrain yourself worrying about your past or future. By employing these techniques, you will understand better how to align yourselves and live in the moment.
1. Accept the past. Do not try to mend it.
The past is something that will never come back to you for repair works. You don’t get a second similar chance in life. So, do not sit and feel sad for unwarranted circumstances of the past. Think with a maturity that you can never control the events that already occurred. With this attitude in mind, live in the present moment.
2. Stay positive by wearing a smile.
Always keep smiling at heart. With a smile, your self-esteem boosts. Self-esteem and self-reliance also boost by practicing meditation daily. You tend to pay more attention to the task you are pursuing now, in this very moment. With a smile over face and meditation in mind, you also spread positive energy to your surroundings, making your ambiance healthy to work and live in.
3. Appreciate the moment and congratulate yourself.
Assume as if this is the last phase in your life and then live in the moment. Appreciate every second of your work and effort. Envision your progress, and applaud your credits. Give yourself a pat on the back, bagged by constructive feedback and return gifts for extending healthy cooperation and support all along.
4. Stop worrying about tomorrow.
Realize that tomorrow comes only when today is over. Also, note that you don’t really know what is in store in your future. The only gift you have in hand is today, now, and this very moment. So give your best without worrying about tomorrow. Love to do what you are doing now. Enjoy every aspect of your work. This teaches you how to live in the moment on a best effort basis.
5. Change with the changing times.
Think from newer viewpoints. It is okay to learn from mistakes, be it your own mistakes or the mistakes made by others. However, apprehend that yesterday’s solutions and strategies may not work today. Each situation is unique and needs to be dealt with a unique strategy. You keep facing newer obstacles and challenges in life day after day. Encounter them with dignity and courage and help yourself live in the moment.
6. Influence your own self.
You are the best person to take care of yourself. Interact a lot with your inner voice and help yourself understand how to live in the present moment. Exercise decisions that you take care of on your own. Sit in peace and focus on your breathing and the clock ticking. Erase your internal worries and keep aside your addictions and carvings. Do not also let external factors influence you. Live now as if there is no more next.
7. Set yourself busy and race your mind.
Schedule your daily tasks. Fit in your ad-hoc tasks. Keep yourself engaged with tasks that you need to handle on the personal and professional front. Race your mind in a way that you live up to give your best at the moment, without having to break for a second, worrying about your yesterday or your tomorrow.
8. Shift your anxieties from mind to air.
Make a list of all your worries on a piece of paper and burn down the paper into ashes. Let them not chase you now. Speak to your anxieties and tell them you will give them time later. Live in the moment and deliver your finest art. If required, step into nature to find peace and work with utmost dedication.
9. Spend time with your own self.
Cook your favorite dish, eat your favorite foods, shop your favorite items, and execute all your favorites. Do all those activities that make you happy. Also, do activities that interest you most. Engage yourself for yourself in giving the best of yourself.
To conclude, a traveling mind is generally unproductive and uncreative in nature. You know that one thought doesn’t end with it. It stretches to a series of thoughts, usually endless cornering you towards ill health by mind and body. It is, therefore, important that you practice mindfulness and master the art of living in the moment. Doing so lets you move on in life.
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THESE ARE 8 WAYS TO LIVE IN THE PRESENT
Are you not living in the present? Whether you like it or not, you are. The problem is that you are living in your mind. That is the reason behind your will to live in the moment.
There are many tissues and organs in the human body. But, you only live in the brain. Your perception of life is only what your brain coordinates. Well, that's not a bad thing. Make your mind to take instructions from you. Not the other way round.
8 ways to achieve a living moment
Keeping everything in account, we bring you 8 ways to achieve a living moment.
1. MINIMIZE YOUR POSSESSIONS
The ultimate aim of every soul is to attain happiness. Every task you are doing is to make you happy. But, many don’t know the proper definition of happiness. They gather materialistic things and think that it could make them happy. Unfortunately, they are wrong. Those materialistic things cannot quench their thirst for happiness.
In turn, it makes them more impatient. You must gather things only for your survival. However, living a luxurious life isn’t bad. But, it might steal your present moment. Therefore, minimize your possessions to live the moment.
2. LEARN TO SMILE
Many will come and advise you to smile. "Keep a smile in your face," they will say. Well, that's the most impractical way to live at the moment. Smile is not an act, it's a consequence. Don't think of smiling as something that you do.
Think it of as a wonderful happening in your face when you're blissed out. To make this happen, you must learn to be happy alone. Never give the privilege to others for deciding your feelings. Doing it might invite problems in your life. This may snatch your smile from you. In turn, it will prevent you from living in present.
3. ENJOY YOUR MOMENT
To live your moment, you must enjoy it. Being human, know how to rejoice. Some moments are very rare in our lives. Moments of victory, achievements are such rare times. Don't let them go in vain. Live each rare moment by thinking those as your last memories.
You won't have to pay a single penny to do that. If you haven't had tears of ecstasy rolling down your cheeks, you didn't experience life. If you don't enjoy your moment, tasting the essence of life won't be possible. So, don't keep yourself in restriction.
4. LOVE WHAT YOU DO
Your actions portray your personality. Therefore, you must add joy to your work. However, there is another way to achieve it. Focus on your area of expertise. On doing that, you'll learn to love what you do. With engagement in work, you can live the moment. There will be hindrances in your path. Overcome those with engagement.
However, people will be a mode of distraction too. But, know you are, and your needs. Any sort of distraction will cost you your productivity. So, love your work and live your moment.
5. FORGIVE YOUR PAST
Well, you must learn to practice mindfulness. In this case, mediation will be of immense help. With ancient roots, this practice has a lot of offer. It teaches an individual the utmost sense of discipline. Mediation is a vast subject that ranges from zero to infinity.
You can meditate on anything and anyone. Sit in a cross-legged position comfortably. Close your eyes, turning the face upwards. Now, imagine someone dear to you. Focus your entire concentration entirely on him/her. Practicing this daily will also deplete your anger gradually. Thus, you'll learn to live in the moment.
6. FOCUS ON YOUR BREATH
The breath is the phenomenal reason behind your life. Being a tool, it has the potential to nurture human life. However, it functions is three stages: Physically, Mentally, and Spiritually. Anger outbursts are a result of excessive stimulation of the hormone ‘cortisol.’ I recommend you to take deep breaths. On doing this, the oxygen levels in your blood will gradually rise.
This phenomenon will relax your Central Nervous System. In turn, it will create enough space for innovative ideas. Moreover, counting the number of breaths also works. You'll experience the present dynamically.
7. LEARN TO OVERCOME FEAR
Want to live in the present? If yes, then learn to overcome fear. It is a parasite that feeds your self-confidence. If not eliminated, it can unleash havoc to our lives. Fear is not about the present. It's always about the future.
To excessive stimulation of adrenaline, we get agitated. In turn, this creates the reverberation for fear to develop. It occupies the room of joy by eliminating it. Being a genetic phenomenon, you can't eradicate fear. You can only overcome it. In this way, you can create the space for self- confidence to grow.
8. GIVE YOURSELF TIME
Don't keep yourself too busy. Give yourself enough time. Being too busy is a type of restriction, where you restrict yourself from freedom. However, being busy isn't bad. But, everything has got its limits. The human being is a resource, and so are you.
To nurture it, you must provide time and energy. Well, many people can't manage time. Out of greed for money, they overwork by thinking in profit. But, they are missing the essence of living in the present. I've met several people who can't come out of their minds. Living on earth seems like being in hell. So, to live life fully, give yourself time to refresh.
SYNOPSIS
The world is not what you think and react. It is what you observe. Don't rely upon the thought process completely. A thought is a mere information that you've gathered by your five senses. Whatever you sense, keep it for reference.
Keeping thoughts aside, just observe life as it is. Without creating any disturbance, be still. All you have to do is observe without any judgment in mind. These 8 ways will help you to be still and calm. Follow these steps and learn how to live in the present.
HRUTUJA PATKAR
Do You Happen To Forget Living In The Moment? The Below Mentioned Points Will Help You With That.
Or the famous quote,
I am a hundred percent sure that you are all familiar with the above lines. Or must have heard from people at some point of yourself. This might either be directed to you or to others. But this must have been said in your presence.
If not exactly this, then you must have heard something similar like;
Everything and anything in between these.
The gist of all these sentences (or more likely statements) just indicates one thing in particular. That it is important to live in the present.
This is one of the most common and important things we hear people say in general. They also do not fail to emphasize the importance of living in the moment.
But what do they exactly mean by these statements of theirs?
What do you mean by living in the moment?
Living in the moment, simply put, is to be mentally, physically, and emotionally present in the current moment or time. You need to be invested in the current moment by all means.
One must be focused and concentrated in the present. And it also means that one must not think too much about future worries and/or dwell on what happened in the past. One must enjoy the current moment to their fullest.
It is not just a term or a catchphrase. At least not anymore with our changing lifestyles and predicament. This is a psychologically backed-up lifestyle for almost all of us. Especially those who struggle with anxiety and stress; also struggles to find peace. This is a highly recommended way of living by psychologists.
Importance Of Being Present In The Moment
The reason we hear this phrase more and more with each passing time is because we have more or less forgotten to be in the moment. We have been way too caught up in our worries for everything related to life that we tend to forget that the present as well exists.
Living in the moment is believed to be the key to live a healthy and happy life. It helps cope with anxiety and stress, and also to keep yourself grounded with the aspects of your life and not get carried away by your worries. Living in the moment helps to deal with pain more effectively and easily as well.
The reduction in stress and anxiety plays an overall positive impact on our health and improves the ability to cope with negative feelings and/or negativity in our lives. This is all because of living in the moment.
Our lives have just changed like that. It has become too fast-paced and hard to pass each day by. There is so much for us to achieve and so little time for us to enjoy what we have, really. When we fail to appreciate the happiness or even the little things that we possess in our lives, it gives rise to anxiety and unhappiness at a completely different level.
Not only this but when we are unable to enjoy our present moments and get too caught up in the future worries or thinking about our past, then you are drained mentally as well. You will feel exhausted, and you will be out of touch with yourself too.
You won’t be able to do much, even physically. You will notice that productivity also decreases when you are that exhausted and also lose so many opportunities that you can make progress with. So it is important to live in the present.
Difficulty To Live In The Moment
As per people, that the cure to this problem is living in the moment. However, it is way easier said than done. There are hundreds or even thousands of us to whom these sentences don't even make sense. Most of us have turned into worrywarts that it is impossible to even think of a possibility to live in the moment.
It is so difficult because we have been trained (in a way) or raised to think about our future. We have even been encouraged to dwell on our past indirectly since we have been seeing people do this often. Everything and anything around us has the potential to trigger us on the past dwelling or future worries in any way it can.
On top of it, our ever overthinking and wandering minds also do not help in making us stop worrying and fretting instead of living in the moment.
What we really need is to have a balance of our past, present, and future. Living in the moment alone cannot help you achieve anything in your life. We need to learn from our past mistakes and to plan for the future as well. Just focused and stuck on one thing is never going to be helpful. It is as said, too much of anything is not good for us. And that applies here as well.
Balancing your thoughts is the key factor in mindfulness and offering yourself a healthy and happy life. Thinking too much over anything can only lead to negative effects on your health and life. Balance is actually what we all need—balance of our past, future, and present.
Even Though it is hard to find a balance and to know it, you will feel it when you worry less and will lead a happy and healthy life. And of course, you will majorly live in the present moments of your life.
How to live in the moment
So, how exactly can we achieve this? What are the ways that we can make ourselves live in the moment? And how can we make it possible for us? The following points can be helpful for you to achieve this. Read below to find out.
Acceptance
It is always better to accept your past instead of brooding over it or mending it. If you do not let go, then you get stuck with it. And it is not good for your well-being. Even still, water gets rotten with time.
What has passed is in the past now? You cannot have it back or change it, even if you can exchange anything in return for it. It is very rare that people get second chances to make things right. If you can change it, then do anything in your power to do it. But most probably you won’t be able to do it. And when you can’t change the past, then it is always better to accept what has gone.
There is no use dwelling or brooding over the past. So try not to be sad more than it is necessary. The only thing you can do is to gain control over your thinking and emotions. You cannot change your circumstances, but you can change the way you take them. You can change your attitude and perspective for it. And that is the only way you can stop yourself from worrying over it.
Stay Healthy
Worrying always brings unwanted stress and anxiety. Too much of it can also bring depression along. Stress and anxiety can be a reason for many physical diseases. It can cause blood pressure to rise, it releases hormones that can cause obesity, and moreover, it is a major reason for heart attack and cardiac arrest. No need to emphasize how much they can be dangerous to our lives.
Besides, it also can lead to exhaustion as you are tiring yourself with unnecessary worries. Also, it will eventually lead to less productivity on your part as you will be spending more of your time worrying. This will, in turn, increase your anxiety as your output is not up to your mark. So this is a vicious circle.
And as per studies, it is concluded that living at the moment can improve your well-being immensely. Both physically and mentally.
Stay Positive
The only thing that can fight negativity is positivity. So it will be beneficial for you to stay positive. Keep a smile on your face; it helps to stay positive. Staying positive will help you gain a better perspective on everything that happens with you. You are going to train your mind to see the good in every situation. It will help you guide yourself in the long run and always be hopeful.
Not only that, but you also spread positivity to others in your vicinity. People are going to be attracted to your positive energy and will be pleased to be in your contact.
Improving Relationship
If you want to walk fast, then walk alone. But if you want to walk longer, then walk together with others.
This is a famous saying. It puts emphasis on the importance of having relationships in better shape with your loved ones. When you are stressed or distressed, or anxious, the people around you have a hard time. And besides, if you have been struggling with any of your relationships, then it is going to add to your stress and anxiety. And of course, it is going to lead to damage to your well-being.
Also, it is always a struggle with a person who always is worrying about something. They unconsciously bring others down as well. So naturally, they tend to be ignored by others as well. People like to be with the person who likes to live in the moment.
Living in the moment not only brings happiness but also helps you have a healthy and happy relationship with others.
Improved Self-Control
I have seen people in the state of them worrying way too much. When that happens, they often went too far with the scenarios their mind displays them due to the state of them worrying. It is more than practical or realistic to what scenarios they come up with.
They always start panicking when their imagination crosses limits. They also lose the ability to make proper decisions regarding the things that made them worry in the first place. And it makes them regret even taking the decision.
When you live in the moment, you tend to be more calm and have improved self-control on your emotions. This will help you keep your control over the decision-making process you need to have.
Meditation
It is one of the most useful ways to stop worrying. Meditation will bring so much peace to you that it will be a piece of cake with time to not worry and start living in the moment.
You do not only have the option to do breathing exercises in the name of meditation, even though it is the most useful one of them. Meditation can be anything that can bring you joy and peace. You can go for a walk, read a book, go swimming, do knitting or sewing, etc. Basically, anything to make you happier and help you live in the moment.
Change
Change is an inevitable part of your life. No one can escape that reality. So it is better to change when their changes occurring in your life. Also, it will be better to accept the changes as soon as possible. Swimming is easier when you swim with the flow and harder when you flow against the currents, right? It applies to life as well. The faster you accept change, the better it will be. It will be a lot easier to live in the moment when you do so.
Conclusion
The mind can be very harmful when it starts to overthink and make up scenarios in our heads that might never happen. But it manages to make us stress and worry about it, nonetheless. In order to live in the moment, it is very much essential to gain control of our minds and prevent it from happening. Also, you need to have control over the thoughts your brain produces and not let the brain control you. That will be the key to live in the moment.