The Art of Mindful Living
Mindfulness and Mindful Living has become a widely searched topic on the internet and it is with great reason. It is important that as many of us learn what mindful living means and know how to be more mindful in our daily lives.
Our civilization as of today has achieved so much greatness and convenience for its people. However, it has come at a cost. By creating such a capitalistic economy, people are being overworked and it has created a community of mindless consumption, an exhausted workforce, and affected a lot of people’s mental wellbeing.
People are starting to realize that there must be an alternative way to live their lives. They are tired, drained both mentally and physically, and looking to improve the quality of their lives. This is the reason why mindful living has become such a widely searched topic and an even more important one.
In this post, I hope to break down mindful living into smaller parts and help you not just understand what it is, but be able to take away how to get started on your journey of living mindfully and continue living a mindful life.
What does Mindful Living mean?
Mindful living means living your life in such a way that you are fully present in the now, more aware of your actions, and surroundings, and doing meaningful things towards your well-being and everyone around you.
On a more practical level, mindful living can look like:
- Taking care of your mental and physical well-being
- Taking care of your home and belongings
- Being mindful of the feelings of your friends, colleagues, and loved ones
- Being aware of your consumption
- Being aware of your screen time
- Questioning things before being a part of it and only going ahead if it’s better for your well-being, others, and your environment
Why do I struggle to be mindful?
While everyone should aspire to live mindfully, it’s not always easy. In fact, with all the things we have going on today in our lives and the world, mindful living can be very challenging for many people.
Below are some of the most common challenges to mindful living:
- The amount of workload in your career
- Inadequate work-life balance
- Excessive emphasis on technology and social media
- Continuous growth of fast food and advertising
- Lack of knowledge on mindfulness and how to get started
- Fear of uncertainty and change
How do I start Mindful Living?
1. Meditation
I believe meditation is the foundational piece of mindfulness. If you want to live mindfully, the first step I recommend is to start a meditation practice and make it a habit. Once you make meditation a part of your daily routine, you’ll start to see how the remaining aspects of mindfulness start flowing together.
Of course, I don’t mean to say that meditation alone is sufficient enough for a mindful life. You need to work on all the other aspects of your life too.
2. Change your perspective on food
The media and big corporations have influenced us so badly on what we choose to eat. So many of us don’t think much of the food we eat apart from how it looks and tastes. To bring mindfulness into our lives we need to start looking at food as fuel for the body just like meditation is food for the soul. What we put into our bodies has a direct and significant influence on how we feel and behave.
3. Cook your meals as much as possible
This point is directly related to the point above. It’s hard to tell all the ingredients that go into the food that you eat out and order. I don’t mean to say there aren’t any restaurants built on clean and healthy eating. But ordering or eating out for all meals can be expensive.
Grocery shopping and cooking your meals is the best way to become more mindful of what you eat. By cooking your meals, you see the full picture of what it takes to have food on the table, where your food came from, and the effort it takes to prepare it. This makes you appreciate food and become more mindful of what you eat.
4. Observe your urges
When you start practicing mindful living, you will come to realize that you have to stop yourself from a lot of small unhealthy things that you were doing previously like unhealthy snacking between meals, having too much coffee, staying up late scrolling through social media or watching something, etc. And with this restriction on such activities, you’ll start also noticing the urge to do them.
When you get the urge, it might be hard at first but you should hold back from acting on it and just observe the urge as the thought arises. As you get into the habit of doing this, you will develop willpower and things will get a lot easier.
5. Be comfortable being uncomfortable
Mindful living at first may be uncomfortable just as any other change in life is. When you commit to a life of mindfulness, you are taking a step back from mindless consumption, indulgence, and enjoyment of things.
Rather, you are doing things more deliberately and with involvement. During the earlier days, it’s very normal to feel a bit uncomfortable with the change in your life especially when you see all your friends do all the things you used to be a part of. Hang in there and know that this change is going to make you a better person, more mindful of your health, well-being, and the environment around you.
6. Engage in creativity
When engaged in creative practices like painting, drawing, writing, playing an instrument, etc, it requires you to be fully present in the moment. Hence, engaging in creative practices as much as you can is a great way to practice mindfulness at the same time while improving your creativity.
7. Cultivate discipline
Discipline is one of the most important traits that sets the most successful people in the world apart from the rest. If you want to live mindfully, you need discipline. And just like any other habit, discipline is also something that improves over time with practice.
Especially when you’re new to mindful living, you need more discipline to stick to your new lifestyle and prevent yourself from engaging in the activities that you’re cutting down on or trying to stop.
8. Accept that failure is part of the journey
Mindful living is not always easy. There are times you will feel like you’re missing out and there’ll be setbacks when you give in to your urges and do things mindlessly. Accept that mindful living is a journey that takes time and daily commitment and accept that failures are part of that journey. It’s a lifestyle change that requires long-term commitment and dedication. Having such a mindset will allow you to stay strong when things feel hard.
Conclusion
Mindful Living is one of the best things you can start integrating into your life. By adopting a mindful lifestyle, you are making a positive change not in just your own life, but the lives of people close to you. Your new lifestyle is also going to make a positive impact on the environment by reducing your carbon footprint. So why not decide to start living more mindfully?
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