How to develop a zen-like calm in 30 days

One of the most attractive traits a person can have is calmness. Calmness radiates confidence and trustworthiness. The loudest people may seem like the most confident, but loudness screams insecurity and attention. You can develop the calmness of a monk in 1 month by following these practices.

Read

Calmness comes from within. When you don’t have to prove yourself to anyone, you have no need to be loud. When you feel like you have little control over your life, you start to over-compensate. You will become wary. Loud. Noisy. Reading makes you realize that you can be on your own. Reading grounds you. Reading is my number 1 tool to calm my mind.

Reading brings you into other worlds. Reading lets you learn things about all sorts of topics. Reading brings you to WWII, reading lets you learn about the psychology of money. Reading lets you learn about the human race. All from your bedroom. When you can make it a habit to read for 10 minutes a day, you will feel a tremendous swift from being with your attention everywhere at once to being observant.

The habit of waking up 15 minutes earlier than usual to read will have a tremendous effect on your mind, on your feeling of control. On your life.

Work out

This should be a no-brainer. By working out at least 3 times a week you develop physical confidence because you start to become bigger and stronger. And you gain mental confidence from holding a promise to yourself by doing what you say you will do.

The side effect of working out is a calm mind. Working out reduces levels of the body’s stress hormones, such as adrenaline and cortisol. It also stimulates the production of endorphins, chemicals in the brain that are the body’s natural painkillers and mood elevators. If you have to do one thing, it’s this. Work out.

When I started to work out without music, I began to realize all the destructive and negative thoughts that I had. I overcame my thoughts as I overcame heavy weights. Try it. Give it some time. It can be good for you to stop distracting yourself with music.

No distractions

We live in a world where we constantly distract ourselves. Think about it. The minute we are bored we grab our phone, listen to some music, and put on a tv show. When was the last time ust sat in a room and did nothing? Completely nothing? Letting your thoughts run wild while you observe them. Where do they wander? The future? the past?

Putting some time aside once a week to do nothing will give you a lot of clarity. Clarity about your goals. Your desires. Your insecurities. This practice has given me a lot of realizations. It can give you a direction. A sign. Deep down you know what you want out of this weird practice called life.

Try to sit in your room with no distractions for an hour. Let your thoughts completely run wild. Let them take complete control over you. But be mindful. Be aware of where your thoughts take you. Afterward, write everything down that made sense. You see a glimpse of your future life. You extract some meaning from it. When you realize what you want out of this life, you are already ahead over 90% of the people around you.

Trusting yourself

Most people’s problems stem from not trusting themselves. Not believing in themselves. They have broken so many promises to themselves that this affects their whole personality and attitude. This leads to comparing yourself to others. This leads to insecurities. Some people start to become loud in social settings to overcompensate. Some become timid.

When you are grounded, observant of your surroundings, and observant of your own feelings you are already in a better place than 98% of the rest of the people. When you add to that a routine of working out, running, or another physical exercise you start to develop a power over yourself that is uncanny.

As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.

Take action

Read about your interests. Learn about them. Go to the gym. Work out. Go to the forest and run. Keep your promises to yourself. Almost immediately you will start to feel better. There is no need for comparison to someone else. It’s you vs. you yesterday.

When you start to realize this and start to behave accordingly, you will start to notice that people want to be around you. Everybody wants to be around the nonjudgmental, kind, calm guy. You will start to attract those very same people into your life.

Embrace where you are in life, and from there grow every day.

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