Mind Hacks For A Happier Life

Life is busy. Life goes fast. Sometimes too fast.

We get caught in this madness. We find ourselves working 11 hours a day. Wasting precious time commuting. Dealing with personal problems.

We should slow down. Enjoy our time here a bit more. Enjoy the journey.

One of the biggest things we forget too often is thinking.

It’s a weird statement, I know.

We always have our mind working at 100mph. Stress, worries, dreams, frustrations. Our mind is so full of thoughts that asking for more thinking seems stupid.

The kind of thinking I am talking about is deep thinking. Contemplation, if you want.

Thinking is the main element of our existence. Being alive means being able to process all the emotions and things that happen to us. It’s almost impossible to avoid thinking. That’s why we should do it in the best way possible.

Sometimes I feel overwhelmed from my job. Clients to please and business partners to not let down. I feel so busy and tired that I put my life on autopilot. Work, eat, sleep, repeat. Everything surrounding me feels blurred.

I don’t like this state of mind at all.

In these moments the hardest part is taking control back. Slow down. Deconstruct the main problems that are worrying me in smaller and less scary things.

I find that writing down notes helps me a lot.

My Personal Recipe For Happiness

I am a massive fan of writing what’s in my head, what’s bothering me and what’s making me happy. On paper things looks less terrifying.

In order to write down what’s going on in your brain you are forced to think.

Thinking is tiring and scary if it’s chaos. If you don’t structure your thoughts you risk to get completely overwhelmed. This feeling just adds more negative thoughts and feeds the chaos in our head.

Slowing down is the way to go. I find that meditation, writing and reading are the best ways for me.

I have already talked about my reading addiction in one of my older posts. Writing is something that I always loved to do. I had the pleasure of confessing my morning writing rituals for the Moustache Stationery blog.

Meditation is something I introduced in my daily rituals a couple of years ago. At the beginning I wasn’t so sure, but to me is one of the best ways to slow down my brain. I am not a pro yet, but I must say that I enjoy it a lot.

These little things improved my quality of life a lot in the past couple of years. I feel that I am less prone to mood swings. I feel way better.

We are all different. These things work for me, but probably wouldn’t work for everyone. The point is: find something that slows your brain down. Cooking, playing golf, running, walking, sewing. Whatever works for you.

Slowing Down Is The First Step

All these little habits gave me more brain space. I feel less overwhelmed from what’s going on around me and this made a massive difference.

Being more relaxed and lucid means that my thinking is way sharper when it needs to.

Gaining control of my thoughts taught me how to be more analytical. This is pretty helpful for generating ideas and solving problems. These are huge skills in my opinion.

I found out that I can tackle down complex problems without freaking out (well, most of the times at least). This means that I am able to work quicker and smarter. The result is more free time. More time for new ideas and projects. More time for relaxing and learning new stuff.

This is huge.

In that free time you could learn a career-changing skill, have an idea for a business that will make you the next billionaire or simply make you realise how many beautiful things surround you.

I don’t want to sound like a Zen master. I am not. I just hope that these lines will help someone. I see too often people so wired to forget that the life is beautiful and it has to be fully lived and enjoyed.