3 Simple Exercises to Lay a Foundation of Mindful Habits
Staying ever-present is a muscle and needs to be worked out in order to grow.
“There is only one place where we are truly alive… and that is now — this present moment.” -Alan Watts
In today’s fast-moving, instant gratification world, it’s more common than ever to exist anywhere but the present. We spend most of our time either depressing about the past or anguishing about the future.
Although useful in appropriate doses, neither of these are productive in the long run. Often times the time and energy wasted on either could have been used to prevent future angst and regret.
If only we could control our minds in those moments.
The solution seems so simple as everyone recognizes these symptoms running their lives but in practice, the present can be quite slippery if you don’t exercise your mind regularly.
Your mind seeks indulgence and doesn’t want to be controlled consciously. As a defense mechanism, it has a constant stream of distractions playing in the background to keep you busy all the time.
Through building discipline and delaying gratification, you can turn down the volume of these distractions, and have better control of your thoughts and emotions.
Here are a few simple exercises anyone can start right now to live a more mindful, present existence:
1. Put on your shoes.
When’s the last time you can remember, in vivid detail, tying your shoes?
Most likely your brain hasn’t put that much effort into formulating a detailed memory for a long time as it mindlessly happens sometime between getting dressed and running out the door.
And yet, you put your shoes on every single day, often more than once.
There is a huge missed opportunity here in that, a) Doing this mindfully would take little to no effort, and b) You’re going to do it anyway.
It’s so simple, you’re never going to believe that it works, but here goes.
Think about which shoe you put on first. This may not be as obvious as you’d imagine. The servo mechanism in your brain has done this so many times that it has already mapped out the most efficient way of going from dressed to door, and runs the program automatically without any thought or memory formulation.
So here’s the exercise. Observe which side you always put on first and then… put the opposite on first.
That’s literally it.
It takes the presence of mind to recognize and override your internal computer. Commit to doing it the opposite way every single time you put on your shoes for a couple of weeks and you’ll find that you will remember doing it more vividly as your brain formulates the memories.
This is just a fun, easily measurable byproduct of the process. What you may not notice right away is that by spending more time in the present, you waste less time dwelling in the past and the future.
Eventually, you’ll become more efficient at putting your shoes on either way. You can always introduce new ways of tying them to continue to challenge yourself further.
I was so impressed with the payoff of this exercise that I committed myself to being left-handed for two weeks. It was much harder than I anticipated, and my coworkers were annoyed to find that the left/right buttons on the mouse of our shared pc were switched every time they tried to use it. Whoops!
2. The 2 Minute Rule
Stop reading for a couple of seconds and take a look around you right now.
How many things can you observe around you that need to be picked up, or cleaned, or sorted through, or maybe just need to be finished?
Individually, none of them are that big of a deal, but combine those with all the other unfinished tasks you encounter throughout your day, and you’ve found the source for all of your anxiety.
How many of these tasks would only take a minute or two of effort to be done with? Would greater peace of mind be worth a minute or two of your time?
Of course they would! It’s easy to come to that conclusion when you stop and be mindful of the situation for a second.
Go through your day, and observe your to-do list. Not the one on your fridge, but the internal one that operates in the background as you observe your surroundings.
As you observe, determine which things will take less than 2 minutes to complete and then… do them. Immediately. Take the 2 minutes and check off the box.
You’ll become addicted to checking the boxes. You’ll find yourself searching for all kinds of things you didn’t realize needed to be done.
It takes real mindfulness just to recognize all the opportunities, and every little thing you do that you wouldn’t have normally done is forward progress.
That is a real win-win.
3. Mini-Meditations
Chances are if you’re searching for mindfulness, you’re already familiar with meditation, but what are you supposed to do when you can’t break away to compose yourself.
This is a trick I discovered while learning the power of the breath as taught by Rickson Gracie.
Rickson is a master of remaining present in the most chaotic of circumstances. He’s undefeated in the world of Anything Goes Fighting, and credits all of his victories to mindfulness in one form or another.
He outlines how breath control is the single most important factor in our ability to maximize our ability to be mindful.
It’s really a simple way to reset your computer and return to a more present state no matter the environment or what’s going on.
Take a few deep breaths in over a short amount of time to really saturate the blood and brain with oxygen.
As you do this, consciously observe all the stimulation happening around you. See the lights, shadows, and colors entering your eyes. Hear the sounds and noises coming into your ears. Feel the temperature and sensations on your skin. Even take note of the smells as you inhale and exhale.
Don’t pay attention to words or conversations going on, but also don’t put any effort into not paying attention. Just note the sounds and tones as they flow in and out of your head.
By tuning into these sensations, you remove the focus from the past and present. You zap yourself back to the present where you can think clearly and objectively.
Give this a try next time you’re feeling overwhelmed and you can’t break away.
All of these methods can be undertaken with little to no effort physically. The mental and emotional benefits can be profound.
I used them when I initially began my journey, and still used modified versions of each today.
Staying present is the key to living a fulfilled life. The short time we have on Earth isn’t spent in achievement but in the pursuit of it.
The quicker we learn to stop focusing on the finish line, the quicker we’ll learn to observe and appreciate the ride.
