Have you ever felt that you’re not living your life to the fullest?

Have you felt that every day you’re caught dwelling on past mistakes, regrets, or missed opportunities?

Or that you’re too busy being overwhelmed with anxiety about what could happen tomorrow to focus on and really enjoy today?

I feel you.

I spent too many years of my life time-traveling and not living in the present moment.

It’s been said that living in the moment is the key to a happy and fulfilling life. From the moment we wake up, to the moment we go to sleep, we should constantly focus on the moment — living in the now. But many of us get stuck in the past or future a remarkable amount of our time.

It’s easy to fall into this pattern, and it’s hard to break out of it.

You have to work at it.

Your mind wants to wander back and forth and worry about what’s to come, instead of learning to enjoy your life as it is, right now.

But the work is worth it, because if you aren’t living in the moment, you’re missing out on the only thing that’s real. The benefits of living in the moment are many — it can instantly improve your life and increase your happiness.

So in this article, I’m going to through 10 tips for living in the moment so you can live a better life, be happier, make more connections, and enjoy every day. And so you can live a life with purpose.

Read through the tips and implement them today — right now — they’re easy enough and it’s oh-so-worth-it.

WHAT DOES LIVING IN THE MOMENT MEAN? AND WHY SHOULD YOU CARE?

I love the story of musician Warren Zevon’s last appearance on Letterman.

Zevon was dying from Mesothelioma.

While on the show, David Letterman asked him if he had any advice for those watching and listening.

Zevon’s response was simple, yet perfect:

“Enjoy every sandwich.”

We spend our lives dwelling on the past or projecting into the future, and not enough of our time enjoying our lives.

Enjoying a walk and the beauty around you instead of walking with your head down staring at your phone (and, really my friends, it’s so not safe…). Relishing every bite of your Thai street noodles that you ordered for lunch instead of inhaling it because you’re in a hurry. Listening and getting into a great conversation with an old friend (or someone you just met), without picking up your phone to see if you’ve gotten any Facebook likes mid-conversation.

Mindfulness and living in the moment is a state of being in which you’re fully aware of the present moment. It’s also a state of being in which we are not dwelling on the past or projecting into the future.

And it’s how you will live a better life, with more joy and happiness.

10 WAYS TO BE MINDFUL AND LIVE IN THE MOMENT

Our minds are very active and constantly attempting to break free to occupy themselves with the past, the future, and pure fantasy. While it’s good to prepare for the future and learn from the past, focusing primarily on the present has many benefits.

Below are some quick and easy ways to live your life in the moment. Take this list with you and try to focus on a few of these a day. Continue to sprinkle them in when you see how much more you’re enjoying everything.

Try these ways to live in the moment and be present with your life:

1. Living in the Moment to Avoid Worry

“You can never plan the future by the past.”
~Edmund Burke

Worry happens when we constantly think about the future.

Sure, it’s important to set goals and to plan, and to visualize being successful when you follow that plan. But then snap back to present. ASAP.

Because there’s nothing worse than worrying about the future.

What if you lose your job? What if the stock market crashes? What if you get sick?

What if? What if? What if?

Questions like this will plague you constantly if you let them. Your mind plays out stories in which you fail miserably, and you end up playing a game of worst-case scenario while stressing out and wanting to face-plant on the couch and hide from the world under a blanket.

And here’s the kicker — our brains can’t tell the difference between reality and imagined reality.

So in thinking about these worst-case scenarios, we’re implanting feelings of failure already. And we walk around stressed, scared, and miserable — as if we have already failed.

Set goals, plan ahead, visualize a successful outcome (daily, if you can), and then stop looking into the future. Live today, prepare, keep going forward, and you will succeed. And you’ll have fun doing it.

2. Living in the Moment to Avoid Regret

Photo by Marcos Paulo Prado on Unsplash

Just as bad as spending all your time in the future is spending all your time in the past.

Have you ever been embarrassed by something you did in the past? Have you ever felt guilt or shame for something you said? Have you had regret over not seizing the day and going for an opportunity that was laid out in front of you because you were scared?

If so, you’re not alone.

Regret over something you did or didn’t do is crippling. It can weigh you down and it can ruin your day. It can make you feel like you’re stuck in time and can’t move forward.

The honest truth is a harsh one — no matter how much we think about having a redo, of going back and changing just one thing, we can never go back. The past is over and no longer exists.

So how do you deal with the past that keeps coming up?

Learn from it, then let it go.

“Lost time is never found again.”
~Benjamin Franklin

The past is there to help you build a better future. Mistakes and regrets are there so you can learn from them and not make the same mistake again. But when you dwell on the past, you bring those mistakes back to life, and just like living in the future, it creates feelings of failure, loss, and sadness.

And you walk around carrying all that weight every day.

But you have a great life to live. Right now.

So learn from your past and use them to build a better future. Then let those memories go and focus on today.

3. Ditch The Ultimate Distraction

Technology is a great thing.

With cell phones, apps, email, and social media, you can connect with old friends on the other side of the globe, talk or chat with your parents daily even if you’re 500 miles away, and see the photos from your friend’s wedding in Berlin that you had to miss.

But these tools can also be a bad thing.

What I’ve realized is that I’ve missed so much. Because technology, whether scrolling through Facebook, posting a story about your dinner on Twitter, or getting a dopamine high off likes for your LinkedIn article, is not living in the moment.

It’s all utterly distracting, and they can overtake your life. You can get sucked in and spend your days and nights in an imaginary online world and forget to stop and smell the roses.

Find enjoyment in the present moment, notice the beauty all around you, connect with amazing new people who are all around you and ditch the phone for a while.

4. Bring Back this Lost Art

With so many distractions constantly shouting and competing for our attention, listening is becoming a lost art.

We’ve lost that human connection.

Those conversations you used to have without a phone in your face at all times. You made eye contact, listened, learned, and asked questions.

And created an emotional connection with those around you.

I remember having dinner with my girlfriend. Sure, we had phones. But they were an afterthought. A simpler time when Facebook was new, and we used our phones for actual phone calls and short (but few) text messages.

But we still put them away. And they stayed put away until we were ready.

Rarely is something so urgent that we have to react or respond instantaneously.

And yet, now, they’re sitting out at every table, at every barstool, in every movie theater. Melodies, alerts, vibrations filling every quiet space with sound.

When I talk to someone now, I feel like I’m also talking to their phone.

I’d wager about half of every conversation is missed, and certainly the intent and deeper meaning behind the words.

There is so much more to communication than just words. Body language, facial expression, eye contact — that tells you so much more than the bare words.

And yet, we forego that amazing experience with another person because we just got a message on Facebook or someone liked your tweet.

“It is the province of knowledge to speak, and it is the privilege of wisdom to listen.”
~Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

If you want some of the most amazing human experiences of getting to really know someone else, whether a mere acquaintance, a good friend, or something even more, put your phone away and focus on the other person.

Listen with the intent to learn, understand, and have empathy.

And respond in kind.

You’ll be surprised at some of the amazing connections you make.

5. Slow is Smooth and Smooth is Fast

My life has been a chaotic rush for the course of most of 2020.

Even when I was visiting my friends and family in Minnesota over the holidays, I found myself working 12-hour days and mostly trapping myself inside with a closed door, so I couldn’t be distracted from outside influences — the friends and family that just wanted to spend time with me.

Looking back, it’s frustrating. And it’s certainly not living in the moment.

Sure, I had important things to do, but I have a tendency to go at anything a million miles an hour, and if I’m not working towards something, I feel like I’m not getting ahead. Worse, I feel like I’m getting behind.

That’s no way to go through life.

When we rush from one thing to the next, we miss the moments that make life worth living. Slow life down and you’ll be surprised at what you’ll find — you’ll find that you are more present in the moment, more connected to the world around you, and more attuned to the people in your life.

And you’ll find that everything goes smoothly, even your chaotic to-do list. Slowing down strangely seems to speed everything up.

As a good friend and mentor once told me:

“Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.”

All the beauty in this world is there for you if you just slow down and take the time to notice.

Slowing down can be as simple as taking a deep breath and focusing on what makes you happy. And the easiest way to do it is to take time to smell the roses. As Dr. Martin Seligman, author of the book Flourish, said:

“The flowers are always beautiful, but we don’t have time to stop and enjoy them. Life is busy…We’re always in a rush.”

One thing I learned while living in Thailand was to slow down and enjoy everything around me.

My best days in Thailand were the days when I could slowly eat and take in the flavors of a mind-blowingly delicious tom yum seafood while sitting on a mountainside, enjoying the view of the city below, and speaking to the locals about their city and their past. Once I learned to do that, it just made everything…better.

And my friends, you don’t have to be in Thailand to do that.

6. Spend 5 Minutes an Hour Living in the Present Moment

Want a quick hack to bring your mind back to the present moment and make it a habit?

Take a five-minute break every hour or two and describe to yourself everything you see, hear, smell, taste, and feel.

It’s a trick to bring yourself back to the present moment instead of getting continuously more and more lost and away from it as the daily grind wears on you.

7. Under Schedule Yourself and Bring Some Order to Your Life

It took me years to realize that my problem wasn’t with getting things done, it was with over-scheduling every day on my to-do list.

I’d cram everything I could onto my list, and I would fall onto my bed exhausted in the evening — my to-do list half-done.

Not only that, but during the day my stress level would constantly rise watching my growing list…even when I was getting things crossed off, I was adding more than I was getting done.

I used to think that was a great way to be more productive.

Really, it was the opposite. My stress levels rose, my productivity dropped, and I would beat myself up at the end of every day for not getting enough done.

It was a terrible experience.

And I realized is that my problem was with over-scheduling my day.

So rather than cramming everything into your day, just focus on the three things you need to get done. And focus on one at a time. You can always add more when you get there.

Speaking of…

8. One Thing at a Time

Try doing one task at a time. Current research is overwhelmingly in favor of single-tasking. You’ll find you perform the task faster and at a higher level. Let multitasking be a thing of the past. Single-tasking is much more conducive to living in the present.

9. Forgive and Forget

“In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: It goes on.”
~Robert Frost

Anger. Resentment. Jealousy. All things we can do without in a given day.

The truth is, when you hold a grudge of any sort, you are the one suffering.

Anger is distracting, it’s stressful, and it keeps you from enjoying the current moment.

Even minor quibbles can take over your day. Recently a friend and I had a little disagreement. And all day the next day it distracted me, though I was trying to block it out of my mind and focus on the task at hand.

But it didn’t work.

So I called him, apologized, he did the same, and we both moved on with our days more productive and happier.

Little or big, those things can drag you down, so do yourself a favor, and forgive and forget.

On the other end of it, I’ve seen too many friendships ruined because both parties are too stubborn to even think about being the first to call or say “sorry.”

Don’t let that happen to you.

I’ll say it again:

Forgive and forget.

Some day, looking back on your life, you’ll realize it was one of the best things you did for yourself.

Or, you’ll look at it with regret that you let something so small (in the grand scheme of things) ruin a great friendship.

10. Value Experience More than Anything

Image by Gerhard G. from Pixabay

Value experiences and relationships over possessions. Visiting many other countries, one thing stands out — our society is maybe the most materialistic on this planet. We value money and wealth over nearly everything.

And here’s the kicker — our society also doesn’t rank anywhere near the top 10 in happiness.

That should be a strong clue that possessions aren’t all that meaningful.

And yet, we all want more money and more possessions: A bigger house to put more (unnecessary) things, a bigger boat than your neighbor Joe, and the fastest car in town.

Instead of focusing on material things, start valuing the experiences and the relationships that can be life-changing.

How much enjoyment have you gotten from purchasing something expensive?

How long did that enjoyment last? Did it give your life meaning?

Ensure that you’re spending enough time on accumulating experiences and meaningful relationships.

This is key in helping you live a better life.

The Ferrari will mean less to you than you think in the long run.

It’s Time to Start Living Your Life in the Moment

I look at my time in Thailand as a beautiful time in my life.

The people there taught me a lot about being mindful and the benefits of living in the moment.

Sure, I still struggle at times .

I’m sure you do too.

Life is hard, it’s distracting, it’s demanding, stressful, and sometimes scary.

But, no matter if you’re having a bad day or week, you’re under a huge time-crunch on a work project, or you’re trying to launch your first e-commerce store, you’ll live a better life if you’re living in the moment.

Go through the list above, select a few to start implementing into your day today. And don’t stop.

Remember this:

Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow isn’t guaranteed. Today is all you’ve got. And there’s beauty everywhere around you. You just have to take a little time to look every once in a while.

In the words of someone wiser than me:

Enjoy every sandwich.