Create Change in your life

When is your life going to be great? When is it all going to start happening for you, tomorrow, 3 weeks from now, 3 years, or what about in 10 years time? How much time do you spend living in the future? Constantly thinking about a time when your life will be preferable to what it is now, a time when you won’t worry as much or perhaps will have more money.

Is this time will spent? I have heard it said that people spend as much as 97% of their time living in either the past or the future. Does that mean that only 3% of the time is spent in the present?

What exactly is wrong with your now?

People always seem to be striving for something other than what they have at this very moment, the mortgage to be paid off, the money saved so they can buy a new car, the summer to arrive so they can enjoy their holiday. Doesn’t this way of always living for the future set you up to be unhappy for a fair amount of your life?

I am not talking about forgetting the future and not make any plans or anything like that, it is just that when you live too much for the future the current moment becomes just a means to an end.

The future along with the past doesn’t actually exist except in your mind.

All that you ever have or ever will have is this very moment. Nothing you have done or will ever do will occur outside of your current reality (now).

“Did you know that you will always be able to cope with the now, but you can never cope with the future, nor do you have to?”

Eckhart Tolle ‘The power of Now’

Wise words, and reassuring to. For somebody like me who lives a great deal of his life in his own thoughts, either worrying about the future or re-living the past. It is nice to know that I never actually have to worry about the future, because of course it never arrives.

All I and anyone else has to do is concentrate on the ‘Now’ and make it as enjoyable and pleasant as it possibly can be.

You see it is all about living this moment right now and not constantly living in your mind, be it past or future.

So are you living in another point in time other than right now? Never mind your life 5 days ago or in 5 weeks time, get back to your life right now! What is wrong right now?

Life really is about the journey and not the destination, if your goal is to be wealthy that’s great, but if every day that you remain poor you are miserable and unhappy then what is the point of it all. Are you really prepared to let your life pass by in misery until sometime in the future when all will be well and you can start to live and be happy?

That point will never come, remember the future actually never arrives.

It really doesn’t make much sense to put all of your focus on something in the future at the expense of the present moment. I am not saying don’t have goals but the point is to realize that more effort should go into making your current reality better or more enjoyable than to think about, theorize or just plain wonder what the future will bring or indeed how you wished the past could have been different.

All that you, I or anyone has or will ever have is the present moment. Anything we ever do or achieve will always come from the present moment.

Nobody has anything to worry about at this very moment, that is the beauty of it. Most people are constantly somewhere else, always thinking about stuff, forever carrying thoughts around with them, baggage, you can see it everywhere around you, most people are miles away, head down completely lost in their own thoughts. I think it was Mark Twain that said ‘I have had many problems in my life, none of them real’, or something similar. Does that ring a bell? I know it does for me.

People spend a lot of money to get away from it either by going on holiday or something similar but unless you learn to be more present you will never be able to escape from your thoughts, no matter how far you travel.

Don’t always be at the mercy of your thoughts, when they start to run riot don’t let them take over your life. Learn to silence them so you can become more aware of your present moment.

If you are suddenly consumed by your thoughts, start focusing on your breathing, look around, observe your thoughts understand that the thoughts are not you they are separate.

Don’t always try to be somewhere else, if it starts to happen learn to bring yourself into the present moment, the more your mind attempts to take you somewhere else (into the future, or back to the past) take this as a signal to focus your attention into the present.

admin Positive Thinking, Random living in the now, This moment

Good new creative thoughts will rarely come to you when your mind is busy re-living your day at work, the conversation you had last week with your sister or thinking about what may or may not happen when you visit the dentist next week. New thoughts can only really come when you mind is still and not actually thinking about anything, it is only when your mind is free from all thought that can you begin to develop new ideas or strategies.

So how do you still your mind? Here is a technique I have come across for doing this:

This ultimately is a technique to take the focus away from yourself. It is useful for when you are busy thinking about this or that and when you need to silence the mind.

Step 1. First focus on a feeling in your body, it could be the feeling of your toe in your shoe, the shirt on your skin or your hand resting on your leg.

Step 2. Next listen to the sounds you can hear around you, what can you hear close by, what is the dominate sound, once you have the dominant sound listen carefully for other sounds further away in the distance. Don’t forget to keep focusing on the feeling (step 1).

Step 3. Finally wherever you are outdoors or indoors focus on something, it could be a cup in the room, a poster, a bit of dirt on a window or a cloud in the sky. Once you have something in view keep focused, you will have to readjust your focus onto something different after a few seconds (5-15), otherwise your mind can get distracted.

Now this technique involves focusing on all 3 things (sound, feeling, vision) at the same time, when done correctly your mind should become free from all thought. To start with it will not happen for very long but with practice it can become a very useful technique for times when you need to relax and free your mind from the stresses of everyday living. After a few seconds your mind will start to focus on something, when it does start the process again.

I am no expert in this technique and it will take some time before you can do it for longer than a few seconds. Try it and see how you get on.

admin New Ideas (creative thinking) change your life, living in the now, This moment

How much time are you spending on creating change in your life? Are you spending time constructively or are you actually wasting time? And if you are, do you realize how this will affect your chances of success? When you know what you want to do, the next step is to start working towards making it happen. But how much time do you allocate to your chosen goal(s)?

Of course for a lot of people it depends on how much time they have. But do you actually need a lot of time? What about if you don’t have a lot of time, perhaps you have work commitments and a family to consider? Maybe you work 10 hours a day then have to come home and feed the children. Or are you one of the lucky ones who has many hours in the day to spend on your chosen goal.

But just how important is having a lot of time exactly?

I am not sure it is how much time you have but rather how you spend it that counts.

I think what is important is not how much time you spend on your goal each day, (although the more time you spend the quicker you will get to where you want to be) but rather how you spend the time that counts.

Just how constructive are you with the time you have?

Are you making monthly goals, weekly goals, daily goals or none at all and just doing stuff as and when you feel like it?
How much time do you want to spend on your goals?
Are you making enough time for yourself?
Are your goals really a priority for you?
Are your monthly goals being achieved? If not, why not?

Time becomes a precious commodity when you realize you aren’t getting any of it back.

This is important because it isn’t just about the time it takes to complete something, it is more than that. It is about showing yourself how committed you are to your chosen goal, it is about being more than just the words you speak, it is about understanding the long term gains to your short term movements / actions.

10 minutes a day spent actually doing something towards your goal is better than 1 hour thinking about it.

If you know something has to be done, why don’t you go and do it the moment the thought enters your head, rather than making a mental note to do it later, (unless you are driving or some other similar activity) because more often than not in the time that follows you will think of more things that need to be done, which will then relegate the initial thought further
down the list of priorities.

Become good at getting things done. Need ideas for a business? Spend time 10 minutes a day brainstorming ideas. Need to lose weight? Spend 15 minutes a day walking to the shops, or wherever. Need to learn Spanish? Spend 20 minutes a day with an audio CD, learning new words.

Learn to be more constructive with the time you have got, you may be surprised by just how much you accomplish.

If need be write down a list of 5 things that you must complete each day and make sure they get completed no matter what, doing this will ensure you are constantly moving in the right direction.

admin Random living in the now, motivate, This moment