The Year of Living Mindfully

The start of a New Year always marks a time of introspection. While many high-achievers may balk at the need to have a specific time of year when you set goals and resolutions, any time is better than no time to do it. If you are looking towards 2019 as your year to accomplish more of the goals you set for yourself, or even just want to be happier, that’s great!

In consideration of what you want to accomplish this year, I have a challenge I would like you to consider joining me in.

Make this year your year for living mindfully.

Last year I kicked off the year by meditating for the first 100 days and it was transformational in that what had previously been something I tried to do daily but never properly formed the habit for, became a consistent part of my life as it was solidified as a habit. Now a day for me isn’t complete without some sort of mindfulness practice but I’ve come to learn that it doesn’t always have to be the traditional "sitting cross-legged" meditation practice in order to be valuable to you.

Mindfulness meditation is great to learn - it’s the closest thing to a superpower that we have as humans. It isn’t the only way to be mindful though because we still have a lot more living to do and we can’t just sit in silence all the time. Meditation should be treated like cleaning your room - you do a deep clean of your room once per week but then keep up the daily routines required for your room to be neat and tidy at all times.

Another analogy I love to compare it to comes from the end of Ryan Holiday’s book Ego Is The Enemy. You’ve got to sweep the floor. A floor doesn’t stay clean and dust-free without sweeping it, you regularly go back and sweep the floor to keep on top of it. Maybe you will meditate daily to keep your stress and anxiety under control. I certainly try to as much as possible. But maybe you will gravitate more to using meditation more like your deep cleaning day where you actually vacuum and mop the floor and the rest of your days you apply that skill to living mindfully in other ways. That’s the true purpose of meditation after all and will lead you to live a more fulfilling life, regardless of what you do.

So let’s make this the year of living mindfully. Each day, find a moment of silence in your life. Take 6 deep breaths and look around you. Really take in the environment around you. Pay attention. Listen. As the explorer Erling Kagge writes in his book Silence, the only true silence we can find is within us. Even with the world racing around you silence can be found. And when the stress metre gets maxed out, go back to your meditation practice and dig deeper into the silence.

Or if things get really out of control, go for a float. I have found that floating in a sensory deprivation tank offers a more complete escape from stress than meditation alone can offer me, even after extensive meditation practice. It’s wonderful. Nothing can phase you after a float. It’s named the post-float glow for a reason. You become like a beacon of lightness after coming out of an hour of floating. These more intensive mindfulness practices don’t have to be an everyday thing though if you keep up the daily practice of living mindfully. Keep that in mind, set a reminder for yourself each day if you need to, and make the most out of this year by becoming present on a daily basis.