Читать книгу Personal Development With Success Ingredients - Mo Abraham - Страница 174

What’s already happened is long gone. No one can change events or emotions that have already passed. It’s human nature to look at the past and feel nostalgic, or even fearful or angry – but the trouble comes in when we focus on the past and let it guide our present actions, rather than living in the present moment.

When that happens, you miss the chance to create your best life and you’re settling either for the pain or the glory of what used to be. A life of potential fullness can easily be lost by looking at life in the past.

In the same way that focusing on the past can limit your ability to have your best life, so can focusing on the future. The future isn’t here yet. You don’t want to waste the quality of the present on what might happen in the future.

Usually, what you focus on for the future, when it arrives, is different from what you thought it would be. To have the best life possible, you need to aim for keeping your focus solely on the present. It’s true that everyone can have times where the past or the future seems to be all they can focus on. But you can change that. You change it by living in the now.

When you’re working on something, don’t work on several things at once. When you’re eating, don’t do anything else besides eat. When you’re spending time with someone, don’t split your thoughts by trying to pay attention to the other person while at the same time opening mail or answering an email. Don’t always be thinking about what’s coming next. Be in the present fully aware of your actions. Slow down. Don’t try to zip through life at full speed to get stuff over with.

Stop overcrowding your day by multitasking your way through everything. You’re not really getting more accomplished because you’re not able to give one single thing your complete attention. Stop packing so much into your life – because too many things will cause you to suffer from a mental frenzy. This happens when you take on so much that you feel as if you don’t have time to think.

Take a break on purpose. It’s rare that people simply be instead of doing. For a set amount of time every day, stop. You might have heard the phrase ‘take the time to stop and smell the roses’ and this is the same principle. Take the time to stop and be present. Don’t do anything during your time of stopping but drink in your surroundings. Notice the day. The scents on the air. The beauty around you.

When you take the time to practice mindfulness, it allows you to not only create the best life you could ever dream of, but you get to savor it, too. When you begin practicing this process, you’ll notice how many others are not living in the present, and you’ll be grateful that you’re no longer chained to the old way of living.