Inside: Living a mindful life brings greater peace, joy, and authentic confidence. These five keys for how to live a mindful life will jumpstart your journey to a happier and more intentional life!
It’s so easy to get stuck in survival mode that we forget to slow down and enjoy life. Most days feel like an endless ‘to-do’ list where you’re never productive enough. But what if there’s more to life than just checking all the boxes?
Living a mindful life means being present in the moment and living with intention. It brings more joy and meaning into daily life. You learn to slow down, think more clearly, and connect with a deeper part of who you really are.
What is Mindful Living?
Mindful living generally means living with your main focus in the present moment. You quiet your mind by simply observing, instead of constantly judging what’s happening.
However, at Mind Full Bloom we have an expanded definition of mindful living. Here, it also means living life connected to a deeper part of yourself— call this whatever you want— your heart, soul, Higher Self, or the Universe.
Living a mindful life simply means living a conscious life. Being conscious requires not just being present, but taking accountability for everything you put out into this world— your thoughts, feelings, and actions.
However, it’s not about suppressing negative emotions or feeling peaceful all the time. Instead, with deeper awareness, you’re able to identify negative patterns and work to change them. This creates greater happiness and inner peace.
Mindful living means living life with intention and purpose— aligned with your Higher Self’s values, rather than the values of your ego.
Read on for 5 ways how to live a mindful life— the Mind Full Bloom way.
How to Live a Mindful Life: 5 Simple Ways
Living a mindful life creates inner peace, purpose and joy. You become present in the moment, while still taking action to improve your future. Here are 5 simple ways how to live a mindful life.
1. Start Living Life Mindfully by Practicing Awareness Every Day
Being aware simply means being present in the moment. This is the core of mindfulness practice. Start a daily practice that works for you. This could be meditating every day for 10-20 minutes, or just being mindful while taking a walk, doing mundane chores, or on your way to work.
Mindfulness stems from the philosophy of Zen Buddhism. It proposes that we are more than our minds. We’re the aware consciousness behind our thoughts, feelings, and experiences.
Living mindfully challenges us to be present in the moment and just be. We become aware of our breath, surroundings, and thoughts as a non-judgmental observer.
This brings us out of our heads and into our hearts. We’re free to meet each moment with the fullness of who we are— beyond merely our thinking minds.
Learn more on how to practice mindfulness.
2. Live Life Intentionally by Defining Your Values
To live life mindfully, you must identify your true values. Our values are so crucial— they guide our thoughts, actions and decisions. However, most of us don’t set our values consciously. Instead, we let our past or other people influence what we prioritize.
If you’re not aware, unconscious values could be running your life. For example, you might have the unconscious value of pleasing others. This could be limiting your life by making you suppress your true self or not pursue your goals.
But when you start to consciously value being true to your authentic self, you’ll naturally start to move in that direction. You’ll be able to pause and make better choices that are aligned with your new values.
In the same way, if being present is not high on your values list, you likely won’t make time for it. Instead, something else will become more important.
Defining your values means defining what truly matters to you in life. It’s not about just what you want, but how you want to live your life every day.
When you don’t live life aligned with your core values – you’re not living aligned with who you truly are. This often feels like unfulfillment, disconnection, and apathy.
Living a mindful life means consciously choosing who you want to be and how you want to live, rather than running on autopilot.
While it is more difficult to make conscious decisions, it’s completely worth it because you’ll be living life on your own terms– being your own person, rather than trying to imitate someone else.
3. Mindful Living Must Include: Self-Reflection
Self-reflection means taking time to reflect on your thoughts, feelings, and habits. Living a mindful life requires being aware of both: your outer world and your inner world.
We all experience negative emotions. Practicing mindfulness does not mean you block out the bad emotions and feel peaceful all the time.
Mindful living allows us to be with our emotions, instead of pushing them away. However, if we don’t do anything to change the negative thoughts and patterns that create our negative emotions, we’ll keep experiencing them again and again.
Mindfulness is not a band-aid we slap over our unhappiness and make it to magically go away. Instead, mindfulness gives us the ability to look deeper into our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors without being overwhelmed by them.
Through self-reflection, we’re able to see within ourselves with greater clarity. Then we can more quickly realize the causes behind our negative feelings, and work to improve them.
If you don’t address the root issue, you’ll keep experiencing the same negative emotions again and again.
Practicing mindfulness is not about suppressing negative emotions. But rather, mindfully letting them go by choosing more positive (and loving) thoughts and behaviors.
Gaining inner peace is a process. It doesn’t happen all at once, but step by step. Each time you’re able to let go of negative patterns, you open up new levels of joy and inner calm.
So make time for quiet self-reflection. Take a walk, relaxing bath, or write in a journal.
4. Live Life Mindfully Through Radical Acceptance
Radical acceptance means letting go of mentally resisting what is. You stop denying reality and embrace your truth. However, this doesn’t mean you become complacent.
You still take action to improve your circumstances– but you act from a place of inner acceptance.
The radical act of acceptance is a profound spiritual practice because it allows us to trust and align with life.
Fighting against what is wastes so much of our energy and attention. But by surrendering to the present, we’re able to connect with a deeper, more spiritual part of ourselves.
“Radical acceptance rests on letting go of the illusion of control and a willingness to notice and accept things as they are right now, without judging.”
Marsha M. Linehan
Radical acceptance quiets our minds. By accepting what is, we align with the present moment and enter into fully. We’re able to take a step back and appreciate all the good already in our lives right now.
Through mindful living, we discover how to love ourselves and our lives just as they are now.
Becoming more present in our daily lives makes us realize that this now moment is all we really have. While it’s good to work towards future goals, ultimately tomorrow is never a guarantee.
That’s why we must choose to be happy in our lives right now. Radical acceptance allows us to experience joy now by accepting who we are and where we are in our lives.
How to live a mindful life means you stop waiting for the future to find happiness. Instead, discover it in your life right now.
5. Work Towards Goals with Mindful Action
While living a mindful life is about being present, this doesn’t mean you stop working towards future goals. Pursuing goals in a mindful way requires making it a priority to enjoy the journey.
Most people live for the future. They’re not present in their lives because they believe they can’t be happy until they reach some future goal.
But once they reach that goal, they often realize it wasn’t what they really wanted, and they’re off to the next desire.
Living consciously requires that we drop the illusion that the future holds the key to our happiness.
While achieving certain goals does improve our lives, we must remember that achieving goals alone does not create true, lasting fulfillment.
Lasting inner peace and fulfillment can only be found from within ourselves. From being present to the lives we have right now. True joy comes from how we live our lives every day– not merely from what we have, do or achieve.
Mindful action means working towards a future goal while giving our full attention to the present– to the action at hand.
Start Your Journey
The world can be a tough and scary place. It’s no wonder we constantly check out. We hide from the present by getting lost in our thoughts or by distracting ourselves with mind-numbing entertainment.
But we’re meant to be so much more than just productivity obsessed, goal-achieving robots. Deep down we long for something more– a break from our chaotic egos.
Mindfulness gives us this break. It allows us to step out of our noisy minds, even for just a little bit.
“Mindfulness is a pause– the space between stimulus and response: that’s where choice lies.”
Tara Brach
Living a mindful life requires patience and practice. So be patient with yourself. Don’t expect to feel peaceful or calm all the time.
Make it your practice to slow down, breathe, and reconnect with your deeper self. With these 5 keys you will discover how to live a mindful life– and embrace all of who you are: mind, body, and soul.
