How to Be More Mindful

How can you be more mindful in your life? I know you're hearing all the big buzzwords, all the excitement. Mindfulness is in and has been last couple years. In truth, it's been in for a couple thousand years. But, you know, this mindfulness revolution has swept America. Especially everybody in Silicon Valley is meditating and taking on stoicism. Everyone's exciting to pay attention and to bring their presence and aliveness to the moment. How can you do it? Because a lot of people, they're frankly not naturally good at mindfulness. If you think about it, they're caught in these reactive traps. You know, they're always impulsively reacting to things, and they don't feel centered, they don't feel peaceful, they don't feel connected to the moment. And frankly, those are things that just take training in the modern world. Hey, maybe those things came to people naturally, you know, 100 or a thousand years ago. They certainly don't today. You're constantly distracted, your attention is constantly broken into. So what could you do to feel a little more of that aliveness and connection with life that comes through mindfulness? Well, here's my big tips for you. Number one, start out learning to observe where you are. And what I mean by that is, is, you know, mindfulness. While we all think it's a meditative trick up here, and we'll talk about meditation, it's great. But as much as we think of mindfulness as the mind, I like to think about it too, as the full activation of your senses in the moment. What that means is a lot of people, they'll walk into a restaurant, they'll see their friend, they'll walk over their friend, they'll sit down, they'll eat a meal, but they never actually looked around the restaurant. They never smelled the smells in the restaurant, they never breathed the air in the restaurant, sort of intentionally. And so they weren't really in the environment or the situation. We've learned to block out distractions so much so that we can focus. We've also learned to block out then life. So observe where you are. Bring your full senses to your next experiences, observation of the setting, the context. Where am I right now? What's the color of the walls? What's it smell like here? What's it feel like here? What's this environment? Human beings, we do have a natural ability to pay attention to our environment. I want you to activate that again. Consciously notice where you are. And the more you do that, the more you start to feel presence, life. Second, observe how you are What I mean by that is observe how you're interacting with the environment. Observe how are you sitting right now, how are you breathing right now, how do you feel right now? Observe that more consistently to see how am I being in this relationship right now with this person, how am I speaking to them, how do I probably sound to them? Observing self in situations starts bringing a more mindful mentality to us. It also allows us over the long term to be more intentional. Because you know what, the more you observe yourself, the more you start seeing things you don't like about yourself. Gosh, I don't like how I talk to her. I don't like how I'm missing my children even being in the room with me because I'm not paying attention. I don't like how I feel continually. I'm always anxious and negative. It all comes and all, all improvement from there begins by observing it, paying attention to it, right? So observe where you are, observe how you are and then specifically observe your impulsive thoughts. Those impulsive thoughts that come up that I always call, you know, the drama mind. The first immediate reactions to things which in the modern world are usually not the most, I would say best response, right? We get all upset about something, take a beat, distance yourself from stimulus and response, step in that space in between and be intentional. What do I want here? What would serve here? How would my highest self respond here? I would say my biggest breakthrough in mindfulness came as a 19 year old kid when I learned that to ask how would my better self respond to this situation versus being a child all the time, being so upset. You got to let go of that anger. If you've seen my episode on that, please watch it. You've got to find that place where you say, how would a better version of myself engage in this situation? And by asking that. It's not about guilting yourself, it's about growing yourself, about looking for opportunities for you to engage situations less impulsively. Because that impulsiveness, we think our natural automated response to things, that's being mindful, it's being true. You don't understand, Brendan. I'm just being authentic with how I feel. Now you're being rude. Two different things, you know, because we do live in a social environment. Well, I just, I had to speak my truth. I'm like, yes, speak your truth, but know whether your truth is coming from your wounds. Those times in your life where you're upset is your real self coming from the weak self. The worry, the concern, the fear, the anger, the regret, the Bad times, the old stories? Or is speaking your truth speaking that soul level of intelligence? Is your truth coming from a place of wisdom or wounds? And you need to know that because this person speaking from the wound, that's not mindful. That's the child mind, that's the drama mind. That's the immediate impulse to protect, when sometimes the immediate impulse should be to engage and serve. And we have to know that. So bring more intention into it. And the last big idea is to start learning to do all this not just in real time, like those experiences in where you're at, how you're feeling, what you're thinking, but in what I call extended growth time, which is meditation. You know, you'll never learn to observe your thoughts more and be more mindful than when you just close your eyes, focus on your breath, hear your thoughts, but let them just come in and pass and get to a point where you can find a little bit of emptiness inside, create a little white space inside. So all the noise and all the thoughts aren't hitting you and impacting, they're just kind of glancing. And then at some point, as you meditate more and more and more throughout your life, less and less thoughts pervade, less and less thoughts win, more thoughts bounce off. And suddenly you start to find an emptiness and a space. And from that emptiness and space, as you get to experience that more, you get to use that more. In those moments where stimulus and response are immediately happening, you start to find more space in there because now you're more mindful of time. Meditative practice opens up that space between stimulus and response. And you develop that skill set in practice. See, a lot of people don't understand meditation. While it gives you all the benefits we've learned, immediately drops your stress levels, allows you to be in more, allows you more self control in your life, allows you to access more positive ranges of feelings on a consistent basis. In that way, meditation is kind of like practice for real life. In practicing opening up your mind, not letting thoughts hit you, finding space, paying attention to your breath, then in real life, that distance between stimulus and response elongates. You find your breath, you find your intention, you find good feelings in that space, and now you respond as a more mindful person. Try these things more often in your life. Not only will you feel just more mindful on a continual basis, you'll start to feel what we call the charge life. Hey, my friend, it's Brendan. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Do me two favors. Number one, subscribe to this channel so that you continue to get updates every time I release new training for you. And, and number two, if you would like to get ahead a little faster in life, what I like to do is give you my 10 steps to achieving anything 10 times faster. So if you have a big goal, a big dream, a big mission in life and you just like to achieve it faster, what would you need to do? You know, this is exactly what I keep next to my computer or next to my bed. And every time I have a big dream, a big goal, I open it up and I kind of use this, my checklist, to get ahead faster. Because you and I both know if you're going to be more effective or more productive or you are going to achieve your goals and your dreams faster, you're going to have to switch your perspective a little bit on achievement itself. You have to adopt new thinking patterns and habits. You're going to have to have new daily rituals and habits. And your entire approach to learning and skill development must be better. So in order to help you do that, just go ahead and click the link in this post or go to brendon.com 10x that's Brendon B R E N D O n.com 10x and you can download this guide for free. Just tell me your name and email. I'm happy to email that to you for free. The same guide I use to achieve any goal or dream that faster. Thanks for tuning in. Until I see you next time. Go out there every single day of your life. Live fully, love openly and make your difference today.