Ways to Live in the Moment: Life Choices and Decisions

The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which to burn. ~David Russell

As we travel around our summer plans, I would like to reconnect with all of you and share more ideas to continue living in the moment. This entry is about Life Choices and Decision Making.

Have you ever thought that everything we do in our daily habits may include making a decision or taking a choice? A simple decision like: Wondering what to wear for work, arranging our meetings for the week, putting together our grocery shopping list, taking time to meet our friends, driving our kids to their play group, planning the next vacation or festivity, etc… Those are decision that may look very simple, but they could bring complexity into our daily routines.

I read once, “Life is the sum of all our choices”, and in fact, decision making are choices.  For many choices and decisions, are fraught and anxious processes. Let me tell you why?

Between the decision and its execution is a slot in time through which voices of anxiety and regret often make themselves heard. Instead, let action flow naturally from your resolve, without a break. Or if you cannot take action right away on what you have chosen, use your trust in yourself. 

Here are SIX great tips to help our energy flow around the decisions we need to make:

1. Trust your Armory… Never let the future disturb us. This is complex to achieve and put into practice. However, let’s keep in mind that we will meet our future, if we have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm us against the present.

2. Heart of Heart… When it feels like our logical mind is driving us around in circles and has become an obstacle to effective decision making, let’s block out its chatter and noise for a while, tune into our heart. Listen carefully to it. We will instinctively know when its harmonies strike a balance with the underlying melody of our mind. Only then should we take action. In other words, let’s trust our gut feelings, and listen more to our internal voice.

3. Discovery… “There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” 

4. Knotty… Too much analysis can lead to actions that are out of proportion. Always consider the simplest solution first – avoid cutting a knot that could be untied.

5. Life Change… Major changes in life – such as moving country to town, downsizing or early retirement – can be difficult or impossible to reverse. As I faced it in the last months, personally I can tell that it can be difficult or impossible to reverse. So it’s important that we make our decisions in the basis of sufficient evidence. Don’t use someone else who is very different for us as our exploratory pioneer – what suits someone else may not be right for us.

6. Front Seat… Faced with a tough choice, many of us may look for some one that can lead by example and take charge and lift the responsibility from our shoulders. Recognize that if we wait for someone else to make decisions for us, we’ll waste time (and probably dislike the results anyway). Let’s take charge – and be accountable.

Let’s Share…What’s your Story?

• What have you done differently when making any decisions?

Miracle Questions:

• What can we do NOW to empower ourselves more when making our own decisions?
• What behaviors are we seeking to shape to be more effective in our journey?

Enjoy!

Ways to Live in Moment: The Value of Now

For anyone looking for ways to slow done and be more fulfilled…

Entering into the middle of summer, I have decided to start the upcoming blog entries with a new title: “Ways to Live in the Moment.” Here is why? The other day I was on a boat ride at the Florida Keys with some of my coworkers. While enjoying the ride with the ocean view, and great scenery of the water, the wind, and the different water vegetation… I was in silent observing and embracing the moment in the boat. I truly decided to just observed and enjoy that moment, breathing and listening to what was happening just in there. It was very inspirational to me because it gave me the opportunity to think about only enjoying the now of that moment.

Thus, for our blog entries sharing ways to live in the moment is another way to create a dialog between all of us. Why… because the intent is to share best practices to grow, develop and inspire others with a better outcome in life.

Here we go… with our new topic – The Value of Now!

Explore these tips to help us value the “NOW”

1. Life Saving – If we take care of the moment, the years will take care of themselves.

2. Knuckling Down – Spend few minutes doing this simple exercise in mindfulness – that is, full attention to experience. While seated, empty your mind and hold your hands palms down as if you about to do some typing. Now look closely at your knuckles. Get to know them so well that you’d recognize them, from the patterns they make, in a close up photograph. Pick, say, three main ID features. You might ask, what’s the point all this? Well, you’ve been concentrating on a specific task using your powers of observation. During this time you’ve not been thinking about anything else, you’ve not been worrying about either past or future. You’ve learned something, however small about yourself. And you’ve gained a little practice in living in the moment.

3. Don’t Look Back – this is a true proverb, “Don’t let yesterday use up too much of today.”

4. Listening Well – Much of the time our minds tend to drift freely from thought to thought, which can compromise our enjoyment of passive pursuits, especially those involving listening or being a spectator. As a corrective exercise, tune into a radio station that’s playing songs. Take a couple of songs at random and concentrate on the words, assuming that they are in English and clearly discernible. Think of the singer’s situation. Enact in your mind the story implied. As with the knuckle inspection above, this is a simple exercise in focus, and a good antidote to mind anxieties.

5. Three Questions – Answer the following questions to see how close you come to the ideal of complete alertness. Here we go:

a. Do you always remember people’s names after you’ve been introduced to them?
b. Can you summarize the pot of the movie you most recently saw?
c. On a mental map of your local store, can you locate the products you buy most often?

If the answer is no to any of these questions, you may be lacking of attention to details, so work on the exercise and insights in this blog entry and bring yourself closer to the moment.

6. Observe Tine Details – Get close, then really close, to everyday object, or something in nature you see every day but take for granted. Use a magnifying glass! You’ll find beauty where you least expected.

7. Turning Point – “There is only one moment in time when it is essential to awaken. That moment is now”

8. Always Asking – “Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questions.” – Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

9. Cultivate Simplicity – Living with respect for nature is the best way to practice this: observe weather pattern and seasonal change, and value the wisdom of trees, the strength of the wind, the majesty of mountains, and the serenity of flowing water.

10. Keep Learning – Every moment in life bring us an opportunity to learn something, to discover another way to do things and to increase our experiences. We are who we are because those moments that has shaped our perspective. Therefore let’s keep seeking for grow and development.

Adapted from 1,001 Ways to Live in the Moment – By Barbara Ann Kipfer

High Value Questions:

• What are the top 3 things you would like to explore from this list that can help you focus on the NOW?

• After selecting your top 3 things, what behaviors are you seeking to shape so that you can be present every moment you encounter?

Enjoy!