There are many things in life that can cause us stress. Whether you worry over your future or ruminate on regrets from the past, our thoughts can keep us from enjoying the things around us. If you experience chronic stress or constant anxiety, you might wonder how to get to a place where you can actually enjoy the things that are happening around you.
With all of the crazy distractions we come face to face within this life, you might be questioning how anyone could possibly live in the moment and savor the present. The easiest way to stay in the moment is by simply noticing your surroundings. Shift your attention towards the positive and focus on the things that you are grateful for. Of course, doing something like this is much easier said than done.
Whether you are unhappy with your life or have a disconnect from the world that we live in, you can start to shift your thoughts to enable your mind to focus on the present. It is only once you remove yourself from the times that you cannot control that you will be able to understand how to make the most of your life. This isn’t an easy process. It can take time and practice to get in a mindset where you are unconditionally happy. With the right practices and steps, you can easily find the joy you are looking for in this life.
Remaining in the “Now”
The main factor that contributes to our inability to live in the present is that we are not properly managing our emotions. You might be incredibly remorseful over the past. Maybe you can’t help but think, “I should have done this,” or, “If only that would have happened instead.”
You might also struggle because you are terrified of what will happen in the future. Perhaps you have managed to run through every terrible situation which could occur in your mind. When you stop thinking of the past or the future, that is when you will focus on the present and be able to see everything that you have in front of you.
There are 11 steps that you should take to make sure that you begin to actually enjoy the present. They are:
- Identify your core emotions
- Use a journal to track your feelings
- Identify cognitive distortions
- Give yourself permission to enjoy the moment
- Declutter mentally
- Notice your surroundings
- Focus on your senses
- Try meditation
- Identify the worst-case scenario
- Shift your attention towards the positive
- Be thankful for who you are
These seem so simple, but you might find them hard to implement once you start to practice these thought patterns. We are going to take you through these steps so that you will better enable yourself to have the strength to be in charge of your thoughts rather than them being in charge of you.
Tip #1 – Identify Your Core Emotions
It is a challenge to have to identify what you are feeling if you are not aware of the cause of your stress. It’s important that we start to pay attention to the things that we are feeling and identify the root of where the emotion developed. There are five core emotions that you can trace all of your feelings back to:
- Joyful
- Powerful
- Peaceful
- Mad
- Sad
- Scared
Whenever you have a stressor in your life, there are likely some easily identifiable feelings that come along with it. When you are able to notice those, you can get to the root of your problem and work through it. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, you might not realize it is because you are mad, or scared, or sad. When you identify the core emotion, you better understand what thoughts and feelings are keeping you distracted. You can create a chart in a journal, on your phone or computer, or simply fill out the chart in your head. It would look something like this:
| Reason for stress | My feelings and emotions | Core emotion |
| A heavy workload | Overwhelmed, fearful | Scared |
| Fighting with partner | Annoyed, frustrated | Mad |
| The loss of a pet | Heartbroken, nostalgic | Sad |
Once you can identify what is really causing you to feel a certain way, you’ll be better equipped to know how to overcome these feelings and be able to live in the moment.
This is the first tip because it is the simplest way to start to get in tune with your thoughts and feelings. You have to carry a certain level of emotional intelligence to best understand why it is that you might be feeling a certain way. The better you can really pick out what your thoughts and feelings are trying to tell you, the more you will be able to stop negative thoughts from ruining a good time.
Tip #2 – Use a Journal to Track Your Feelings
Using a gratitude journal is a great way that you can actually increase the strength of your emotions (Scott, 2019). A journal doesn’t have to be a physical object that you’re going to be carrying around with you or writing in.
You could also simply download a specific journal app, or even just keep track of your thoughts and feelings in the note section on your phone. It could even be a simple word document stored on the desktop of your computer.
Whatever you might do, pick out a way to keep track of your emotions. If you are a creative person, then writing and sharing your feelings might already be something that comes naturally to you.
If you are not somebody that feels comfortable with this aspect, then you can simply keep the journal around for more data and analytical reflections on the thoughts and feelings you have.
For example, you might keep track of the way that you feel at three different times of the day for two weeks at a time. After you’ve collected this information, then you can go back and look and see if there are any patterns in the way that you’re feeling. You might notice after two weeks that on Mondays and Tuesdays, you are in your absolute worst mood. This could simply be because it is the beginning of the week, or there might be other events occurring these days which cause you a great deal of anxiety. A journal can be a reminder of the distractions that you’re having. In case you don’t have a journal, I have linked to a couple of journals I feel that would benefit you!
Whenever you feel yourself being disconnected from the moment, pull out your journal and take note of what thoughts you are having. Sometimes you can simply collect these thoughts and go back to them later. That will help you ignore them at the moment so that you can really pay attention to what’s currently going on. Later in the day, you can go back to this journal and decide if you should continue to reflect on those thoughts or if they were simply distractions from the start.
Understanding Cognitive Distortions
Our emotions are separate from our thought patterns. We already touched on how you can start to better identify your feelings, but we have to also recognize the thoughts that can lead to these types of emotions if we are not careful. A cognitive distortion is an unmanaged mental cycle that can leave you trapped in patterns of negative thinking and constant rumination. There are many different types of cognitive distortions, so it’s essential you recognize these to enable yourself to live a happy and full life.
Tip #3 – Identify Cognitive Distortions
One of the most common cognitive distortions is all or nothing thinking. This is when we create a spectrum within our minds for how we judge things. This is also sometimes known as black and white thinking.
Too often, you might categorize something in your brain as either being good or bad. For example, let’s say that you are enjoying a friend’s birthday. There is a long day of events planned and you’re looking forward to it. On the day of the events, you go out to brunch first. The server is a little bit rude, and you don’t have the best experience at the restaurant. This is where cognitive distortion might come in.
You might get pulled from enjoying that moment because you label the day as “bad.” That one negative experience became the defining factor for how you will judge the rest of the day, even though it has not occurred yet.
When you use such black-or-white labeling to decide whether the situation is good or bad, it will keep you from being able to really savor everything that is happening.
Another cognitive distortion is jumping to conclusions or catastrophizing. This is when you assume that the worst-case scenario is going to be true. The more often you do this, the harder it will be to recognize that the worst thing that could happen is likely not going to occur.
If you’re too afraid of all of these terrible things taking place, you’re not going to be able to stay in the moment and enjoy everything that’s going on (Grohol, 2019). This video provides a more in-depth look at what cognitive distortions are and how you can work through them:
Tip #4 – Give Yourself Permission to Enjoy the Moment
Many individuals struggle because they don’t allow themselves to actually enjoy the moment and feel good in the present. They might feel as though they don’t deserve happiness. Perhaps you have very low self-esteem and you don’t think very highly of yourself. You might not think that you are worthy of enjoying the moment.
For example, let’s say that you had an assignment due all week that you ended up procrastinating on until Sunday. Now you are torturing yourself because you’re angry that you waited so long. Maybe you punish yourself by staying up all night to study, even though getting sleep is important for you as well.
Maybe you also are somebody who enjoys living a healthy lifestyle. Perhaps you skip going to the gym all week so over the weekend, you decide to starve yourself to make up for that lost exercise. This isn’t healthy, and you’re only hurting your own mind in the long run when you constantly look for ways to punish yourself.
If we think that we are not deserving of happiness, then we won’t be able to actually enjoy our lives. You need to give yourself permission to be happy and remind yourself that it is okay to feel these good emotions.
Tip #5 – Declutter Mentally
Physical distractions can be very challenging to work through.
Imagine the last time that you had a big assignment going on. If you were trying to study then distractions like construction occurring outside, a noisy roommate, or the dirty pile of laundry and dishes in the corner of the room might have caused you to not be able to focus on the task at hand. That is how our minds can operate when we are experiencing a disconnect from reality.
If you are not mentally decluttering, you won’t be able to be in the present and enjoy the things that are happening around you. Instead, you will be somewhere else, trying to cycle through all of the garbage and junk that has been piling up in your brain.
The best way to make sure that you are decluttering mentally is to look at your core emotions and identify these cognitive distortions. See the mental “mess” that is there because if you don’t, then you won’t even know that it needs to be fixed in the first place. Identify how you were feeling and the thoughts that travel through your brain so that you can enable yourself to work through these as effectively as possible.
The Power of Mindfulness
Mindfulness is the act of staying in the present. When you are mindful in the moment, you will be able to enjoy it more fully. You’ll stop being distracted by outside thoughts, and instead, you can pay attention to the things that are currently taking place and surrounding you. Mindfulness is a practice, so you’ll have to try these exercises a few times before you really notice the results.
Tip #6 – Notice Your Surroundings
Mindfulness has many different benefits, from stress relief to help rewire your brain. Not only does it improve your mental health, but it could even lead to better physical health as well. It could even change the brain of those who are suffering from depression (Powell, 2018).
The easiest method of mindfulness is to simply identify the physical things around you. First, pick out a category of how you might label objects. These might include categories like:
- Big or small objects
- Things that are a certain color
- Different materials that objects are made out of
Practice this right now. No matter where you are, choose a category of items that are surrounding you and label them based on this description of choice. For example, you might choose things that are green. Notice everything in the room now that is green. Maybe it’s a chair. Maybe a house plant. Perhaps a book, movie, bag, and so on. That is it!
Mindfulness is as simple as that. You’ve managed to distract yourself enough so that you can refocus your mind and center on the present moment in which you exist.
Tip #7 – Focus on Your Senses
Another mindfulness exercise is to make sure that you are focusing on your senses. These include your ability to see, hear, feel, taste, and smell. Whenever you are feeling distracted from the moment and stuck in your own mind, work through each of these senses and identify one thing in the room that you can perceive with them.
For example, let’s say that you are sitting at dinner with your family, and everyone’s having a good time, but you can’t help but think about all the homework or other assignments that you have to attend to later in the day.
Those assignments are still going to be there, so there’s no point in thinking about them because missing out on that family time won’t make them go away.
You can be mindful in this moment by working through each of your senses and picking out something so that you’re pulled back into the present. Start with what you see in front of you.
You see a plate full of food and a happy and laughing family.
You hear the talk and the chatter of the people that are around you.
You can smell the delicious food that you’re eating.
You taste each flavor that comes into your mouth.
You can feel the chair under you and the table beneath your hand.
It’s as simple as that. You don’t need to get into complex sensory details; instead, just pick out the most basic labels of this scenario, and you’ll be surprised at how this can make you rush back into the moment after being distracted by anxious thoughts.
Tip #8 – Try Meditation
Meditation is a great way to clear your thoughts. Even when you’re in a good mood, you can still practice meditation to help alleviate your stress overall. The more that you are relieving generalized stress, the easier it will be to maintain a focused mind.
To meditate, pick a calm and relaxing place. Either sit with your legs crossed or lay down, depending on what you feel more comfortable with. Focus on your breathing and allow the air to come in and out of your body.
Count as you are breathing as well. Each time a thought passes into your mind, gently push it away and focus on nothing. It sounds very uncomfortable for some people to start with, but after practicing this over and over again, you will get to a point where your mind is empty and you think of nothing at all.
You may only be able to meditate for five minutes at a time until you’re distracted, but that’s fine. Eventually, as you continue to practice, you’ll get to a place where you could go up to an hour without having any anxious thoughts.
You might want to use a guided meditation where a narrator helps take you through some more challenging thoughts. This is a great beginner’s guided meditation to give you an idea of how you can turn these thoughts around for the better:
Practicing Gratitude
Gratitude is the act of being grateful. It’s when you can take a situation, no matter how good or bad, and be appreciative that it occurred. Of course, it’s not the equivalent of being overly thankful. You can be grateful for your situation, even if it isn’t that great, without being excited that it has happened. It’s not always a positive feeling, but it will lead to positive emotions. Even the biggest struggles that we come face to face with are things that we can express gratitude for.
Tip #9 – Identify the Worst-Case Scenario
We mentioned in the first tip about cognitive distortions that thinking of the worst-case scenario is an unhealthy cycle. If managed properly, it could actually be something that helps you.
An aspect of being grateful is that you are able to recognize the most negative aspects of your life and pull something valuable from them. If you are an anxious person who always thinks about the worst-case scenario, then you can use this to your advantage. Identify what the worst possible thing that could happen might be, and then remind yourself that even then, it might not be as bad as you think.
For a simple example. Imagine that you’re anxious about going on a plane. Maybe you’re worried about all the dangerous things that could happen. The worst-case scenario is that the plane crashes, right?
Most individuals who have this kind of cognitive distortion will just think about how that might happen. What you can do instead is think about how that might not happen. Remind yourself that the chances of this occurring are incredibly low, and even if it did occur, then guess what? It’s entirely out of your control.
This is a reminder that the only control we have is over how we view the situation we are in. Worrying isn’t going to prevent bad things from happening. It will only prevent you from feeling the good around you.
Tip #10 – Shift Your Attention Towards the Positive
Another aspect of gratitude is recognizing the good and the bad but choosing to focus on the positive instead. Even in the most terrible situations, you can find something positive.
Let’s think of a simple example like losing your job. It seems scary, you’re going to have financial struggles, and you might not know what’s going to happen in your life next.
Eventually, however, you might discover a new position that’s even better than the one that you had before. You can be grateful that you got fired because it gave you a more beneficial result in the end. Sure, you might have been unemployed for 6 months leading to a restricted income, but sometimes things will get worse before they get better.
Even being an anxious person might seem like a negative thing, but that’s not always the case. Your anxiety might have enabled you to be more empathetic towards others who have the same feelings. Anxiety can make us detail-oriented and more aware of bad things that could happen so that we are more prepared in the end. Even in some of the most challenging situations, you’ll still be able to find something positive.
Tip #11 – Be Thankful for Who You Are
The final tip is to simply be grateful for the person that you are. When you can be appreciative of the life that you have, you will be able to enjoy the moment as best as possible. You will be fulfilled. You will be able to see the positive in even the most terrible situations so that no matter what struggles you have, you can still find happiness.
It’s time that we appreciate who we are and are thankful for the people that we have become. You wouldn’t be the person that you are today had you not experienced some of your most challenging life events. They are the things that have turned you into the person that you are today. If you had lived a perfect life and nothing terrible ever happened, then you wouldn’t have the character that you do now.
Be thankful for this person, because it is the only person that you will ever be. You should be your own best friend, and the better you set yourself up for that, the easier it becomes to live a full and happy life.
Related Questions
The worry will never stop, but you will eventually get stronger at defending against these emotions. Let’s take a look at a few more concerns you might have over the way that your brain is operating.
Can I train my brain to stop worrying?
Those who experience chronic stress might start to fear that they will just be stuck with the brain that they have. You are able to retrain your brain to have different thoughts than the ones that you currently experience. Altering the way that you think is possible no matter how old or young you are, as long as an effort is put towards this process. Having gratitude and living in the moment is achievable when we practice.
Is there something wrong with me because of how much I worry?
Stress and worry are normal. To live a happy life is not to be stress-free but to be strong enough to manage it. Stress can actually be healthy if managed properly. When stress goes unmanaged, it can have a drastically negative impact on your life. Unmanaged stress can lead to anxiety or depression, which might require medical treatment depending on the way that it impacts your life. The issue here is deciding whether this stress disrupts your ability to live a functioning life.