The life in your years is more important than the years in your life. Yet you ignore the magic of the moment and choose a longer life full of strife.
As strange as it may sound but these days the easiest thing to ignore is your own self. In your quest for financial freedom, you either over-burden yourselves with responsibilities to make the most of each second or simply overlook the significance of staying healthy. By the time you accumulate enough wealth to be free, you are hardly able to enjoy it because of one of these three conditions:
1. Mental burn outs– Years of work stress cripples are minds, making you believe that fun is for lazy and unsuccessful people. As a result you become over critical of others having fun and set crazy expectations from yourself and your near and dear ones. You devoid yourself from indulging in any sort of fun activity which further damages your life. This mental burn out has physical consequences which involve stress related diseases like diabetes, cancers, high blood pressure.
2. Physical burn outs– The years that you spend accumulating a mountain of resources, which you don’t really need, are the same time you spend overlooking the well being of your body. By trying to economically maximize each moment you overlook what is really important. Sleep deprivation, irregular eating patterns, lack of physical activity damage your body to a degree beyond repair. By the time you realize your follies, it is too late to physically lead a normal life.
3. External anchors– Taking excessive stress allows you reward yourself with indulgences paving the way for external anchorage. You get hooked to smoking, alcohol, panic eating just to pat yourself after putting in those long work hours. These anchors start controlling you after a while and you yourself accept them as a necessity soon enough. You spend a lot of time and energy detaching yourself from these anchors which again takes away time from your daily routine.
Devote yourselves fully, but mindfully
For any kind of positive outcome it is mandatory that one must focus completely. You will only taste success if you are fully devoted to your tasks,but this does not imply that you should do it at the price of your physical and mental health.
Your willingness to achieve your dreams often overpowers all your psychological and physiological needs.This generally leads to an imbalanced lifestyle. A situation similar to when you put it all on the line to plant and nurture a fruit bearing tree, but when you are rewarded you are not able to fully savor the fruits.
Most of you don’t even do it for yourself. You forego your own lives, nurturing someone else’s fruit bearing plant. You will not even get to see the actual fruits of your labor, yet you sacrifice your health and time for a monthly pat on your back.
If you really want to enjoy a better future, you should start with planting your own fruit bearing plants first. Then, do it in a way that you get to savor the fruits of your hard work in the best mental and physical state If you devote yourself fully you might be successful but wont get a chance to enjoy your success. If you do it mindfully you will certainly be successful and also be able to enjoy the fruits of your labor. Here are 6 ways to be more mindful while pursuing your ambitions:
1. Don’t chase cars like wild dogs– Success comes out of habit. Random action seldom leads to sustained success. If you jump from task to task, even if you expend all our time and energy we would never be truly successful. What you need is to chase one particular task and make it a part of your habit. When you are mindful about your health and nutrition you become automatic creatures of habit. All you have to do then is to copy this habit framework onto the domain of your choice.
Working like a maniac may get you temporary success but incorporating a balanced lifestyle will help you sustain it.
2. The most valuable currency is time– How you spend your time dictates the quality of your life. Some choose to merely exist mechanically while others seem to maximize every moment. Time has the unique ability of deceiving you. If you let things slide, you will find yourself 10 years older without living most of it. You will become a snow ball of complaints, rolling down the slope of life. Failing to optimally utilize time till there is no time left.
If utilized mindfully, time serves you and the life in your years hold more value than the years in your life.
3. Preventive action is better than responsive reaction– You never see immediate consequences for over exertion or inaction towards a balanced lifestyle. This makes you believe that you can abuse your body for extended hours or ignore exercise and proper nutrition. But all of these factors accumulate, till a point when the ticking time bomb explodes, and you are left wondering, and cursing fate. Minor preventive measures will help you avoid major responsive reactions.
If you are mindful you will not only remain healthy for a longer time but also save yourself a lot of time and money wasted on responsive remedies like surgeries and operations.
4. Don’t follow greed’s lead– The money stacked up in your bank accounts once you pass away is the money you never needed. Your kids, if raised properly will mange to fend for themselves. Your insecurities and greed never allow you to take it easy. You want to stack all of the worlds wealth while ignoring your own health. Greed usually arises from social pressures and competitions. You need to understand the exclusivity of your own life. If you depend on others to dictate your aspirations, you will get stuck in a whirlpool of greed.
Reconsider your motive of work, if it is greed based, go spend some time alone in the hills.
5. Indulge in regular introspection– Assessing your ambitions regularly and aligning them with the bigger picture of life is utterly essential. This gives you a realistic idea of your journey so far and the path you want to tread ahead. It also assists in giving you a reality check, to find out what is actually important. If done consciously, you would be able to avoid that sudden unexpected jolt, which will lead to unwanted responsive actions. Rather than being forced to follow a particular strict diet and medical schedule you can ease your burdens by evaluating your mental and even physical condition regularly.
The earlier on you diagnose a problem, the easier and cheaper its treatment becomes.
6. Remind others on what is actually important so that you are auto reminded yourself– The best way to be mindful is to tell others to be mindful. Convincing another person to be mindful fuels your own thoughts in that direction. Moreover, even if you manage to make a minor change in someone else’s life now, that person will reap its true benefits in the long run.
When you become the guiding light in someones else’s life, you become more responsible automatically, knowing that there are others depending on your word.
Have a Good day!!!