Living In The Moment

I don’t know about you, but living in the moment is something that is really really hard for me to do. I’m just a busy girl, who is always on the go and has about a thousand things going through my head at once. This paired with the fact that I’m a blogger that is heavily involved in social media, can lead to me missing some important moments if I’m not grounding myself in the present.

Now living in the moment doesn’t just mean getting off your phone, or maybe not instagramming every piece of a concert or event. This may just mean you being an active listener when your in a meeting or talking with someone. Maybe being in the moment for you means listening during class or giving your full attention to a task. Or maybe for you it means not living your life through a camera.

As hard as it may be, there are many ways to live in the moment rather than just pass through it.

Set A Limit

For all you social media savants out there, the hardest thing to do when your starting off is picking and choosing what you want to capture. You want to be able to post about what’s happening, but that can also lead to you missing out on an experience. My solution to this conundrum is to limit yourself to what you can capture. For example, if you’re at a music festival, you’re going to want to capture pictures and clips of your favorite performers. But how do you make it so that you aren’t watching the concert through your phone?

Well what you can do is set a limit for how many pictures and how much video you can take of a performance. Maybe for each performer you can take 20 pictures, and for each song they play, you only record 30 seconds of it. Or maybe you only get a video of your favorite song they play.

It’s all about giving yourself limits and kind of having a plan of action.

Live in the minute

If you are one of those people who try to think of what you need to do days in advance rather than focusing on what you’re doing right now…I’m talking to you. I totally get it! I’m the girl who’s sitting in class or in a meeting thinking about what I need to do an hour, a day, a week from now. Let me just tell you, this can be really harmful. This can lead to you missing valuable information, opportunities for growth, and it can just be plain rude.

You have to learn to live in the minute (hahaha title puns). This means that you need to shut off the distractions and the lists and pay attention to what’s happening in front of you.

Phone Face Down

We are all into our phones, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Our phones keep us connected to everyone, which is a great thing. It isn’t so great when you are out with your friends. Yeah we all want to take pictures while we are out with the homies and share what amazing things we are doing, but sometimes you need to forget your 17k followers on Insta and remember that you are spending time with your friends. I mean you all took the time to be with each other in person, and you’re going to spend that time on our phone? Just no…

So my suggestion is after you take your pictures and post on Snapchat and whatever you youths do these days (I’m talking like I’m 81 and not 21), put your phone down. Like face down and away from you. This is the same thing I do whenever I post a picture on Insta or go out with friends. It prevents you from wanting to check your phone on a constant basis and really just be with the people you are with.

In the end, you can do all of these things to try and keep you in the moment, but it can be a lot easier said than done. As a girl who always has ish to do and goals to accomplish, it’s hard to always stay in the moment and not get preoccupied with other things. But the thing is, we have to learn that in order to foster relationships, enjoy events, and accomplish tasks to excellence, we have to take a moment to be involved in the now rather than being preoccupied with what will be.

This all comes down to choosing how to be. You choose to give your full attention to meetings instead of thinking about your mile high and weeklong to-do list. You choose to put your phone down at a concert and just enjoy the music. And you choose to unplug from social media long enough to spend some quality time with the people around you.