As I grew older and started creating this life of mine, I learned I just wanted one thing, and that was a happy peaceful life. Don’t we all? I’ve come to realize many things throughout this time, and I can now proudly say I’m living it! I want to share with you five habits that I believe have helped me develop a mindful and intentional living.
I do want to say my husband and I are completely and fully devoted to God. We strive to follow his principals. Putting him before anything in our lives is the number one thing that has helped us have a happy and peaceful life.
The five habits of mindfulness I love to practice…
I’ll start by saying that gratitude and kindness can go hand in hand. Every day wake up with a grateful heart. You can be grateful for simply waking up to the beautiful sun light, the touch of your loved one or the delicious smell of coffee. We must be able to appreciate the little things first and shift our minds to a positive mind space. If we practice this, it will come naturally to be kind to others and ourselves throughout our day. We live in a world where sometimes things don’t go our way all the time and we must learn how to handle that with grace in order to have control of our emotions and actions, which takes me to the next habit.
Control. In order to be mindful, no matter what the situation is, we must have a level of control over our emotions and actions. I realize it is impossible to ALWAYS have control and never do or say something that could hurt someone or even say things to ourselves that can impact our mind negatively. There is always room for improvement! But if we truly try and we are patient with ourselves we can achieve that control. Control over how we react to certain uncomfortable situations and things we say and think. We want to strive for kindness and patience.
Being patient can truly be hard! I can easily say I probably have struggled with this one the most, but patience has definitely paid off. Situations and people around us will not always be kind to us or treat us how we wish to be treated and even then, the way we respond to this can be mindful and kind by just being patient. Most of the times better things come to those who wait and analyze the situation before reacting.
Awareness is essential in order to be completely mindful and thrive. We can be fully aware of our surroundings, people, things being said and done, reading the room and most importantly, aware of our own actions, thoughts and what we say to others and ourselves. We want to be kind, in control of our emotions and thoughts, patient and aware so we can react gracefully and choose wisely on whatever the situation is.
My last one but most definitely not my least would be making ‘setting goals’ a habit. Whether it is for yourself or if you are a wife or a mom, for your family. This will help keep your priorities and these habits I just shared stay on top of your list every day. Personally, setting goals and writing them on a cute piece of paper and hanging them on the fridge has helped me so much! It reminds me of the person I want to be for myself, my husband and my family and friends, a mindful and intentional person.
