Do you have a difficult time focusing your attention or calming your mind instantly when you need to most? With hundreds of distractions at home and at work, this article will help you train your mind to make and intentional choice to zero in when you need to most. This article will also help you Concentrate Better and Meditate More Easily.
Use Habit Triggers To Focus Your Mind On One Thing At A Time AND For New Habit Building Like Learning To Meditate. Triggers are a reminder to take action DO SOMETHING. The two best triggers are automatic ones:
- Phone Alarms Reminders
- Stickie Note Reminders
Use “Set & Forget” Phone Alarms, so you don’t forget. Then put Stickie Note Reminders on something you reach for multiple times a day like a water bottle or planner.
Focusing and Calming your mind should be an easy automatic habit that everyone, EVEN YOU, should be able to do instantly. Stop living with the frustration of distractions lurking in your peripheral vision trying desperately to get your attention.
My Experience Using Habit Triggers To Develop My Concentration & Meditation Practices
By developing the practice of quieting the mind you get a chance to switch off and a chance to get to know yourself better. Some people might find this scary, but its actually a good thing. Building your concentration and strengthening your ability to meditate effectively is going to give you better insight into what makes you happy, sad, anxious, scared, angry, enlightened, and a whole host of other feelings across the spectrum.
Being in a meditative state and building your concentration & focus in this way opens you up by shutting your mind off, and actually makes you more mindful and in the moment.
By replacing a lack of concentration with mindfulness and meditation you are gaining space. This is the space between you and the world. This space also allows room for your inner world to unfold and open up more. Giving you more room and more space to let you in and get to know your most inner desires more intimately.
By developing my concentration practices and meditation practice, I have found that I feel less stressed. I’ve been able to disrupt my anxiety and the busyness of the day, by interrupting the grind with moment of mindfulness and pause. Although these moment are brief, sometimes only lasting :30 seconds, I have found that they can pay back to you a trillion fold. These moments are even paying it forward to others, because they make you calmer than you would have been if you’d been grinding the ax all day at work.
By stopping the practice of NOT stopping, and then taking action to pause for these mini moments of mindfulness, I feel like a better version of myself. I feel like the version of my self that I want to project. I feel like my ideal self.
When I don’t take time for these mini moments of concentration and meditation, I am a different more tightly wound person. My Anxiety and O.C.D. often flair up, and some days, the Depression seeps in. To combat my negative thoughts and feelings I use habit triggers to focus my mind on one thing at a time.
How To Use Habit Triggers To Focus Your Mind On One Thing
This is the easiest step to take because you are literally relying on someone else (your phone) to remind you to take a second to concentrate on your breath, surroundings, and yourself.
Set Phone Alarms To Utilize Technology
- Start by creating an alarm on your phone in the afternoon with a reminder to check in with yourself. Label Your Alarm: How Are You Feeling?
- When Your Alarm Goes Off: use it as a reminder to pause briefly and to breathe deeply for a second.
- And most importantly, say thank you for what you have and where you are in that exact moment.
Use Triggers As A Reminder To Practice Concentrating & Meditation.
This is a more difficult habit to build, because you have to remember what the trigger is and what you’re suppose to do in the first place. But there is a way to move forward.
Leave Yourself A Note As A Trigger To Practice Your Habit
- Try leaving yourself a stickie note that says “concentrate” or “meditate on this…”
- Then put that stickie note on something that you grab for multiple times a day. Even better if it’s something you grab for multiple times in an hour, morning or afternoon.
I like to put trigger notes on my coffee or tea mug, water bottle, and pen case or journal.
This will give you the opportunity to develop your new habit multiple times a day. Each time you grab for whatever your trigger item or action is, take a moment to check in with the reminder note and practice this new habit.
Simplest Way To Make Meditation A Daily Habit
It’s super easy, I promise.
In my personal experience I have found that it was really easy to start concentrating and meditating more effectively with a habit trigger like the one below. The difficult part was peeling myself away from work sometimes to take literally a minute and a half to myself to practice meditating on my drink.
When I use this trigger method to remind myself to meditate or concentrate, I like to put this stickie note reminder on my water bottle or mug.
- Write “meditate on this…” on a stickie note and each time you grab for a drink, use it as a trigger to have a mini meditation and concentration session. Literally “meditate on” or think about the object you chose to put the note on.
- Next close your eyes and focus on the feeling of the vessel in your hand: is it cold… hot… slick like ceramic… or textured like steel?
- Then inhale what ever it is that you’re drinking and focus on the aroma and how it makes you feel.
- As you take a sip, let the liquid wash over the different areas of your tongue and focus on its taste.
- Now take a second drink and concentrate on how it feels as it travels down your throat. At this point I usually sigh in happiness.
- Open your eyes and look at your drink and meditate on it for a moment and ask yourself:
- Where did it come from?
- How did it get to my hands?
- Am I drinking this because I want to or because I feel like I have to?
After this brief practice of concentrating and mini meditation, I go back about my day again.
The whole process takes as long as it takes me to take two drinks from my mug. A microsecond of the entire day. A mini moment that is reserved just for me, that I get the chance to repeat every time I grab for my trigger, in this case, my water bottle or mug.
