7 Practices That Help Me Be At Peace Every Moment

You know what's better than being happy? It's being at peace.

Being at peace means you're completely okay with where you are at the moment. It helps you divorce your happiness from external circumstances. 

You don't need X to be happy.

You can be at peace right at this moment. 

Here's how I do it: 

Ask myself, “Is there anything I can do about this?

Most of the time, it’s feeling like I have no control that makes me feel anxious. 

Recognizing that I have no control over something is sometimes hard. Because there is almost always one outcome I want to achieve and I feel helpless when I can do nothing about it. 

Letting it all go will not be easy. 

But when you learn how to trust life and detach yourself from the outcomes, everything starts falling into place. 

You stop thinking about the outcome and just focus on the process of unfolding things.

List down what I can do on a piece of paper.

Journaling helps me make better decisions. 

I like to list down all the things I can do (things that are within my control) and all the possible outcomes that can come from doing each thing. 

I list down what would my future self advise to my present self. Will I be proud of myself if I did this one thing? Is this something I’ll be proud to share one day with my future kids? Will I regret not doing the other thing? Putting it all down on paper helps me think more logically and clears my mind. 

It might be tempting to just “think” things through but writing helps you come up with better solutions.

Stop resisting what is.

Enjoy the flow of life. 

Lately, this reminder has been most helpful to me. I’ve always spent my life being focused on my goals - setting one after another. I want to graduate, I want to get a good job, I want to earn more money, I want to build my own family, etc. 

There is nothing wrong with being ambitious. But as I get older, I learn how to embrace the process of achieving my goals. It’s easy to get lost in my worldly desires and forget to enjoy life.

It’s okay to change directions. It's okay to want different things. And it's okay to transform into another identity.

Sometimes, you do everything you can to achieve a goal and you don’t see that life is presenting you with something bigger. 

Stop resisting the life you have because you want the life of somebody else.

Don’t make decisions based on ego.

Your ego is afraid of death.

And your ego thinks everything is death - losing an argument, not doing things perfectly, being judged by another person, etc. 

Life becomes much more simple when you let go of your ego. When you sit down and think about it, almost all the things you’re afraid of are because of your ego.

Learn how to make decisions based on what will feed your soul, not your ego.

All problems are illusions of the mind. 

I've read about this from the book The Power Of Now.

And this resonated with me: 

It’s not a problem, just a situation to be dealt with.

When you focus on the Now, you start to feel more at peace because you don’t have to worry about what to do in the next 5 minutes or whether you did the right thing at work yesterday.

Being in the NOW is the easiest way to be happy.

Yet, it won’t magically solve your worldly problems.

You will, however, learn how to deal with them calmly. Because you will realize that life is full of situations to be dealt with. Practicing to be in the Now helps you become mindful of your situations, therefore you will think of a practical and actionable solution to a problem at the moment, rather than overthink it. 

Using "Clock time" rather than "Psychological time."

Another one from Eckhart Tolle:

Time is an illusion of the mind.

Sufferings come from psychological time - the time that you make up in your head. 

If you let go of this, you’ll have the freedom of time. Of course, you need “clock time” - the actual time to live in this practical world.

Clock time helps you learn from your past mistakes. Psychological time makes you dwell on your past mistakes.

Free your mind from psychological time and suffering cannot exist.

Wherever you are, be there totally.

Eckhart Tolle said it best when he stated that you can always either accept or change the situation. 

Problems arise when you keep yourself in between. You start complaining about things and then choose not to do something. You blame your environment or the people around you for what is going on instead of taking control.

So whenever you’re doing something or you don’t like something, make a decision. Do you want to accept or change the situation? Both will be hard but will help you be more at peace. 

Stand by your decision. 

If you accept the situation, put all your heart into doing something. Because that’s your decision.

 If you choose to change the situation, do everything you can to achieve the change you want. 

Stop blaming everything else but yourself. 

Take full control.

Alright, that’s it for today!

I hope this has been helpful to you.

By the way, I’m curious. Do you enjoy my personal development posts or practical tips on building an online business?

Please let me know and hit reply!

Thank you in advance and let me know if there’s something I can help you with.

Happy Memorial Day!

-M