6 Signs You Might Need More Mindfulness In Your Life

I’ll be honest - I’m still a bit of an over-thinker, even after almost ten years of practicing mindfulness!

However, I used to be anxious a LOT of the time and I hardly ever felt present in my day-to-day life. I was often way too caught up in negative thoughts about the past and fantasising about (or fearing!) the future.

Even when I experienced pleasant emotions, I still felt a sense of anxiety knowing that the good feelings might soon end.

When I was 18 years old, I went to university to study psychology because I felt like I had to understand more about my own mind. I was terrified that I would spend my entire life feeling stuck in unbreakable cycles of disconnection, anxiety, depression, fear, and regret.

During my psychology studies, I learned plenty of amazing things. But, it wasn’t until I learned about mindfulness when I was volunteering on the Helpline at the Anxiety Recovery Centre for Victoria that things really started to improve for me.

I’m not here to tell you that mindfulness will magically fix everything. I still have my challenging days and my practice definitely isn’t perfect! But I can honestly say that living more mindfully has brought so many good things in my life.

Now, let’s take a look at some of the signs that you might need more mindfulness in your own life.

Sign 1:
You feel uncomfortable or guilty when you’re not busy

I believe this particular experience is becoming more and more common for people. It’s almost like we’ve stopped allowing ourselves time to unwind.

Time to just be present and enjoy the moment.

Time to rest.

And to be completely honest, I think this is also a big reason why stress statistics are escalating so quickly. It’s becoming scarily normal to ask someone how they’re feeling and for their answer to be “busy” or “stressed”.

The more rushed and busy everyone else is, the more we feel like we need to keep up and the cycle just keeps going. And now, many of us are at the stage where not being overwhelmingly busy feels weird!

Mindfulness is an incredible practice to help us slow down and start releasing the pressure to be “on the go” all the time.

Mindfulness can also help you cultivate non-judgement, so you can start letting go of judgements that might hold you back from enjoying your relaxation time, like “I shouldn’t be relaxing because there’s so much to do.”

So, if the idea of not being busy makes you feel guilty or uncomfortable, it might be a sign that you need a little more mindfulness in your life.

Sign 2:
You worry about the past and things you can’t change

I used to obsess over my regrets and mistakes - even when I knew I couldn’t go back and change things.

I can clearly remember the feeling of regret churning in my stomach. But rather than giving myself space to feel it, acknowledge it, and let it go, I clung to regret - almost like I was punishing myself for making mistakes. It was horrible and honestly, it scares me to think if I hadn’t learned about mindfulness, I might still be getting regularly stuck in that headspace.

Practising mindfulness gave me a strategy I could use whenever I felt myself getting too caught up in regrets about the past and things I couldn’t change. It was a relief to be able to bring my mind back into the present moment and train myself to start letting things go.

Sign 3:
You often unnecessarily plan out the future

Let me ask you a quick question. When you have the opportunity to pause, do you truly experience and appreciate the moment? Or, do you find yourself unnecessarily planning things for the future in a way that creates stress and anxiety?

If you answered planning things for the future unnecessarily, then you might like to implement a little more mindfulness into your life!

I, too, have a tendency to be an over-planner. Whenever I wasn’t getting caught up in negative thoughts about the past, I was thinking about the future.

If I was lying in bed in the morning, I’d be thinking about what clothes I’d wear that day, what I’d eat for breakfast, and the tasks I needed to complete.

When I was driving, I was often thinking about what would happen when I arrived at the destination.

Whenever I was trying to relax and engage in self-care, I generally used that time to problem-solve potential future problems, like how I’d answer a stressful email or what extra work I could do to make enough money for rent. I rarely gave myself a real break! Instead, I kept missing out on the present moment because I was busy planning for the future.

Sign 4:
You multi-task a lot and often find yourself making mistakes

I’ve often heard that multi-tasking and making simple mistakes is one of the common reasons why they want to start being more mindful.

This fast-paced world is a lot to keep up with and I understand why multi-tasking is so tempting.

Do more things at the same time, get more things done faster, right? Well, not always.

Multi-tasking doesn’t just contribute to stress, it can also lead to simple mistakes that take time and energy to fix. In many cases, it would often be better to do one thing at a time well than to do everything simultaneously (and then have to go back to find and fix mistakes).

If this is happening to you often, then mindfulness could be a great strategy to help you single-task more, improve your attention, and decrease the stress that comes from multi-tasking and making mistakes.

Sign 5:
You feel like you don’t often get to enjoy pleasant experiences

Whenever pleasant experiences used to happen to me, I was often so worried about them ending that I didn’t really get to enjoy them. For example, if I went on a holiday, it would constantly pop into my mind how much time I had left and what would happen when the holiday was over. I found it really difficult to simply let myself enjoy the pleasant experience in a mindful way.

Do you experience this too? For example, if you’re feeling happy, do you find it hard to just be happy because you’re worried about when the happiness might come to an end? Or rather than enjoying the weekend and some time off, you feel caught up in thoughts about Monday and going back to work? It’s hard to just be in pleasant experiences because you’re too worried about them ending.

If the answer is yes, then you might like to start implementing a little more mindfulness into your life!

Sign 6:
You want to live more mindfully

Sometimes, people just want to be more mindful.

I received a really lovely email from a woman recently who wrote that she’s looking forward to learning more about mindfulness so she can live a more mindful life in the way that I do. But the funny thing is, I actually want to live even more mindfully, too.

I’m still practising lots of different mindfulness strategies and some days, they’re harder to implement than others. There are a few mindfulness techniques that I know are really important, but they’re challenging in the moment (such as being aware and non-judgemental of vulnerable emotions).

But that’s the thing with mindfulness - it is a practice. It’s something I’ll be working on every day because without it, I can easily fall back into unhelpful habits, like over-planning for the future, obsessing over past mistakes, and multi-tasking. I want to live more mindfully because I know it’s great for my mental health, relationships, work, and general wellbeing.

Did any of the signs in this article resonate with you?

If so, I have some exciting news for you!

In my signature online course, Mindfulness Made Easy, you’ll learn key mindfulness skills and receive guided mindfulness audios and videos, access to a supportive Facebook community, a beautiful workbook, and so much more. This course isn’t just about learning mindfulness skills - it’s a carefully designed program that will help you start taking real action to implement mindfulness consistently into your life.

I’ve guided wonderful students from my community through Mindfulness Made Easy, and I’d love for you to join us!