I planned this morning to go for a run – And wanted to check the distance that I was going to run, so checked into google maps. The last time I checked in was to see where my brother lived in the UK and before I knew it, I was looking at rows of beautiful houses in my cousin’s locality in the US, and then Europe and went on an imaginary trip to Spain! Well – the less said about the run the better, because it was time to shower and leave for work.
Has that ever happened with you? Take a minute and recollect that time when you planned to do something important and some other thing which was more attractive which took your attention away.
Distraction is the process of taking away the attention of the person from what they intended to do. Distraction is also the thing that takes the attention away – like social media. Today, the number of distracting factors are more than the amount of work you have to do at a given point of time. So much that the distractions are more overwhelming than the work!
Do you recollect the days when you sat to study for your exams and your mind kept pulling you away to think about more pleasant things?
Remember, there is no point in beating yourself up because you get distracted often. We have the mind of a monkey. The monkey can only think of enjoying now. The monkey gets serious about things only when the consequences are immediate. That is why you burn the midnight oil on the last day of the project submission. That is why urgent tasks get done more than important tasks. The monkey doesn’t understand the importance of things like going for a run every day or studying every day or the little things that add up. It only understands urgency and hence panics.
When you understand how the mind works, you can see with clarity your thoughts and actions. Practicing mindfulness by observing your thoughts for a few minutes on a daily basis helps you to be mindful. When your mind gets distracted you gently bring it back to the task on hand, but this requires practice. And this goes a long way in helping us achieve our dreams and making our life meaningful.
To get an idea about meditation and mindfulness, you might want to checkout the FREE Five-days Introduction to Meditation and Mindfulness here.
Bell The Mind 
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