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I have trained in the art of “Getting Out Of My Head”, which is the art of reacting in the moment. If your mind is filled with things to do, worrying about what you look like, or what funny thing happened on TV last night, you cannot be optimally ready for dealing with an impromptu task.

Imagine you are walking down the street, with bag of food in one hand, a box of books in the other arm, a pad of paper in your mouth, and backpack on one shoulder. Then, without notice, someone passes you a basketball. Now, no one in their right mind would pass you a basketball if you were carrying all those items, but this is an analogy for your cluttered mind. No one can immediately tell you have a lot of stuff on your mind when they make an offer. How do you constantly clear your mind so that you’re available to accept any offer?It certainly takes practice, but here are a few ways that have helped me clear my mind:

1. Write It Down - Nothing allows you mental freedom than getting the tasks you need to do out of your head. Have 10 tasks to do within the next few days? Put it on paper so that you no longer have to spend energy to remember it AND do it. If you have those 10 tasks now on paper, you only have to remember to look at one list, rather than remember 10 things. I have recently started getting into David Allen’s Getting Things Done, and he states that the most productive people are “the people with the emptiest heads”.
2. Meditate - Everyone recommends learning how to meditate, but not many people put it into action, or want to spend the time to meditate. If you take 20 minutes a day to do it, the benefits will show themselves after practice and time. If you need some help meditating, here are a few resources:
   • Pzizz - This is a great software program that generates a guided audio track for napping or sleeping, but I have found it to be a great tool for meditating as well. Enter in the amount of time that you want the audio track to last for, and it generates automatically. You can then burn the track onto a CD or use it on a portable media player. I use the “Energizer” module
   • Wikihow: How To Meditate - This is a general guide, but the important point to remember is focusing on breathing and active relaxation.
3. Exercise - This is a great way of clearing your mind, but I would choose something that is active and not repetitive (running on a treadmill is boring). My personal exercise of choice is swimming, as I am deprived of sound and most visual stimulation. Focusing your mind on an activity like this forces your mind to focus on the task at hand rather than the tasks that exist in the future or the past.
4. Apply yourself to a task - Don’t just sit there! Go do something! Finding a hobby that you can devote some time to will allow you to problem-solve in the moment. This forces you to apply yourself to the NOW rather than the past or the future. The doing and completion of a task will make you feel great.
5. Don’t worry about what others think of you - Being serious is fine for some situations. However, if you can be silly and fun, you won’t have to worry about what others think of you. Be silly and “Dance like no one is watching”. Worry will pull you out of the now. You are you. If others don’t like you, you can listen to them, but only YOU will decide who you are.
6. Don’t worry about the past - If you can be comfortable with the actions you have made in the past, you can clear it from your cache of worry. If you feel confident in the decisions you have made in the past, then there aren’t any thoughts of “coulda’, shoulda’”. If you are not confident in the decisions that you have made in the past, make them right TODAY. Apology is a powerful tool to find closure in the past, and the choices you have wanted to make in the past are due to be done now.
7. Don’t worry about the future - Planning for the future is fine, but live in the now. If you can free yourself from the worry of negative consequences, you can clear your mind to accept what comes, rather than thinking what may come. Be confident knowing that you can handle whatever obstacles come your way.
8. Listening to another person intently - This may be hard for a lot of people, but if you can actively stay in the present, and engage yourself in really HEARING and understanding a person, you’re living in the moment.
9. Make the choice now - In more cases than I can remember, I went with my instincts rather than second guessing myself. Usually, your body and mind will react in a way to allow it to survive. Over thinking a choice will pull you out of the moment, and put you back into a state of worry.
10. Take risks - Taking risk will force you to react in the moment because you cannot predict the outcome. Sometimes your risks will bring positive outcomes, and sometimes they’ll bring negative outcomes. The main point of risk is to LEARN what works from the positive outcomes, and LEARN how to make a negative outcome into a positive one.

Do you have any helpful ways to live in the moment? Let us know in the comments!

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