Meditate

Close your eyes. Pay attention to your breathing. Count ten deep inhales and ten deep exhales. Open your eyes. How do you feel? You just meditated. This is might be an over simplification, but it counts. You don't have to be a monk in a robe in a temple to find a quiet space in your mind. Meditation can be done anywhere, anytime.

In meditation, a number of techniques can be used to slow down our brains and find a sense of calm. In any of these methods, the idea is to allow your thoughts to pass across your consciousness without judging them or letting them distract you. Acknowledge the things that bubble up out of your mind and let them pass by without judging yourself. You aren't going to levitate off the ground and you probably won't transcend this world and graduate to a higher form of existence, but who knows? Here are a few ways to try.

1) Seated  - Find a comfortable seated position, preferably away from screens, people or other distractions. It helps to set an alarm to go off after a preset amount of time, say 15 minutes. This way you don't have to worry about the clock while you practice. Close your eyes and begin to notice your breath. Let your breath slow down and elongate. Begin to count each breath, starting on the inhale. See if you can keep your mind focused on counting your breaths for a count of ten. Most likely, your thoughts will wander well before you reach ten (mine usually do). Pay attention to what thoughts come into your head. Are you stressed about work? Relationship? What errands you have to do later? A mistake you made earlier in the day? Acknowledge any of these as legitimate and let them drift away on the tide of your breath, to be dealt with at a later time. In this block of time, you are free to relax.

2) Walking - This method can be practiced during normal walks (ie; to school, work, the store) or you can walk specifically to meditate. Either way, decide to practice walking meditation before you start. In this method, I like to count every step with my left foot instead of my breaths. Similar to seated breathing, focus on the count of your steps and notice what thoughts enter your head. If you lose count, smile and start back at one. Don't close your eyes for this variation.

With either of these methods, you will gradually get better at allowing your thoughts to drift away. Don't worry if you aren't getting to ten breaths or X number of steps. That is not the point. We often get so wrapped up in our daily lives that we forget that we are in control, not our thoughts. Taking as little as five minutes a day to sit or walk quietly and with intention will serve as a reminder to slow down, breath and hopefully enjoy life a little bit more.

Clarity

Life is busy. We keep track of dozens of different ideas, projects and responsibilities. Work, family, hobbies, taxes, politics, sports, health and planning for the future all compete for our attention. Couple those things with a 24 hour news cycle and social media and sometimes it can be a challenge to really focus on one thing.  So how do we make the noise fade away and make serious progress? We need to find a way to achieve clarity.

This can be done in a number of ways. Every person will have their own way to get into the zone. I do some of my best thinking when I'm on a trail run.  Each and every trail is different and focus is required to avoid rocks, cliffs and other trail goers. The attention to the details of the trail, along with the physical discomfort of running hard combine to dissolve the constant churn of thoughts running through my brain. Anxieties fade. Worries evaporate. I often find the answer to questions I've been stewing on for months. Clarity through focus and discomfort.

After a run,  I like to immediately write down any ideas or thoughts while they are fresh. This helps them solidify in my head and makes it more likely that I will act. This routine of gaining clarity through toil and getting results on paper can lead to progress on goals,  improved decision making and a great degree of satisfaction.

So find your zen arena, the place where your world comes into focus and breakthroughs are made. Go there regularly and write down the results while they're still fresh.  You might be surprised how far you can go with a little clarity.