A step-by-step guide through a Mindfulness Primer routine, consisting of timed segments of strategically chosen meditations, breathing exercises, visualizations, and gratitude exercises.

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My own personal experience and the existence of so many daily rituals involving focused attention, meditation and gratitude have convinced me that mindfulness is not a lesson, but a lifestyle. The long-term commitment is what makes it a practice. When the commitment dissolves, so does the practice. Mindful living must be maintained.

Like any other field, the world of science and medicine has it’s stars, it’s quacks and everyone in between the two extremes. Since not all scientists are created equal, I am citing information from some of the most trusted names in the intellectual world.

Staying mentally engaged can be a struggle for all of us. When we think a moment has been satisfied, we mentally check out and look for the next thing to happen. The problem is that we can never truly know when a moment is satisfied. We don’t know what could happen next. When we mentally check out of a moment, we miss everything else that moment has to offer. When mentally rushing forward is a habit, we miss many parts of many moments, leaving us with only a portion of the full life experience. We don’t want that.

Don’t waste time and money learning specific skills unless you are also learning how to manage your emotions and anxiety in tough situations. If you’re rattled, your performance will suffer, regardless of how many hours you’ve invested in learning the skill. Mindfulness training is like an insurance policy for all of your other lessons.

The United Nations places the world population at 8 billion people. If every person only made one mistake, that would be 8 billion mistakes. If you consider everyone making 50 or 100 hundred mistakes each, the numbers are unfathomable. Do we really get bent out of shape over something that might have happened 100 billion times, just this year?

When it comes to managing anxiety, a secondary benefit of intention setting might be at the top.

Every second of every day, you get to make a choice. You have the choice of seeing, interpreting, and judging whatever is happening at that second as either positive or negative, good or bad. Seeing situations as positive most of the time (almost all of the time) has more to do with you than it does with the circumstance.

If you fear change, it could be holding back your growth and development. Your efforts might be taking two steps forward, but being too set in your ways can bring you one step back. Improvement depends not only on accepting change, but working to create it.

A mindfulness practice is for life. At the same time, I know that sometimes we want a little cheat sheet that we can take with us into the world. I think I have that cheat sheet.

This simple principle actually presents a few other potential learning opportunities. Here are some of the aspects worth considering, in addition to the savings strategy itself…