Running your own business comes with many challenges and often times increased levels of stress and anxiety. While a moderate amount stress is manageable, when we are chronically stressed it can result in overwhelm, loss of clarity and focus, poor productivity, and exhaustion. 

Mindfulness is a wonderful tool to help bring life back into your business. It is not surprising that more and more companies (e.g., Google, General Mills, Goldman Sachs) are beginning to introduce mindfulness at work to help their employees manage stress – after all employees are the heart of a business and when they are tired and overwhelmed, the whole system cannot perform optimally.

What is Mindfulness?

Jon Kabat Zin, a well-known meditation teacher, defines mindfulness as:

“Awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgementally.”

Mindfulness provides an opportunity to step aside from whatever we are doing and allow our minds to have the freedom to express themselves. While this may start out as mental chatter, the more and more you practice mindfulness, the more you will see a shift in your own mindset – from clutter to clarity. 

This is also a chance to practice non-judgement towards both ourselves and others. If you are going through a challenging time with your business (e.g., low income), instead of focusing on the challenge, mindfulness provides an opportunity to reframe – remind yourself that you are doing your best, and focus on how you can learn and grow from this challenge rather than becoming lost in it. 

What are the Benefits?

Mindfulness allows your brain and body to shift its function to the parasympathetic nervous system (i.e., the functions of rest and digestion). With regular practice, this allows us to feel more relaxed, have more mental clarity, be more patient and compassionate, feel more energized, and amplifies our ability to be creative. 

How to Bring More Mindfulness into Your Business

Whether you are a solo-preneur or have a budding company with multiple employees, there are many ways to bring more mindfulness to your business, here are a few ideas:

• Be Intentional – set intentions for what you want to achieve each week but also for how you want to feel; write this somewhere you will see it every day to remind yourself “yes there are deadlines, but I also deserve to feel good”

• Check in Regularly – take a few moments at the beginning of each day to ask yourself how you are feeling, without judgement; this may be through journaling or a quiet mental check in. Let this be the driver for how you manage your day (e.g., if you are feeling tired and overwhelmed, give yourself the space to take breaks as needed)

• Create a Mindful Activity List – It is much easier to practice mindfulness once you have found practices you connect with. Take some time to create a list of activities you can enjoy, and be fully present in, throughout your day/week when you are in need of a mental reset (e.g., listening to music, meditation, movement, writing, colouring, etc.). Be patient with yourself as it may take time to develop this list and let it grow and evolve with you!

• Reflect – at the end of each week write down three things you are grateful for, your biggest challenge, and your biggest breakthrough/proud moment; overtime this is a nice way to look back on how your business has progressed. If you manage employees, share this gratitude with them and encourage them do to this practice as well. 

As an entrepreneur your business reflects your passion, when you bring mindfulness to your work and manage your levels of stress, it ripples out to meet your personal life.

Let me know in the comments which of these practices you are looking forward to bringing to your business! 

About Danielle

Danielle D’Souza is a yoga and meditation teacher focused on helping women bring more self-love into their life through movement, meditation, and mindfulness. She is the host of Release and Restore – Guided Meditations and also recently launched Awaken to Self-Love a Facebook community for women on the journey to self-love. You can find out more about Danielle and her company Yes and Yoga by visiting her website www.yesandyoga.com

Looking for guest contributor opportunities? Please email me at: catherine@catherinenikkel.com with a brief introduction to who you are and, how your topic of expertise relates to Mindful Media.