Why C Levels must learn Mindfulness right now?
Why you must learn Mindfulness right now and especially from a creative director that hasn’t been born in Tibet?
Mindfulness helps you to deal with stress.
We, as busy people of modern times, all experience heavyweight stress and dream of a life that is free of it. Since we can’t all go and live the “monk life” in Tibet, it is best to learn something that can reduce our stress level, here and now. That something is Mindfulness and it is best to learn it from a guy (yep it’s me ☺) who is just like you. Living in a big city, working long hours, exposed to toxic stress every day but also one who has found a way to manage this problem. Like many people who work in Google, IBM, SAP and etc.
Mindfulness helps you to be more focused and efficient.
Let’s face it. Our lives have not much space in it. It is full of stuff. Lots of it. Lots of meetings, personal lives, hobbies, money issues, family matters… etc.
Truth to be told, I’ve never been an efficient person. Never been the super-organized, “done-it-all” kind of guy. On the contrary, always felt like the lazy, inefficient guy who tried to do many things at once and ended up doing not much at all.
I was that kind of guy, let’s say. After I started practising mindfulness, the clarity of mind I achieved, helped me to prioritize my stuff, organize my time, focus on tasks at hand and complete more things in a given time than ever before. Mindfulness helps me focusing and doing things one at a time. This led me to stop multitasking and went back to single-tasking, and that’s where the miracle happened.
If a lazy bastard like myself can do it, I assure you can do much more in a given day than you can ever imagine.
Mindfulness helps you to become healthier and fitter.
A huge benefit of mindfulness is that it brings awareness to your life. Four years ago, I was the kind of guy living on an “autopilot mode”, not fully aware of anything I did. I was eating bad, smoking 2 packs of cigarettes per day, sleeping late, working ridiculously long hours, not exercising. In short, not paying attention to my well-being.
When mindfulness became my daily practice, I realized that I’m not living consciously. I first became aware of my thought patterns and then habits and then behavioural patterns. As my awareness increased, I started acting on my choices not on my habitual patterns and this changed my life. I chose to eat healthily, quit smoking and started exercising.
Once we see what we do, why we do it and how we do clearly, we will recognize lots of irrational or illogical actions that we do.
That’s exactly what happened to me. Now I eat my meal, do my exercise or reach any target with so much joy and awareness. I just focus on my choice of being healthier and the process of doing things instead of finishing things. So can you…
Mindfulness helps you to regain control of your life
Here, at this very point of the article, comes the beginning of the path taking you away from instinctive reactions and leading you towards choices. Because regaining the control of our lives will come not from relying on our instincts but on our choices.
How will mindfulness help you reach that? By introducing awareness to your world. As you become more aware of yourselves, your thought patterns, your habits and your resulting behaviours, you will start to choose how you will behave.
Remember, awareness is the key, you can’t control anything that you are not aware of. So be aware! Be conscious of yourself! Anytime, anywhere…
Mindfulness helps you to become happier and more peaceful.
Worry is a misuse of imagination. We are usually so caught up in worries about the future that we fail to see what we can do today about our lives. Actually, that was my mind’s situation a few years ago. Spending most of my attention and time on worries, fears, doubts. Till I started practising, I was thinking this was the natural state of mind. Good news, it is not.
Mindfulness is the practice of seeing things as they are, which will give you enough space to decide on your actions rather than being lost in negative thoughts.
Once we start taking actions on things we can change and let go of things we can not change, then peace and happiness come to our life. Self-esteem rises but more importantly, self-compassion appears. And that changes everything.
Mindfulness exercises can only help you if you practice them. And I am hereby inviting you to practice these together… This is an invitation to experience a new way of life with your own senses. Not in Tibet, but in the city where your regular lives continue to challenge you every day.