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Why is mindfulness so important in the workplace? Well, for a number of reasons, actually:
- It helps you make good decisions at work, no matter your occupation.
- It helps you stay focused on tasks that are important to your company/organization.
- It helps drive successful performance in the workplace.
Though, the most aspect of mindfulness comes from within. To achieve mindfulness, one must do a self-evaluation and see where they’re succeeding, and where they’re lacking. By spotting the problem(s) early with mindfulness, you’ll be able to return to a calm and relaxed state quickly. With that said, here are 6 ways to bring mindfulness to your career:
1. Practice Embodiment
Mindfulness can come from embodiment, which is one’s ability to be aware of the body, as they go about their day. Though, in today’s busy and stressful world, it’s easy to get caught up with disembodiment, which is when one forgets that they’re in a body – an important source of information (i.e. emotions, feelings, etc.).
So, to practice embodiment is to reconnect with the body, and to release any tension that you’re feeling at the moment. This allows you to keep calm and do well in your work without sending the wrong signals to your coworkers, supervision, or anyone else.
The best thing about this approach is that you can practice it right now. As you’re reading this, pay attention to the inside of your hands. Mentally become aware of the space inside your hands, around your palm area. As you draw your awareness to this area, you should start to feel this constant sensation of presence in this area.
Yet, even while you focus on this part of your body, you’re still able to read this post. Notice how the rest of your racing mind tends to slow down and you’ve become more mindful and focused in this present moment? This is the power of embodiment!
2. Practicing Focusing
Nowadays, people can lose focus on things, whether it’s from technology consumption, stressful situations, etc. However, people need focus, since it directs the attention to where they want it. Multitasking can be a solution, yes; but there still has to be the focus in whatever is being done.
So, remember; having focus is very important, especially in the workforce. Being focused allows you to notice in the moment when you’re distracted, and to return to what you’re supposed to focus on.
Unfortunately, focus isn’t just something you can switch on and off, but it’s a skill that takes a bit of practice to cultivate. Like we did in the first point, you can practice embodiment or start a daily mindfulness practice that can help increase your focus, but again, it will take time for you to build effective results.
In the meantime, you can do other things to help improve your focus. You can leave distractions out of your way, like putting your phone in a drawer or in a bag where you won’t be able to see it, or listening to repetitive audio, like binaural beats, which have been proven to increase focus.
Whatever you do, the whole idea is to try and train your mind to only focus on one thing at a time. It seems very normal for our minds to be thinking of several things at once, so much so that focusing on one thing can actually feel abnormal; but if you want to be focused and mindful, this is a skill you’ll need to practice.
3. Know Your Stress Triggers
It’s important to know when you’re feeling stressed about something. In fact, stress is not only a performance killer, but it’s also a people killer. Stress can cause the following symptoms:
- Anxiety
- Depression
- High blood pressure
- Insomnia
- Cancer
The list goes on.
Therefore, practicing mindfulness is key, since it brings you into a calm and relaxed state of mental clarity, thus preventing you from illnesses caused by stress. When you start feeling stressed throughout the day, take a moment to come back to the present moment and try to realize what is causing you to feel this way.
Write it down and create a list of triggers. When you become aware of what’s triggering you, firstly you won’t feel so bad because you’ll know exactly what’s going on, but you’ll also be able to deal with it and either rid yourself of the trigger completely, or you’ll be able to reduce the stressful effect of it.
4. Embrace Creativity
When you enter mindfulness, you’ll get a better sense of creativity. Creativity is very useful to have in your career, since it helps you conceive ideas and contribute to collaborations, discussions, etc. Therefore, it hinges on your mental state. However, if your mental state is in bad shape, then little to no creativity will come out of it.
So, you must embrace creativity rather than fight it. In other words, tune out the negative thoughts that tear down inventive thinking and self-expression, and focus on “the now,” so that creativity can flow through you.
Even if your work is boring or not very mentally stimulating, you can still find ways to be creative. For example, if you’re working on a checkout till and find you’re constantly lost in daydreams and not so focused, use your creativity to make your job more fun. How could you give the customers an even more memorable experience, or what could you improve to make someone’s day better? There’s always something creative you can do in any given situation.
5. Understand Emotional Intelligence (EQ)
Emotional intelligence is key to having mindfulness. EQ affects how you:
- Manage behavior
- Navigate social complexities, AND
- Make personal decisions that can achieve positive results
Therefore, EQ helps you recognize and understand emotions in yourself and others; and it’s vital to your behavior and relationships, especially when you’re at work with your bosses, coworkers, and potential customers.
Being emotionally intelligent means you can label and pinpoint how you’re feeling, what emotions you’re currently dealing with, and then being able to deal with those emotions. If someone is emotionally unintelligent, they may get angry and freak out at the slightest inconvenience.
It’s worth remembering that people who do this are probably not even conscious of how they’re acting but are unconsciously just acting through their emotions. When you can become mindful of your emotions, you then get the power to choose how you’re going to respond.
6. Practice Being A Better Person
Ultimately, mindfulness comes from how you act. In other words, your demeanor and choices can either make you or break you.
If you’re not making an effort to be a good person, then fix it right away. It’s never good to hold onto negative thoughts and feelings, which can display you at your worst.
By being a better person, not only will you have a better mindset about the world, you’ll also be able to practice feeling present and calm, which can bring the best in you.
Conclusion
As you can see, mindfulness is beneficial, especially in the workplace, since it helps you to pursue your purpose when it comes to your career. While things can get hectic and stressful in the workplace (and in the world, in general), it’s still important to not lose focus or your cool, whenever things get tough in your day-to-day activities.
The ultimate goal of bringing mindfulness into your career is to reconnect to what’s meaningful to you, and to set your mind to allowing good thoughts and feelings to thrive. So, why not give mindfulness a try? You might be surprised at where it takes you in your career.
By Kristin Herman
who is a lifestyle and career writer and editor at UK Writings.
Member since February, 2021
View all the articles of Kristin Herman.
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