Mindfulness For Entrepreneurs: What It Is And How You Can Practice It

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Mindfulness brings you clarity and focus, making you a better person and a more well-rounded professional. I’ve practiced it myself, and I can tell you that your life is richer for being mindful.

Below I go into more detail about what mindfulness is, and how entrepreneurs can practice it.

Recommended reading: How Meditation Has Changed My Life

What is mindfulness for entrepreneurs?

Mindfulness is, as you might expect, is a state of mind.

Being mindful is about being aware of what’s happening to you at a given moment, while acknowledging how that makes you feel – mentally and physically.

Mindfulness for entrepreneurs is knowing how you feel about your business (how it’s operating and affecting you) and using this awareness to have more clarity about it.

Mindfulness removes the clutter from your mind, allowing you to focus on your work and move forwards with clarity. Having clarity on the status of your business reduces stress: something that’s linked to the six biggest causes of death – suicide, heart disease, cancer, lung ailments, cirrhosis of the liver, and accidents. So mindfulness is something that can help you to actually live longer, as well as prosper in your business.

It’s been claimed that mindfulness not only helps you live longer, it also helps to create opportunities for entrepreneurs. How? University of La Verne’s professor of management and leadership, Louise Kelly, explains it like this: “mindfulness increases self-compassion and increases compassion for others,” making it easier to spot “pain points.”

Running a business is about finding your customers pain points, then providing solutions. Mindful entrepreneurs are able to make their products better suited to their customers needs, increasing their value and making them more popular. Ollie Aplin is the perfect example of someone who used his knowledge of mindfulness to become an entrepreneur. Ollie created Mind Journal, a journal that gives people prompts each day to help them lead a mindful life.

How entrepreneurs can practice mindfulness

While being mindful is a state of mind, it’s not something many people arrive at organically. It takes work to become and stay mindful, but there’s plenty of help available to help you practice mindfulness. Speaking from experience, your starting point for practicing mindfulness is to use Headspace.

Headspace is a company that employs many mediums to help people practice mindfulness through guided meditation. Started by Andy Puddicombe, a former Sports Science student who spent over a decade as a practicing Buddhist monk, Headspace uses animations, blogs, videos, and podcasts to deliver its teachings on mindfulness.

You can practice mindfulness at work by beginning at home. I use Headspace each morning, starting my day with mindful meditation. Using Headspace as a tool for mindfulness gives me balance, clarity, and space to breathe. What this all means is that I arrive into the office with the focus to tackle my work in the most sensible way.

Practicing mindfulness at work isn’t only about meditating. Your meditation routine needs to be backed up by actions that allow your mind to focus:

• Sleeping right each and every night
• Making business decisions based on reason, not emotion
• Not spending your day trapped in your email in box
• Having a tidy home and office environment
• Giving yourself some clear thinking time each day

Being mindful is so much more than a state of mind. Mindfulness is a way of achieving your best self, then letting it filter into every part of your life. While entrepreneurs who practice mindfulness aren’t shielded from death, or guaranteed prosperity, they are less stressed and better positioned to succeed in work and life.

By Guest Blogger: Kayleigh Alexandra