5 Ways to Practice Mindfulness at Work

According to Wikipedia:

Mindfulness is a mental state achieved by focusing one's awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one's feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, used as a therapeutic technique.

When we’re not mindful, we’re not fully present. We’re not engaged in the moment and may feel overwhelmed with racing thoughts which can often become anxiety-producing. When we’re distracted and not being mindful, we easily forget things, scroll for hours on Instagram or find ourselves arriving at a destination like work and thinking “how on earth did I get here!” It’s difficult to be mindful in a digitally-crazed world! Here are a few hacks that I use in an effort to be more mindful…

Set Intentions

I never used to set intentions. In fact, I operated for most of my career in a reactive mode. I would let email set the tone for my day and I wasn’t intentional with my routines. Everything shifts for the better when you set intentions. Start your day thinking about who you want to show up as. What words describe you as the leader you want to be? What is your top priority? Who do you need to connect with on your team?  We have a great resource if you would like to approach each day with more intention and purpose!

Release meditation or music meditation

As a Certified High Performance Coach™ I use a Release Meditation with my clients which they love! No dark room, essential oils or yoga mat required. This is something that you can do at your desk. It takes all of two minutes to do and you’ll feel like a new human when you’re done!

Try it out!

First, let’s set an intention to calm ourselves down and really sense and relax into this moment. If you’re standing right now, try sitting down for this activity. Now please close your eyes and find your center – try to sense your body grounding into this moment. In a few seconds, I’ll ask you to take 10 deep breaths, breathing in through your nose and out through your mouth. During that time, just sense your body and focus on releasing tension. At the end of the 10 deep breaths, I just want you to sit with eyes closed, breathing deeply, and repeating to yourself the word “Release.” Your intention in that time will be to say the word “Release,” as if it represents you releasing all thoughts, stress, and tension in life, even if just for those two minutes. So, 10 deep breaths, in through the nose and out through the mouth, sensing your body. Then 2 minutes with eyes closed in silence repeating in your mind the word Release. Ready? Ok, 10 breaths. Go.

The second style of meditation that I love is music meditation. I read about this in Susan David’s book, Emotional Agility. The trick is to listen to a new piece of classical music. I actually prefer listening to Moroccan music for this. The idea is that you listen to sixty seconds and really listen in like it’s the first time you’ve ever been able to hear music. You’ll hear a new level of richness and tone and depth that you’ve never experienced before. Love this one!

Egg timer

The egg timer is the easiest hack to become more mindful of how you spend your day and what you’re feeling at a given moment. I set my egg-timer for 55 minutes whenever I sit down at my desk. This goes off as a reminder for me to get up, move, get hydrated and set new intentions before I take on a new task.

10 and 2 reminders

Being aware of how we want to show up each day and checking in to see if we’re actually emulating those values are key to mindfulness. This is another coaching hack that you’re welcome to use. I have two reminders on my phone. One goes off at 10:00 a.m. and the other goes off at 2:00 p.m.  Both remind me of my three key words that are important to me and describe my best-self. My words are, disciplined, joyful and kind. You would think that I would anticipate these reminders but I’ve done it for months now and it still surprises me and triggers a check in to see if I’m showing up with congruence to who I want to be.

Acknowledge feelings/journal experiences

Journaling is a powerful experience that several of my team members have started doing during COVID to process thoughts and anxieties. Turns out that there’s science behind the power of journaling. When we stuff our emotions down instead of speaking them or journaling about them, we hold ourselves back from progressing forward. By writing out your feelings with raw, unedited emotion you brain dump those emotions and by doing so they lose their grip and power. Acknowledging hurt, frustration and anger are the first steps to accepting and adapting to feel in control again. By focusing on the feelings you want to generate and stopping to pause on occasion, you will significantly increase your level of mindfulness immediately.

Encourage your team members to use some of these techniques to be more mindful and intentional each day. As always, we welcome your feedback and hope that you’ll share some of your techniques to be fully present each and every day!