6 Mindfulness Practices that Will Make You a Better Entrepreneur
Do you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur? Entrepreneurship is hard. It’s not for everyone. It really isn’t for the faint of heart. Entrepreneurship is an intense but rewarding life path for those who chose it, even though it can be a fairly difficult one. For those of us that have chosen to be entrepreneurs, incorporating mindfulness practices into our daily lives can make the path much easier.
Why Mindfulness Matters
It’s important to keep track of our mental state. You should check in with yourself every once in a while to see how you are feeling. If your mind is cluttered and anxious, it can lead to depression and self-destruction. Likewise, if you keep it calm and clear, you can cultivate happiness, creativity and self-assurance.
The goal of mindfulness is to regulate your mental state. It’s meant to keep it from fluctuating from extreme to extreme. You know what I mean, one minute you’re incredibly sad followed by a period of intense happiness. This can be confusing for you to deal with on a personal level, and even harder to deal with if you are managing a growing business.
In the following sections I will discuss the mindfulness practices that I find most beneficial for entrepreneurs. I will break down why they’re important, how they affect our mental health and why they specifically matter for entrepreneurs.
You ready? Let’s dive right in.
Exercise
This one may be obvious, but for those of you that don’t know, it is extremely beneficial for you to exercise. Exercising has a load of benefits for our bodies including:
Improving your mental health
Increasing memory retention
Elevating energy levels
Expanding your creativity
Helping you feel happier
My personal preference is yoga. There are so many benefits to practicing yoga that go beyond traditional exercise; however, if you prefer another form of exercise—running, boxing, pilates, surfing—be my guest and do that instead. The type of exercise you choose doesn’t really matter. What’s important is to pick something you like to do, and do it. Try to get your workout done in the morning. I know, easier said than done. Working out early in the morning can help set the mood for your entire day. Why not start it off right with a good sweat?
Meditating
More and more entrepreneurs are picking up a meditation practice. Why? Because it is a mind-altering practice. Meditation has been around for centuries, but has recently blown up in popularity (thanks yoga influencers.) Meditation can benefit your entrepreneurial path by:
Stabilizing your mental state
Clearing your mind
Reducing anxiety
Increasing your creativity
Improving brain function
If you are stressed, you should meditate. If you are angry, you should meditate. If you are happy, you should definitely meditate. There is never a bad time for you to pick up a meditation practice. For entrepreneurs specifically, meditation offers us the ability to go deeper into our consciousness. It allows us to reach areas of our minds that are untapped and unseen. It expands our ability to think outside of the box and come up with creative solutions to some of the most difficult problems. Plus, it makes us better communicators.
Meditation can be daunting though. I understand that sitting alone for 15-20 minutes at a time can be quite hard. Be gentle with yourself, and try starting out with a simple 5 minute meditation for the first couple of days you do it. From there, gradually increase the time each day until you reach the 20 minute mark (or longer if you are called to do longer meditations.)
I’ve personally found that my favorite way to meditate is with the app Insight Timer. It has the option for solo meditation, where it keeps track of the time you meditate with light sounds (or no sound) in the background. The app has free guided meditations you can follow as well. You can follow your friends, and encourage one another to meditate. There is also a premium version that you can pay for, which supports the apps development. Overall, I think this is one of the best free resources you can use for meditation.
Divination
I personally have found that using divination tools like oracle decks and tarot decks have improved my path as an entrepreneur. These tools are meant to help guide us and bring us clarity. When meditation alone is not enough to guide us in the direction we need to go, this is when using your cards can be beneficial.
When pulling cards for my business, there are two types of spreads that I generally turn to. The first is the simple 1 card spread. I ask a specific question and turn to see what direct message the cards have for me. The second is a 3 card past, present and future spread. In this spread the answer is more nuanced, covering my question from different angles. I interpret this spread in the following way:
Past: This is how I previously felt and reacted toward the situation I am asking the cards about.
Present: This is currently how I feel about the situation.
Future: If I follow the guidance and advice shown in this card, I will achieve my desired outcome.
When I use the cards I make sure to frame my questions in a way that focus on me rather than external sources. For example, instead of asking, “Will I land a new client this week?” I will ask, “What can I do to increase the chances of landing a new client this week?” This will ensure that you receive the most reliable answers from your cards.
I also want to note that it’s important not to rely to heavily on the cards. Overusing them can cause them to lose their value in your mind and make them ineffective.
Journaling
Journaling is another useful tool that you can use as an entrepreneur. As with all the other practices mentioned on this list, journaling helps clear the mind and center the soul. Journaling gives you the space to get your ideas out. It takes the thoughts in your head and puts them into the physical world.
Don’t overcomplicate journaling. You do not need to have profound ideas each and every time you sit down to write. Some days you’ll write mundane things, others times you will come up with amazing ideas. Take the pressure off yourself and set some time aside to write every day. 10-15 minutes of free writing is enough to elevate your mood, reduce anxiety and improve your overall mental state.
Positive Affirmations
Entrepreneurship is all about doing things. I get that. But you have to be able to think about things in a positive way in order to do the things that are really going to move the needle in your business. Wouldn’t you agree?
Positive affirmations help you set yourself up for success. They help you create a mindset that supports your goals. Want to make six figures this year with your business? Well, then you can’t think that you are terrible at making money. Instead, you can use a positive affirmation such as, “Money flows to me easily and freely,” to retrain how you think about money.
I like to come up with a positive affirmation every week. That way I have time to integrate the lesson of the affirmation in my mind. I also like to put the positive affirmation on my bathroom mirror, either written on a post it or with whiteboard markers on the mirror. That way I will it every day. This helps me get in tune with the lesson in the affirmation. Just make sure you place your affirmation somewhere you will see it daily and you’re on track to be impacted from your own affirmations as well.
Don’t get me wrong though, positive affirmations are not end-all be-all solution. You will still have to work hard to achieve your goals and dreams. They will make the journey a little bit easier though. And why wouldn’t we want to make our entrepreneurial journeys easier?
Meal Prep
This one is probably less obvious than the rest. To me, eating is an act of mindfulness. When you eat nourishing, healthy and delicious food, you feel better in your body and mind. This, in turn, makes you a better entrepreneur.
We’ve all been there. You forgot to eat breakfast, then you got too busy working on a project to eat lunch. 3 PM rolls around and you still haven’t eaten. By this point you’re sluggish and have a headache. You end up running out for fast food as a result because you can’t be bothered to cook when you feel this bad. This is not a cycle for success my friends.
Taking some time out of your week to plan your meals can save you a lot of hassle throughout the week. Meal prepping has a variety of benefits. It will:
Save you time
Help you eat healthier meals
Improve your mental performance throughout the day
Support your health and fitness goals
Save you money
Personally, I love to cook. Cooking is my absolute favorite hobby. I cook for pleasure and enjoy every minute of it. That being said, cooking for pleasure is not always in the cards. It is absolutely imperative for me to meal prep for the work week, even if I spend most of it at home. This helps me maximize the time I actually spend working.
I usually prep most of my cooking for the week on Sundays. I’ll spend the day coming up with a menu for the week, grocery shopping and cooking what I have planned. Depending on what I have planned for breakfast, I will prep what I need to in advance on Sundays. Sometimes I don’t need to, like if I’m having yogurt parfaits that week. In that case, I put together my parfaits for breakfast in under 5 minutes, usually while my coffee steeps in my French press.
I always make sure to plan my lunches in advance. I like to take a relatively long break for lunch, usually anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour. Having to cook during that time just adds more time to that break. Having food prepped in advance also helps me save money during the week. If I have a dish for lunch already prepared, it reduces the chances of me stopping to grab something while I’m out and about.
Since, as I mentioned, I love to cook, I keep my dinners flexible. I do the bulk of my work for the day during the hours of 9-5, so I give myself the space to have the nights free. If I want to cook an elaborate meal for dinner, I will. If I want something quick and easy, I’ll do that. Dinner is the meal where I can enjoy myself the most during the work week. I savor those moments, and it makes my dinner much more satisfying.
Conclusion
Now its your turn. It’s time to step up. If you’re able to push yourself to achieve your business goals, you can push yourself to live more mindfully. In time, you will find that incorporating mindfulness practices into your entrepreneurial lifestyle will improve your quality of life. Heck, it will probably improve your business as well.
Try it out. Start now. And let me know how things go in the comments.
