Written by: Virin Gomber, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Success is relative to every human, and it depends on what goal they want to achieve. Although the goals and how to achieve them are different, success requires time, effort, and resilience from anyone that wants to be successful.
It is effortless to set goals and imagine achieving them, but the action and processes that lead to them are the critical keys. Eventually, when people don't achieve those goals, they feel like a failure, and they end up losing their self-confidence.
A strong will and inner strength are required for anyone who wants to succeed. These qualities can be inborn and can also be developed.
The Traditional Paradigm of Success
Since the BC era, wealth has been used to define success. A wealthy person in those days would be regarded as a superior being, someone to whom you would show respect.
They were successful, but were they really happy? Although that was the definition of success back then, does it still apply today?
Like every human being and every previous structure of society, the word evolves as society's values change. The definition of ‘success’ was once thought to be the attainment of wealth, but it has now been modernized to fit into today's society.
The Meaning of True Success
The pursuit of success doesn’t equate to the extent of wealth and power you may have. It even implies that failure is a necessary part of the process of success. It values the process, whether it produces incorrect results or undesirable outcomes. You strive to achieve your objectives until you have fulfilled your life's purpose.
Sir Richard Branson defines success by how happy he is. He has been quoted to say: “Too many people measure how successful they are by how much money they make or the people that they associate with. In my opinion, true success should be measured by how happy you are.”
True success consists of happiness, self-growth, resilience, and personal power. The actual test of success is happiness. Once there's no sign of joy in a person's life, the person isn't living a fulfilled life.
How Mindfulness can help us to Become Successful
Mindfulness is a great tool that helps develop your inner strength by tapping into the power of your mind.
A lot of brainstorming goes into being a successful professional. To keep things flowing in the right direction, striving for mental clarity and understanding the science of stress is essential. You can gain such clarity through Mindfulness.
Mindfulness makes you grounded in emotional intelligence (EI) by strengthening mental resilience, producing a clear mind and allowing you to embrace a happier inner self which in turn gives you a brighter look. Strengthening your emotional intelligence and raising your self-happiness translates to better confidence, improved communication skills and more excellent interpersonal relationships.
A clear and focused mind can be a huge asset for business professionals. These characteristics enable you to produce high-quality work or meet new organizational goals.
Simply becoming aware of your thoughts and unconscious filters can reduce stress and improve your ability to make better decisions. Here are some ways Mindfulness enables this:
Better Productivity
A consistent mindfulness practice assists you in filtering through the chaos of the mind so that you can focus on what is truly important. It is possible to do less, use less time, and be more productive by improving clarity on what is truly important.
Improved decision-making
We all have biases in our brains, even if we don't like to admit it. These biases frequently lead to less-than-optimal decisions. Mindfulness training assists us in developing the advanced levels of self-awareness required to see our preferences objectively before they influence our choices. Mindfulness also helps us design the mental agility needed to make decisions outside our comfort zone.
Unconditional Happiness
The most robust mindfulness training methods were initially constructed with only this purpose: to realize unconditional happiness. Unconditional happiness is something you can train to develop by making an effort to be mindful during your daily activities as possible.
Increased Mind Power
There is no better way to gain influence over others than to understand and assist them in meeting their needs. Mindfulness training alters our brains in ways that help us enhance our mind power in doing so.
Scientific Evidence for Mindfulness
According to the ‘Mindful Leader’ team, Mindfulness is built on a psychological science framework. It was created for use in a medical setting to help patients cope better by reducing pain and stress. It is highly effective in conjunction with traditional treatments for physical ailments.
In other words, Mindfulness was initially used as a supplement to a patient's treatment plan to help them manage their symptoms. It is now also used as a stand-alone intervention for those who want to reduce stress for any reason. A plethora of randomized controlled trials back up the efficacy of mindfulness.
Early mindfulness studies had small sample sizes and limited methodologies. Many large randomized controlled trials have now validated the benefits of Mindfulness. Reflections on the effect of mindfulness interventions show that they improve people's health and help them live more successful lives.
Mindfulness has also been proven to reduce blood pressure in hypertensive patients to levels comparable to medications or other lifestyle interventions such as sodium reduction or exercise (Schneider 1995, Linden & Chambers 1994).
The Blueprint to Integrate Mindfulness as a Practical Tool
To build a successful and determined mind, you must integrate mindfulness into your daily life. A consistent mindfulness practice can help develop a sane mind that would inspire success. Here are five essential things you can do to integrate Mindfulness into your daily life.
1. Mindful Awakening: Begin with a Goal
Given that our subconscious brain controls most of our decisions and behaviours, this practice can assist us in aligning our conscious thinking with a primal emotional drive that the lower centres are concerned with. Aside from safety, these motivations include reward, connection, purpose, self-identity, and core values.
Setting an intention ‒ remembering those primal motivations ‒ helps to strengthen the link between the lower and higher centres. It can alter your day, increasing the likelihood that your words, actions, and responses will be more mindful and compassionate, particularly in difficult situations.
It is an excellent practice to do it first thing in the morning before checking phones or email.
2. Rewire Your Brain with Mindful Pauses
It's estimated that 95% of our behaviour is automated, which can be referred to as ‘fast brain’.
Mindfulness is the inverse of these processes; it is the ‘slow brain’. It is executive control, not autopilot, and allows for intentional actions, self-confidence, willpower, and decisions. However, this takes some practice. Shifting the balance to give your slow brain more power requires effort. Let’s look at some ideas to get you started.
Stumble over your intentions: If you plan to do yoga or meditation, place your yoga mat or meditation cushion in the centre of your floor, so you don't walk right past it.
Update your triggers: Assume you want to use sticky notes to remind yourself of a new goal. That might work for a week, but your fast brain and old habits will take over. Try writing new notes to yourself; add variety or make them funny to make them last longer.
Design new patterns: You can create easy reminders to help your brain stay alert. Try a series of "If this, then that" messages. For example, you could say to yourself, "If the office door, then deep breath," as a way to shift into Mindfulness as you begin your workday. Another example ‒ "Take a breather before answering the phone." Each deliberate action you take to shift into mindfulness strengthens your slow brain.
3. Mindful Exercise: Activate Your Muscles and Mind
What does riding a bike, lifting weights, and sweating on a treadmill have in common? For starters, each can be used as a mindfulness practice. While doing these exercises, you can move and breathe in a way that gets your blood pumping, invigorates every cell in your body, and shifts you from feeling busy and distracted to feeling strong and capable.
4. Mindful Eating: Savor Every Bite
Eating is one of the most pleasurable experiences we have as humans. Doing so mindfully can transform eating into a far richer experience, satisfying the need for nutrition and more subtle senses and needs. We can fulfil all of our hunger if we pay close attention to our bodies and what we truly desire. You can incorporate the following into your diet:
Breathe before you eat.
Eat-in response to your hunger.
Eat-in a calm manner.
Don't eat anything you don't like.
Avoid using any devices when eating.
5. Practice Mindfulness in Everything You do
Start being aware of your surroundings and your tendency to resist them, and being aware of your emotions as they rise and fall in everything you do. But instead of thinking about, judging, or analyzing them, acknowledge them.
Living Mindfully makes Sense
Understanding mindful techniques and the science behind them improves your ability to focus on the task rather than daydreaming about a project (or a vacation) six months in the future.
We're all preoccupied with work and life, but remember that time is one of our most valuable assets. Taking time out of your busy day to practice Mindfulness may appear inconvenient. Still, when you consider how much more productive, balanced, and optimistic you can be at work and home, it makes total sense to prioritize Mindfulness.
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Virin Gomber, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Virin Gomber is a leading Mindfulness Success Coach, Speaker, and Author.
Following a successful corporate career that left him with stress and burnout, he learned, created, and mastered highly effective Mindfulness strategies to boost his balance and personal performance. Since then, he has integrated Quantum Physics, Neuroscience, and Positive Psychology principles to craft a unique blend for his Mindfulness success system.
Dedicated to helping people become top achievers, the core of his work is with entrepreneurs, CEOs, professionals, and driven individuals to support them to achieve peak performance, balance and happiness.
He offers more than a decade of Success Coaching, corporate training, and 25+ years of Mindfulness experience.
Virin has co-authored an Amazon bestseller, “The Missing Piece in Self Love,” appeared on TV shows, and contributed to numerous global online magazines.
His ‘WHY’: To empower people to create accomplished personal skills to achieve next-level success and happiness.
References:
Mindfulness and academic achievement in South African university students https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301296810_Mindfulness_and_academic_achievement_ in_South_African_university_students
Mindfulness as an Intervention for Improving Academic Success among Students with Executive Functioning Disorders https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042815007016
