Timothy Hinton, of Peaceful Transitions, recently shared some activities with our community for becoming more mindful in our lives for impact in our businesses and relationships. This is the complete workshop along with highlights. Grab a pen and paper, settle in, and get present.
What is mindfulness to you?
Tim Hinton shared, “mindfulness is the ability to be present within the moment. Why is that so important? It’s so important because in everyday life we can’t be stuck in our past and we can’t be stuck in the future. We have to be present and if we’re not present then we’re not cultivating the joy, cultivating the happiness, cultivating the peace that we can have because we’re not aware of what’s going on in our present. We’re not aware of what’s going on within the moment. So mindfulness is transformational: just being present, having the ability to be present, to be present with your body, to be present with your emotions these things are transformational.”
Activity: Write down what mindfulness means to you and what that looks like in your everyday life.
What is your why?
Knowing why you want to improve, change, and grow starts with your why. You may already know your why. Others may still be on the journey of figuring it all out. Tim offered us an activity to help you draw out your why to get you on the right foot on your mindfulness path.
Activity: Imagine that you’re in an audience, listening to a captivating speaker. The entire audience is moved by what the speaker is saying; they’re touched and inspired. Now, imagine that YOU are that speaker in a few years. Write down 1) what are you speaking about that is captivating and inspiring the audience?, 2) why do they look up to you?, and 3) what are the core values you’re sharing?
Transitioning from a negative to a positive mindset
We’ve all experienced complainers in the workplace. There always seems to be at least one person that exudes the characteristics of a negative mindset, bringing down the energy in the room. If you look around and don’t immediately bring someone to mind, don’t be afraid to look in the mirror. These exercises from Tim will certainly help you transition into a positive mindset.
Having a negative mindset within a workspace is not productive. It leads to complaining, wasted time, and a feeling of being stuck like you can’t move forward. It doesn’t allow you to grow. It doesn’t allow you to see opportunities. It keeps us fixated on the bad things that are happening.
In our businesses, we want to be productive, create beautiful, transformational things for our clients, and attract more clients to us. We want our clients to leave us better than when they sought us out, so it’s so important that we’re not complaining and wasting our time in a negative mindset because it limits our success.
Tim reminds us that our negative mindset can actually be the biggest contributing factor to our stress levels. Look to your own life and think about how you feel when you’re stressed and what stress causes in your own life. He says, “I know that I’m not as productive when I’m stressed. I know that I’m more exhausted when I’m stressed. I know that I can’t have a clear mind, I can’t have clarity, and I can’t work creatively when I’m stressed. And stress can also suppress the immune system. It can increase the risk for physical ailments such as diabetes, cardiovascular issues like heart attacks and heart disease, and gastrointestinal issues. It can increase the risk of depression, anxiety, and other mental health disorders. Stress doesn’t allow us to be in the most effective space where we can live our absolute best lives. Stress holds us back and that creates waste.”
He reminds us that we’ll sometimes feel anger, frustration, confusion, and negativity. But it’s important that we know those things don’t define who we are. We can consciously respond to life and what is thrown at us instead of simply reacting. That way, we don’t let our emotions define our experience. This allows us to step into a space of positivity so that we can live our best lives and have the most successful business because we’re able to see the opportunities to grow.
Here are two activities that Tim recommends for releasing stress and letting go of a negative mindset: Meditation and Journaling.
Activity: Meditation. Watch the video and jump to minute 17:54 for a guided meditation led by Tim.
A lot of people imagine somebody sitting down and simply clearing their mind when they think of meditation. That is not meditation. Meditation is a family of practices consisting of deep breathing, walking, exercising, and eating. Mindfulness meditation is broad with many different ways to meditate and to really cultivate presence within your life.
Meditation increases relaxation so in high-pressure situations, difficult conversations, and negotiations we’re able to be relaxed, calm, tranquil so we can better manage that situation. Our energy improves by 60%. Our relationships improve because it connects us with empathy and compassion. We’re able to cultivate much better relationships within our lives and with our clients. It draws us closer positivity and positive emotions, improves creativity, reduces anxiety, improves cognitive ability, clarity, memory and concentration, and is used to treat and relieve depression.
How amazing is that? Just breathing and connecting with your body does all of these things for you.
A study that was done in a workspace studying the effects meditation had on productivity. They set upon a 60-day meditation process where all their employees would practice meditation twice a day for 30 minutes and they found that these employees were more productive and they were more creative in the way they were able to find solutions to current problems within their workspace. They were clear, concentrated, and more focused. This led to a 520% profit increase! Sounds too good to be true, but it’s not.
Activity: Journaling. Set a timer for three minutes and just start writing down what’s on your mind. You can start with how you’re feeling, and investigate that feeling. You can write about something that happened to you recently in order to dig into what emotion you’re feeling. Try to connect to your emotions because the power of journaling truly comes from identifying how you feel and recognizing that those feelings don’t define you.
There are studies that have shown that if you journal for seven days it can bring you significant amounts of happiness. This is because, when you’re able to label an emotion through your journaling or label what’s going on, you’re able to see it on paper and manage those emotions at a much more effective rate.
The combination of daily meditation with journaling is powerful. We encourage you to try these practices for 30 days to fully take advantage of the long list of benefits associated with mindfulness. Your practice will deepen and transform you beyond measure. You and your business deserve your best.
About Timothy Hinton: Tim is from Sandusky, Ohio. He’s a third-year senior at The Ohio State University. Tim has been a year-long consistent meditator. He is also a wellness coach at Ohio State as he receives his certification in meditation and mindfulness teaching. He is the founder of Peaceful Transitions where he works with individuals, corporations, and schools to implement mindfulness into everyday lives.