As an entrepreneur, you can be faced with a lot of demands and stresses. All the external noise can take a toll on you and sometimes, you just want to stop the flow of never ending thoughts and experience a sense of calm.
To achieve something great, it’s important to focus your attention on what truly matters. You need to have a clear head. You need to be positive to make better decisions. Your energy deserves to reboot so you can keep moving forward.
Meditation might just be your secret to success in business.
A growing number of successful entrepreneurs are embracing meditation for its immense benefits in helping them attain success. Oprah Winfrey. Arianna Huffington. Marc Benioff.
How Meditation Can Help You
1. Meditation helps you develop mental toughness.
The process of releasing all your buried thoughts and feelings and accepting them without judgment allows you to build resiliency. Grit is a fundamental trait for success because it lets you hold on even in the toughest times. When you’re mentally strong, you are able to push aside things you cannot control and work with what you can.
2. Meditation improves your ability to make decisions.
The importance of decision making in business cannot be overstated. You know that for every wrong there will always be consequences. Poor decision making often happens when you have a lot of chatter going on in your head. Most of all, you tend to lose touch of the things that really matter in your business. When you meditate, you gain clarity. You know your purpose and every part of you is on the same page.
3. Meditation decreases your stress, helping you feel better.
It has been shown that meditation helps you develop feelings of love, compassion, and understanding. A study has also been conducted on the effects of meditation on individuals. Participants scored lower on negative feelings like anger and self-doubt. There was also a significant decrease in cortisol, the body’s stress hormone. Running a team or trying to do many things at once can cause a lot of emotional tension. Through meditation, you are able to calm down. You can also communicate better with the people around you.
4. Meditation helps you focus.
Many things in your business compete for your attention and this challenges you to maintain your focus. According to Dr. Jim Taylor, an authority on the psychology of sport and parenting, focus is the gateway to all thinking. That includes your ability to problem solve, reason out, learn, and make decisions. Lose focus and nothing ever gets done.
Types Of Meditation
Below are 3 types of meditation you might want to try:
1. Mindfulness Meditation
Mindfulness meditation is the kind of meditation that enables you to fully place your focus on the present moment. You’re paying attention to the present without giving any judgment to it. When your mind tends to wander off, you slowly bring it back.
2. Qi Gong
Qi Gong is an ancient form of meditation that combines relaxed breathing and body movements to allow the flow of energy throughout your body. This meditation helps you better deal with stress.
3. Guided Visualization
A mind-body meditation, guided visualization involves thinking about positive things so you experience better emotions. With guided visualization, you are able to develop abstract thinking and strengthen your intuition.
Simple Tips To Get Started With Meditation
It’s normal to feel overwhelmed when you first start meditation. You don’t need to be an expert at meditation. Just get started and keep going. You’ll make progress over time.
1. Choose the best time of the day for meditation.
This doesn’t have to be a specific time. You can meditate as you wake up in the morning before breakfast, at work in the afternoon, or being going to bed at night. A lot of people find meditating early in the morning a great day starter.
2. Start with a few minutes.
As a beginner meditator, you’re not expected to meditate for an hour. Start with 3 to 5 minutes. You can gradually increase your number of minutes if it all goes well. It’s important to start small so you can build momentum.
3. Choose a quiet place and comfortable position.
Whether you sit crossed legged or not, what’s most important is that you feel comfortable with your position. This helps you focus better. A quiet place is more relaxing for beginners. You can use meditation music if it helps, but nothing beats plain silence.
4. Meditate on an empty stomach.
It’s good to meditate before you have your meal. Just in case you’ve had a hearty meal, your food should not be high-caloric, fatty, and sugary since these foods tend to cloud your mind. If you’re uncomfortably hungry, you shouldn’t meditate either.
Conclusion
Multiple studies have shown that meditation benefits entrepreneurs, CEOs, and other professionals who are often faced with challenges. With meditation, you’ll be able to clarify your path in business, be more creative in solving problems, and able to better deal with ups and downs. Don’t push self-care at the bottom of your list.