Taking just a few minutes out of your day to pause and practice mindfulness can lead to improvements in your personal and professional life. The benefits of meditation for business owners and entrepreneurs include more confidence, less stress, better brainstorming, and more!
Being an independent business owner is stressful. We live in a fast-paced world where our to-do lists seem never-ending and we’re expected to be available 24/7. It’s challenging to try and grow your business while simultaneously managing everyday life. This is why meditation for business owners can be such a powerful tool in both your personal and professional life.
I’ll be honest. I was quite skeptical about working the practice into my daily routine. Could meditation really be the key to unlocking higher levels of productivity, lower stress, and greater focus? Is it as beneficial as everyone says?
Once I finally decided to work a couple of minutes of meditation into my day, I quickly noticed small improvements. While the benefits aren’t just limited to entrepreneurs, there are some incredibly beneficial outcomes for practicing mindfulness and meditation daily. It turns out that meditation for success is truly a thing, and a small habit can lead to big impacts.
Today, we’re discussing how meditation can help the busy entrepreneur learn to manage stress and improve productivity, and how with only a few minutes each day you can get started.
What is meditation?
Simply put, meditation is focusing and redirecting your thoughts. One of the advantages is how personalized it can be from person to person.
Some people practice meditation by merely focusing on their breathing for a period of time. Other people choose to complete an activity, such as cooking or going for a walk, while trying to focus on the task at hand.
Now, your mind will wander when you meditate, but that is ok. One main point is to simply allow your wandering thoughts and be present with them.
We all worry about tasks, business performance, and work-life balance, but meditation allows us to experience our thoughts without judgment and work toward being more present in every situation.
Instead of worrying about what might happen tomorrow or what’s happened in the past, meditation helps you become more mindful about what’s currently happening.
What are the benefits of meditation for entrepreneurs?
Meditation has numerous benefits for your professional and personal life. Above all, it can help you better deal with stressful situations and grow your confidence. It might be hard to imagine a world where you can easily deal with difficult clients and ace your meetings and speaking engagements, but meditation can surely help. Though it isn’t magic and takes time to form the habit, it’s all about making time for yourself and sticking with it.
1. Reduces stress
Meditation has been shown to cause changes in your brain that can help with stress reduction. A study conducted by Sara Lazar found improvement in the amygdala region of the brain, which controls anxiety, stress, and fear.
The study found the changes after only eight weeks of meditation.
2. Reduces ruminating thoughts
A ruminating thought is when you replay a problematic thought in your head over and over.
Picture this: You’ve been working on a project for weeks, pouring your heart and soul into the work. It is now time to present your project to the world. Except when you do, you’re met with a less-than-enthusiastic response.
As an entrepreneur, we are tied incredibly close to our work. It can be challenging to let go of the negative feedback we get.
Rather than play that negative feedback over and over on an endless loop in your mind, the healthy thing to do would be to move forward.
Meditation helps you reduce ruminating thoughts by helping you focus on the present, rather than things in the past.
3. Increases attention span
Imagine how much work you could get done if you could increase your attention span. Meditation improves your attention span, which would work wonders for your productivity.
In a 2008 study conducted by Chambers et al., it was found that those who took part in a 10-day intensive mindfulness meditation retreat had better working memory capacity and longer attention spans, compared to a control group that did not participate in the retreat.
4. Improves sleep
Stress, ruminating thoughts, and several other factors tend to keep us up at night. The relaxation response triggered by meditation allows your body and mind to enter into a peaceful state where you can fall asleep faster and stay asleep for longer.
Tips for starting meditation
There are several different ways to meditate, and as you begin, you will find the way you prefer!
You can meditate from virtually anywhere. You don’t need any fancy equipment or tools or any previous experience. The optimal time for meditation also depends on your own preference and schedule. Some people find it’s best to wake up a little earlier and sit for 10 minutes before they start their day, while others find it’s best right before bed time.
If you are brand new, you might like following along with apps or videos.
Some great apps for starting your meditation journey include:
YouTube also has many guided meditation videos that you can listen to by searching “guided meditation.”
You can also try meditating on your own, without any apps or videos by sitting down in a quiet area, closing your eyes, and focusing on your breath as you breathe in and out.
A lot of people wonder what to focus on when meditating– to start, pay attention to your breathing. From there, you can focus on each muscle and make sure they’re all relaxed. You can also focus on the emotions you’re feeling. As thoughts wander into your mind, you simply need to acknowledge them and continue to focus on your breathing.
As thoughts wander into your mind (and they will) you simply need to acknowledge them and continue to focus on your breathing.
Anyone can start meditating!
Meditation doesn’t need to be a lengthy process to start seeing results. If it’s something you haven’t done before, trying it out for two or three minutes at a time, a couple of times per day, can often be enough to get you started.
