Mindfulness as a Catalyst for Change

How active mindfulness can help you achieve your goals

What is mindfulness? Essentially everything starts in the mind so mindfulness can be interpreted as our thoughts.

These days mindfulness is interpreted as doing something like meditation, something that makes us feel peaceful, but can mindfulness also be our catalyst for change and very active rather than passive?

Mindfulness in a time of change

I think we can all agree that in order to accomplish extraordinary things, we have to do what many people simply aren’t willing to do. We know that in order to get from where we are now, to where we want to be… is always going to involve change. So, we’re going to have to do different things, or do things differently.

There’s no getting around it. Change is difficult, sometimes, extremely difficult.

When we decide in our minds that we need to change, we become enthusiastic. We imagine how amazing things will be once we have become thinner, fitter, learnt a new language, finished a course, started a business, won a tournament and so on.

We are mindful that it is not going to be easy, but are we mindful of the sweet suffering that we truly are going to have to endure to achieve the change?

In the cold light of day, when we are having to do the uncomfortable things in order to move forward, when the going gets tough and our enthusiasm begins to wear off, how will we react?  

When we realise the journey isn’t going to be as rosy as we imagined and progress slows down and we start to get intense feelings of wanting to quit, how do we hang in there?

This is where I believe mindfulness can really help.

Practical Mindfulness

Practical mindfulness is to remind ourselves of the plan that we set and of the progress, no matter how small, that has already happened.

We can also use passive mindfulness to relax, to relieve stress or just to calm down with daily meditation. There is no formula for getting through the tough times other than finding out what works best for us.

My biggest takeaway is to simply stay in the game. In other words no matter how small the step forward, just keep taking them. Don't get too caught up in comparing yourself to how well you or others are progressing.

When we are suffering or struggling, just keep going, because things change and eventually it has to get better as you learn and evolve. Keep in mind that life is not a race and if it becomes a race, it’s because you’ve chosen to make it into a race.

What if you just chose to keep getting better at your own pace, a pace that you can enjoy even through the tough periods?

Mindfulness and Sweet Suffering

The reason I use the phrase sweet suffering is because of the feeling of it being worth it; the accomplishment and satisfaction we feel for example after a tough run or any hardship, once we’ve made it through.

When we get frustrated and find ourselves with too much to do and not enough time or something really hard to do, in our minds we can easily enter an unpleasant place.

And, because we are hardwired for comfort, we typically don’t hold up well in in these challenging situations.

Here, we find ourselves with two choices.

1. We can 'sweet-suffer' and push through
2. …or (the most common choice) we can retreat to comfort, abandoning all progress and sabotage our own success to start something new. Retreating to comfort allows us to instantly relieve our discomfort and avoid any potential failure. 

When people are counting on us, this is often the incentive we need to re-motivate ourselves and push through; however it can also be the moment where we are forced to invent great excuses for not following through to the end.

If we continue to allow ourselves to cave under pressure, we lose trust in our own word, in our belief that we will do what we set out to do. It’s very likely we will ultimately disappoint the ones that love us the most. We have to find an effective way to manage the overwhelming situations we’re inevitably going to find ourselves in and be reliable to ourselves.

3 Thoughts on Active Mindfulness

Reflect on these statements:

If ambition is the path to success, persistence is the vehicle you arrive in.

Perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles, discouragements, and impossibilities often determine the outcome.

Energy and persistence conquer many things.

We’ve all been inspired by tales of the underdog who demonstrates relentless persistence in the face of insurmountable adversity. We often imagine we see a little bit of ourselves in their stories. Ultimately, we choose whether to always select comfort over sweet suffering or be determined to push through on the challenges that we have selected to take on!

Mindfulness as a Catalyst for Change... final thoughts

Mindfulness is a very useful tool to help with our awareness of who we are and to understand what we are prepared to do and what we won’t do. This helps us decide which challenges to accept into our lives and which to reject.

Using a coach who can challenge and question us to help us in the battle of where we put our energies is something that I believe is vital to balancing our thoughts and biases.

Mindset College is a life skills course for competitive people. It helps establish a foundation of thinking and mindfulness of how to manage the challenges that we all face. There is no magic solution other than learning about ourselves and how we can manage our dreams and expectations.