What is mindfulness based coaching?
MBC is about your wellbeing, and the wellbeing of your business; but it's also much, much more.
What is Mindfulness ?
Mindfulness is a way of accessing more of your resources.
Most of us unconsciously operate in the past, reacting to things in the same way that we have always done. This makes us fundamentally ineffective, meaning that it takes us much longer to get where we want to go.
Mindfulness is making decisions based on your own direct experience of a problem, rather than following what has worked for other people, or even what may have worked for you in the past.
This is why mindfulness in essential for entrepreneurs, creatives, and anyone responsible for innovation in a business or organisation.
The absolute best thing about mindfulness is that it changes how you see problems, problems change; from something to be avoided, into an important tool for growth.
My second favourite thing about mindfulness is that it means that my work-life balance is always in the sweet spot.
Problems at work become a tool for my business to grow, but also provide tools for me to grow as a person. Similarly, when I have problems in my personal life, I am able to use them as tools to live a happier life, have more successful relationships, etc., but these tools also bring my business into even better alignment.
Mindfulness in business is the ultimate 2 for 1 deal.
What outcomes can I expect?
Studies suggest that people who practice Mindfulness are:
20% more productive
11% more mentally resilient
31% less anxious
14% more focused
And the list goes on. You can google yourself to find studies, or check out some of those below:
Outcomes can happen quickly, as soon as Mindfulness becomes a regular way of thinking.
There are also benefits to your:
- physical health - including healthier blood pressure, better immunity, increased and more sustained energy levels, better sleep
- and your emotional life and relationships - which, studies show, are improved 80% by regular mindfulness over 6 weeks.
Do I need a coach to practice Mindfulness ?
No. Anyone can practice Mindfulness.
You don’t need any equipment, experience or even any special exercises or techniques. All you need to do to practice mindfulness is to keep returning to the question ‘ Is the decision I’m making based on my own direct experience of the problem?’
What a coach can provide is an environment which makes asking this question easier, until it becomes second nature.
Is MBC the same as 'founder wellbeing' or 'corporate wellness'?
Good question.
Exercises to promote physical, mental and emotional wellbeing are a part of what MBC is, but in coaching sessions we work directly on your business and your real life every day decisions - using them into tools for self awareness - rather than using the techniques to provide an escape from them.
For many people Founder Wellbeing begins with learning techniques to manage stress, overwhelm, lack of motivation, insomnia, difficulty in relationships and other human challenges, which are naturally increased when you are taking on the super human role of creating a business.
These techniques, including; breath meditation, body scan meditation, communication, negotiation skills and present focus meditation, are a part of what MBC is.
But ...
... and this is a big but. Practising these skills on their own can actually be counter-productive.
Like any method to manage the stresses and strains of life, these techniques can become addictive.
If you take on more and more stress because you're more and more able to cope - now that you're escaping to your meditation for 10 minutes every hour. Is this really any different to drinking? It might be better for your liver, but for your mental and emotional wellbeing it is just as bad.
So what's missing ?
Techniques such as breath meditation, body scan meditation, communication skills and present focus meditation all have the same objective: to bring your awareness to the present moment.
But this is not the final goal. The final goal is usually translated as 'remembering' - gathering all the pieces and putting them together.
Over the course of a day, a week, or a year, you will have had many thoughts, you will have noticed many things, about your business, yourself and your markets, you will have had many interactions with your team, your investors and your mentors. In short you will have been gathering information.
The final goal of MBC is to create an environment for all those scraps of information to be aggregated, giving you access to all of the information at the same time.
Let's break down how that happens:
- Notice tension - this could come in the form of muscle tension, stress, insomnia, being overstretched financially, not having enough time, arguments at work or at home, or tension between team or board members (whether in involves you directly or not).
- Observe Dynamics - what is causing the tension? Which things feel like they are pulling in opposite directions - the need to be sitting at your desk vs the need to be lying in your bed, the need to pay your supplier vs the need to invest in your marketing, the need to look after your team vs the need to meet the expectations of your board, the need to attract two investors with different expectations.
- Move from an Oppositional Mindset to an Entrepreneurial Mindset - If you can leverage it skilfully, tension is always creative. It allows you to scale up your thinking and work more effectively with others, expanding your mind, your client base and your bottom line.
- Arrive at 3 or more actionable Solutions - MBC allows you to see situations from multiple vantage points so it generates not only a solution, but many possible and actionable solutions, and then it gives you the tools to decide between them, giving you multiple win-win scenarios and the luxury of choice.
