6 ways mindfulness helps you succeed in life

Success certainly has a different meaning for everyone. Regardless, in order to achieve in any area of life, inspiration, focus, communication, energy levels and prioritising skills play crucial roles. When life gets too busy though, your energy drops, it’s hard to concentrate and creativity goes out the window. Here’s how mindfulness helps keep you on track to success.

1. Improves focus

How often are you thinking about 20 new tasks, before you’ve finished the first one? No matter how organised you are, thinking ahead only serves to distract you from putting in the required effort for completion. Mindfulness brings you back to the present moment, to sharpen your focus on the task at hand and help you work more efficiently.

2. Enhances communication

If you’ve ever been in a meeting whereby everyone is talking over each other, just to get their points across, you’ve experienced non-mindful communication – and it rarely leads to outstanding results. Practicing mindfulness allows you to clear your thoughts to fully engage in conversation, listen with openness and respond with clarity and intent.

3. Increases energy levels

Worry is one of the most energy-sapping activities we all hate to indulge in. The problem is, we’re not often aware we’re doing it, until stress, anxiety and frustration take over. Becoming mindful of negative thoughts gives you the ability to switch them around, to more productive ones. Simply pausing in the midst of worry for a few, deep breaths or thoroughly enjoying your coffee on a break, helps you step back into the present and off the path to stress.

4. Improves decision-making skills

Without mindfulness, it’s difficult to make constructive decisions, especially in the heat of the moment. Calm, level thinking stems from focused awareness of our thought patterns, the ability to control emotional responses and intentionally prioritising. Pausing to clear your mind, even for a brief moment, before making decisions leads to the clarity you need for successful choices.

5. Boosts creativity

It’s pretty hard to maintain inspiration, in the midst of mundane activities. Unfortunately though, we can’t escape them. Practicing mindfulness means becoming totally present with our tasks, without the negative thoughts. It’s in the absence of them, that creativity arises to make even the most banal chores more enjoyable.

6. Encourages happiness

Practicing mindfulness on a daily basis means giving yourself the opportunity to notice the little things. For example, when you pause to look out your office window, you might see a butterfly, when you become aware of your food you’ll truly appreciate the taste, when you listen with intent, you’ll learn something new. Mindfulness is an investment towards happiness, which, most of us would agree, is the definition of success.