Meditation makes your work easier (and you are therefore more successful)

This week I heard someone say: meditate every day for twenty minutes and if you really don't have time for that, then meditate for an hour. Not a bad idea, experts say, because people who act mindfully tend to have more business success.

Take Oprah, the CEO of Twitter, or any other random successful person and you will find a mindful or meditative moment in their schedule somewhere in the morning. You even have CEOs who take a moment to breathe in and out before they do emails or meetings to do it as mindfully as possible. Why? By being more aware of your opinion, your feelings, and what you think, it becomes easier to negotiate at work. Something that women often prefer to avoid because they often don't want to get involved in a dispute. But, says expert Erin Gleason Alvarez, we negotiate all day long without being aware of it.

Be aware of the negotiations you already conduct on a daily basis. About the timing of a deadline, for example, or what time you have lunch. Reflect on every well-conducted negotiation and celebrate it if it feels like a success. This way, larger conversations become much easier to have.

The way to approach your work or engage in conversation is to be in the now. Don't get distracted by what is yet to come or what has been, but do it with focus. It also helps if you negotiate without judgment about the other person. Take a moment to put yourself in that person's shoes, where do they come from and above all: what are the interests they have in the story? You will notice that you approach things a bit differently by being so aware.

How do you get to this point most easily? By meditation taking a minute to breathe and focusing on that, which is also meditative and mindful. By taking a moment to pause, it becomes easier to stay true to yourself. Enter a conversation at work with all those positive thoughts and especially don't get distracted by what someone else says about you or to you. Need a break? Let a silence fall. Gleason Alvarez also emphasizes that silence often evokes more from the person you are having a conversation with than you can anticipate.

I heard a self-made millionaire say that she often does things precisely when she feels too busy for such things. No time to walk? Walk for an hour. No time to meditate? Meditate extra long? No time to have lunch outside? You get my point. Everything to get out of that hectic state and do things with more focus. It's Monday, a great moment to give it a try.

Source: Goop