Living mindfully in meaningful moments is the best way to get the most out of life. Here are 3 lessons I learned to live more fully with daily mindfulness.
I was lucky to have my freshly graduated son visiting home from university for 6 weeks. Both my young adult sons have been studying abroad in Canada for the past 4 years while my husband and I are based in Hong Kong. So any visiting time with them is precious.
I pretty much dropped all of my work projects to make the most of my time with my son. Running my own consulting business has its advantages. Older and wiser, I know now that moments with family need to be treasured. And if possible to be prioritized to the top of any to-do list.
If only I could go back and tell the younger working mom version of me to be more mindful and enjoy the daily moments with my family instead of just running from task to task on my endless to-do lists. I was incredibly efficient and productive but definitely missed out on enjoying more of the daily moments with my family.
The prime of my corporate career was my life's most effective, productive and most stressed-out period. I was balancing a successful regional executive role with frequent travel requirements and a family life with a husband, 2 young boys and a dog.
I loved my work life and my family life with great passion and tackled my roles as a department leader and family leader with all my energy. At the time, I thought the stress and anxiety that I felt were just an inevitable part of being a busy working mom.
I struggled to find ways to maximize the hours in the day to get it all done. I sacrificed time for self-care as I opted to give 100% of my time and focus on my family and work. I told myself that I could make it work if I just multi-tasked and scheduled efficiently.
In doing so, I effectively scheduled enjoyment of mindful moments out of my daily calendar.
15 years of corporate work-life imbalance and self-care neglect led me to burnout and stress-induced health issues. While the outside world saw me as a successful example of a working wife and mother, I felt like I was constantly not living up to any of my roles.
I felt guilty for being away from my family when I had to work late or travel. I felt guilty when I was taking time for my family and not being more ambitious about climbing the corporate ladder. I was not seeing and enjoying the moments of life that mattered in either role.
It took a lymphoma diagnosis at the age of 45 to slap me upside the head and say, "Hey, your time is limited! What really matters to you in life?!"
How could I balance getting stuff done on my to-do lists with living mindfully and enjoying the daily meaningful moments that make life matter?
For me, the answer was shifting my career so that I could focus on my family and self-care more easily.
Seven years after leaving my corporate life and starting my own business, I am still learning along my self-care and mindfulness path. I have learned valuable lessons in self-compassion and self-worth that were missing during my corporate career's most "successful" years.
I can't go back and reclaim the meaningful moments I missed while I was too busy multi-tasking. I can offer my lessons learned to live with daily mindfulness and enjoy the moments that matter.
Here are 3 lessons I learned to live more fully with daily mindfulness.
Lesson 1: Give Yourself Permission to Enjoy Mindful Moments
During the busiest time of my career, I rarely dared to take a breath, be still and enjoy a mindful moment. I thought that enjoying life was a reward I had to work toward, not realizing that every day in life is a reward.
In reality, I had the choice to enjoy life daily or take it for granted.
I drowned myself in the endless to-do lists, multi-tasked and scheduled my days to get it all done. At times, chasing productivity felt like I was running on a hamster wheel that just spun faster and faster.
I was scared to get off the hamster wheel. I thought that if I stopped running, everything that I worked so hard to build would come tumbling down. I was scared that I would disappoint my bosses and peers. I was scared that I would let my family down if I didn't get everything done for them.
Even when I was diagnosed with lymphoma and underwent my first surgery to remove the tumour, I still pressured myself to get back on the hamster wheel as soon as possible.
In my blog, It's Never Too Late To Turn a New Page, I share how my lymphoma health crisis forced me to get off the hamster wheel and take stock of what I was taking for granted. I learned to give myself permission to enjoy life's precious moments and create more of them.
Instead of waiting for the weekends or vacation days to enjoy life, be mindful of the daily moments begging to bring you joy. Then give yourself permission to enjoy them.
Here are some examples:
The break room conversation is when you can connect with your peers and enjoy a silly laugh or two to break up a busy work day.
Look up from the computer screen of your open office desk and look out of the window to appreciate the view.
Fully greet your spouse/family/pet when you come home with eye contact and a smile to welcome and appreciate each other.
Watch a cartoon together with your children to connect and laugh with them and understand more of their world.
Put on your favourite song and sit with your favourite drink at the end of a long day and just enjoy the calm.
Lesson 2: Slow Down So You Can Catch Up
One of the key elements of being mindful is to breathe deeply, slow down, and become more aware of your body, mind, senses, and surroundings.
When I was running at full speed between all of my roles and to-do lists, I always felt like I was running behind. I even found it hard to take full deep cleansing breaths when trying to practice mindfulness in the beginning. My tense mind and body were used to shallow breathing for efficiency.
I had to learn to slow down so that I could actually catch up to what was happening in my life.
The slow moments with my family are where I could deeply connect with my family and be effective. Listening to my young children's stories about their adventures at school. Conversations with my husband on daily events at work allow each other to vent and support each other.
The slow moments with my work team are where I could be clearer on what needed to be done and how to support them. Empathic listening during one-on-one meetings undistracted by email prompts and meeting alerts. Objective listening during meetings to gain full understanding instead of checking off the meeting agenda topics.
The moments where I could slow down and be mindfully in the moment were the ones where I could actually effectively catch up and productively move forward.
When we run a full speed with tunnel vision on the task list finish line (which is always moving), we miss out on so many opportunities to live meaningful mindful moments while we are also being productive.
Lesson 3: Not Everything on the To-Do List is a Priority
Not all to-do lists are created equally. By definition "priorities" have different values. The trick is to recognize our priorities with mindfulness of what goes on our list.
In my search for self-help and self-development early in my career, I came across the teachings of the late Dr. Stephen R. Covey in his book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I was so affected by his work that I took his courses and even got to meet him. I went on to become an in-house certified facilitator for several of the Franklyn Covey programs.
Two of the most impactful lessons that I learned from Dr. Covey were the concept of "Big Rocks" planning and identifying my "Roles and Goals".
Here is the concept in essence:
"Roles and goals" are what we need to identify so that we can set our priorities accordingly for meaningful life productivity. We need to have this awareness in order to identify the "Big Rocks". Here is my roles and goals example:
Role | Goal |
|---|---|
Mother | To provide coaching and encouragement to enable my sons to be independent young adults. |
Wife | To be a loving life partner and collaborator of our happily ever after. |
Entrepreneur | To provide companies and individuals with development content that help foster personal and organizational growth. |
"Big Rocks" represent our most important priorities in life based on our most important roles and goals. These are the things that will make a positive impact in our lives when we achieve them.
"Gravel" represents all the little tasks that fill up our lives and get in the way of us achieving our "Big Rocks" priorities. They are necessary tasks and can take away our focus and energy to achieve our more important priorities.
Big Rocks planning is changing the approach of our to-do lists to ensure that we schedule and accomplish our impactful priorities first (the big rocks), instead of being distracted and tired out from focusing on busyness tasks (the gravel).
Here is a timeless video where the late Dr. Covey demonstrates how a paradigm shift can help you achieve the big things on your to-do lists while managing the little things.
"Organize and execute each week of your life around your deepest priorities and you will spend your time on the things that matter most, never losing sight of the big picture perspective that makes your life so rich and meaningful."
Dr. Stephen R. Covey
Make and Enjoy Mindful Moments
Many people have the preconception that practicing mindfulness is about flexible cross-legged sitting and chanting "Ohmmmmm." While that is one way of practicing mindfulness, it is not the only way to be aware and live mindfully.
"There’s no separation between meditation and playing with your children or preparing dinner or cleaning the house or going to work – it’s all life unfolding. And we can bring awareness to all of it. So that’s the real meditation practice."
Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn
In my mindfulness learning journey, I found the teachings of the modern-day godfather of mindfulness, Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn. I was immediately drawn to Dr. Kabat-Zinn's real-life outlook and approach to mindfulness.
Dr. Kabat-Zinn says, "Mindfulness isn’t about 'curing' anything; it is about being in a 'wiser relationship' with our thoughts. It would be misleading for anyone to claim otherwise because stress is an inevitable part of the reality of life. Instead, mindfulness helps you manage that stress better. It teaches you to become aware of how you’re reacting to the causes of stress, disengage yourself from that reaction, and instead respond in a healthier way."
During my time as a "successful" corporate working wife and mother, I did not have the awareness needed to manage my stress better.
I had to learn to give myself permission to enjoy mindful moments.
I had to learn to slow down to catch up with what was happening in my life.
I had to recognize that not everything on the to-do list is a priority.
Being mindful of the moments that matter has allowed me to live more fully and enjoy the moments that make life more meaningful.
I end this week with a Zen-inducing 5-minute guided meditation by Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn. Show yourself some love and kindness and take a 5-minute break.
To learn more from Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn, here is a link to a series of insightful articles, videos and guided meditation resources from Mindful.org
Everyday Mindfulness with Jon Kabat-Zinn - Article and Full Digital Resource, Mindful.org
"Mindfulness is about love and loving life. When you cultivate this love, it gives you clarity and compassion for life, and your actions happen in accordance with that."
Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn
Additional information to help you create mindfulness in your life:
Now is a Great Time to Start Practicing Mindfulness - Online Article - HBR.org
Make Mindfulness a Habit - Online Article - HBR.org
Make Self-care a Daily Discipline - Online Article - AYCLimitless.com
I would love to hear your comments!
What mindfulness exercises do you use and how do they help you?
What are your most important roles in life?
How can "Big Rocks" planning help you?
Thank you for spending time at AYCLimitless.com
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