What is mindfulness and Why it is important?

Every Wednesday we have a live session on Instagram on various topics related to emotional health and wellness. (You can check these sessions and join us for live by following @deepikasuccesscoach) One such topic was mindfulness, it was an interesting session and lot was discussed based on the questions from different participants however what I felt strongly during the interaction is that the two fundamental points were not very clear among the participants which I had thought was common knowledge and hence I thought I should write about it in my blog as an attempt to simplify it for the benefit of all to read. The two fundamental points were 1) What is mindfulness? 2) Why is mindfulness important?

Let me ask you, how many times have you left the house, got into the car, drove for a while, only to realise that you are headed the wrong way? Or how many times have you sat in a meeting and suddenly you realise that you have no memory of what happened in the last 5-10 minutes of the meeting. There are plenty of such examples, even things like forgetting your wallet or keys behind while stepping out could be an example of not being mindful. So mindfulness is bringing your conscious self to the present. Often people ask how one can drive the car if they are not conscious, well, all the activities that you perform on a regular basis, the subconscious mind builds it in the memory and you will be able to perform it even without consciously working on it. Mindfulness is when your conscious energy is in the present. A lot of relationships can be saved from breaking or can be enhanced by just being mindful. The most common complaint in a relationship is that the other person does not listen, well, our ears are always open, then why don’t they listen? The simple answer is that the ears are listening but because the person is not mindful they are not concentrating on what is being heard.

This brings us to the next point of why mindfulness. There is a world within us, our thoughts, our emotions all are in this world, there is a world outside of us, all people around us are a part of that world, we constantly communicate with the outside world with our senses, however processing of that communication with the outside world happens only through mindfulness. Mindfulness helps us process the information we get and act upon it. All of us are mindful for most part of our daily life, that is how we get our daily work done, but the challenge is to be mindful during every moment, this comes with practice. As a success coach I have developed tools and methods which help one to learn and master this art. Mindfulness is extremely important for one’s career success and hence I recommend people to have a coach who can help them excel at it.