Can We Be Mindful at Work Without
Meditating?
With the possible exception of our families
of origin, no other setting than work provides us with more opportunities to be
irritated, outraged, anxious, discouraged, disappointed, overwhelmed, jealous,
embarrassed, bored, or afraid of saying what we really mean. Whether we like it
or not, we take our hearts to work everyday—and sometimes they get hurt.
But you don’t need me to tell you that work
hurts. What you may not know is that this is good news. What we hate about work
can also provide a catalyst to important changes in our lives. Dissatisfaction,
for example, can remind us about our long-lost sense of possibility and
purpose, which might have gotten buried in endless meetings, bottomless
inboxes, and overwhelming to-do lists.
For more than a decade, I’ve been teaching
the skill of mindfulness as a way to combat stress and dissatisfaction—and
cultivate a greater sense of purpose and meaning—on the job. Over that time,
the scientific study of mindfulness has grown exponentially, with the latest
studies showing that it improves such work-related capacities as focus, emotion regulation, memory, learning, decision making, bad-habit breaking, leadership, and creativity. My students have included burned-out health care
providers, veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder, and MBA and mid-career
students at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business.
One of the first and biggest questions many
people have about mindfulness at work is when, precisely, they’re supposed to
practice it. Most workplace-oriented mindfulness programs start by telling
employees to find a quiet place to meditate on their lunch hour (or, everyone’s
favorite, to wake up earlier and meditate before work). Or they might suggest
turning off the phone during dinner, perhaps unplugging completely once a year
on a special retreat.
These ideas are great, if we can manage to
find the time for them. But for the vast majority of us, for the vast majority
of the time, our eyes are open, our phones are on, our bosses are watching, and
we have to keep doing our work. We find ourselves in the thick of things, most
of us without nannies and personal assistants to pick up the slack while we
seek some ideal balance of self-care, family responsibilities, and “leaning
in.”
What if we didn’t have to stop what we’re
doing to meditate? Contrary to the perception of mindfulness as something that
you only practice on a meditation cushion, in seclusion from the world around
you, I teach my students the importance of “mindfulness-in-action”—becoming
mindfully aware of your thoughts, feelings, and surroundings even while you’re
engaged in some other activity.
The possibility—and benefits—of
mindfulness-in-action gained support recently from a study led by Florida State University’s Adam W. Hanley.
Hanley and his colleagues instructed some college students to wash the dishes
mindfully, by paying attention to what they were doing as they were doing it:
the water, the soap, the dishes, the sounds and smells, their own breathing,
even their own thoughts and feelings, all of it—as long as it was happening in
the present, as opposed to, say, ruminating on the past or worrying about the future.
Compared with students who washed dishes as
they normally would, the mindful dishwashers not only seemed more mindful after
about eight minutes of dishwashing, but they also reported greater feelings of
inspiration and decreased feelings of nervousness. While most studies examine
the benefits of sitting meditation, this is one of the first to investigate a
more informal mindfulness practice.
These encouraging results support an
understanding of mindfulness as an eyes-open, on-the-spot engagement, not just
an eyes-closed, time-out break. Without stopping what we’re doing, we learn to
hold onto the threads of awareness, compassion, and purpose throughout our day.
Perhaps most important for busy working people, meditation doesn’t become yet
another item on our to-do list. Mindfulness-in-action has big implications for
the people who (for whatever reason) don’t take to sitting meditation—and for
the other 23 hours of the day for people who do.
What would mindfulness-in-action look like at
work? Based on my experiences teaching a variety of professionals, here are
three ways to practice while on the job.
1.
Bring a sense of purpose to
the everyday.
You can turn the smallest routines into
opportunities for greater accomplishments.
For example, one of my students changed the
password on her computer to “breathe.” When she took a breath upon logging in,
she explained, it allowed her to check in on her intention for the next task.
So rather than compulsively check her email, she could choose to work on
projects that mattered to her. This made her more productive and more satisfied
with how she was spending her time and energy, and it took zero extra time—or
no more than a few seconds, what researchers at the Yale
Center for Emotional Intelligence have
called a “micro-moment.” Their studies have shown that
a moment is all we need to reset our perspective and see things differently.
a moment is all we need to reset our perspective and see things differently.
It may sound simple—a cue, a breath, a moment
to think about what matters—but that’s the point: We can do a lot with a little
if the effort is well-targeted. Getting a cup of coffee, waiting for an
application to open, or putting our hand on the door handle to the meeting room
are all opportunities to reconnect with our purpose and get perspective.
2.
Speak your truth.
Easier said than done, of course, but
downright impossible without mindfulness.
Say you’re in a meeting. At the moment of
deciding whether to speak up, take a second to notice the thoughts or stories
that pass through your mind. Are you trying to please someone else? Are you
trying to protect yourself, or an image of yourself? Often when people
communicate, fear is part of the picture—fear of being exposed, judged,
misunderstood, or ignored; fear of misunderstanding the other person. Awareness
that our fearful thoughts and feelings are nothing more than fleeting thoughts
and feelings can free us from being controlled by them.
Mindfulness makes room for a choice to feel the fear
and do it anyway or, better yet, feel the fear but base
our decisions and actions on something else. In this mindful moment, can you
see that these thoughts are just thoughts, and thus allow yourself the choice
not to let your fearful or angry thoughts run the show?
3.
Take a moment to reflect.
At the end of a day, a meeting, an email
exchange—indeed, after any task you approached with purpose and intention (see
#1 above)—pause to consider how it went, and to reset your intention. For
example, maybe you are frustrated with a colleague and are setting the
intention to improve the relationship. Even if there’s nothing you would do
differently next time, reminding yourself of your intentions keeps them alive
and effective.
Often, however, there is a gap between what
we meant to happen and what actually happened. This is not a bad thing; it’s an
opportunity to learn and make new choices accordingly. Sometimes, we all
succumb to what I like to call the “screw it, I blew it” effect: After we make
one mistake, we give up on preventing others, assuming we’ve already lost our
way. But one study at Louisiana State University suggests that a
moment of self-compassion can keep us on track: Participants who were prompted
to have some compassion for themselves after eating a donut ate significantly
less candy (offered by the experimenters) than participants who were not
prompted to have any particular perspective on eating the donut.
In the workplace, beyond any literal donuts
we may encounter, the implications are clear enough: Since we’re not perfect
there any more than we are anywhere else, we must be able to tolerate mistakes
in order to carry on and do better. A moment of self-compassionate reflection
can be the antidote to the culture of perfectionism that pervades so many of
our workplaces.
So mindfulness-at-work is not about
meditating at work so much as work as meditation. It does not require finding
more lovable work (or co-workers) but instead rediscovering joy in the work
(and co-workers) we have. It helps people use the heart they already have at
the job they already do to close the gap between the way things are and the way
they want them to be.
By Leah Weiss
http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/can_we_be_mindful_at_work_without_meditating?utm_source=GG+Newsletter+Jan+27+2016&utm_campaign=GG+Newsletter+Jan+27+2016&utm_medium=email
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