A lot of our dissatisfaction or discomfort in working life can come from our own beliefs, attitude or through what kind of lenses we perceive the surroundings and events. When you live on autopilot, days filled with stress and ineffectiveness; it is a recipe for constant unhappiness. As you face everyday challenges do you tend to cling even harder on autopilot just to cope? How can you improve the quality of your working life? How to get new perspectives? Living mindfully we can harness our minds to serve us better. Here are two concrete tools for you to develop your attention skills; a daily meditation or breathing practice and to practice curiosity and continuous awareness.
A daily meditation or breathing practice
A regular meditation practice enhances the quality of relationships, social skills and wellbeing. It makes you more stress resilient. You are not carried away anymore by events, but an ability grows inside you to notice those events and to choose your cultivated response. You are more present and closer to your intuition. Thus, you create space internally to become responsive with relaxed alertness.
Practice curiosity and continuous attentiveness
Practising curiosity is living with a beginners mind, staying curious and interested in what one encounters. You have a possibility to see what is really going on your inner landscape. This applies to your thoughts or feelings; when you welcome your thoughts, acknowledge them and let them go. Instead of fighting or pushing uncomfortable feelings away. Just explore them a little.
With attentiveness you bring your focus to another person in that very moment enhancing your connection them. Empathy and compassion can be felt. Bring actively and purposefully curiosity and awareness back into your working life. Interestingly you are bound to notice that there is no need anymore to try to change others as you learn how to change yourself. Learning happens by experimenting so start doing it now with small things. For example in social interactions you practice giving your full attention with genuine interest to the person or matter in hand. Soon you notice how these actions become new habits. If you notice yourself falling back into the same old thinking patterns, merely notice it and just remind yourself to keep practising.
Your social skills, wellbeing and relationships at work will grow as you cultivate your attention skills with meditation, curiosity and attentiveness. You gather information better from around you and this enables you to make more cultivated decisions and respond to events with awareness. By paying attention moment by moment to where you are and what you do steps are taken towards working life that benefits you and your surroundings.
” The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice.
And because we fail to notice that we fail to notice
There is little we can do to change until we notice
how failing to notice shapes our thoughts and deeds.” – R.D.Laing