L’Edito: Om! On Career Success And the Power of Meditation

by Solange Lopes | Apr 10, 2016 | Career

I’ve been wanting to talk about mindset and meditation at work for a while, but frankly, I wasn’t sure which angle to take on it without sounding all woo-woo and stuff…So at the risk of sounding all woo-woo and stuff, I’m just going to put it out there: one of the most powerful tools of career success is, wait for it, your mind! Yes, your mind. Not your hard work, not your extra face time at work, or your practically living at your desk 90% of the time.

With that, comes the potential to tap into its power through the practice of meditation and mindfulness…And before you click off back to Facebook to check on your frenemy’s last vacation to that spot in Bali you’ve been praying to visit, hear me out…

Before I started consciously (and consistently) meditate, I thought there would be no way in hell I could get my mind to be still. Especially not when it came to anything remotely work-related. And especially not at work. I mean, let’s just start with the inbox factor, with thousands of emails coming at you from every corner of the company, from the IT technician who messed up re-imaging your computer (so now your screen’s actually suggestively blinking at you), to the Director who wants that strategy report on his desk by 11am (really, 11am is pre-lunch time!!!).

Let’s keep it real. For the rest of us human corporate sisters running from endless meetings to kid pickups, not to mention the extra-fast occasional online shoe-shopping, our minds tend to be constantly in overdrive. When you’re not thinking about what to reply to your manager about that report you haven’t even started yet, you’re concocting a 10-minute (somewhat healthy) dinner in your head for tonight. Or you’re trying to remember if your daughter’s recital is this Sunday (or was last Sunday)…

In our busy, overbooked, overstretched lives, how often do we crave that breath of fresh air, that feeling of laying on the beach somewhere in the Cape-Verde islands, being caressed by the sun, in total, absolute peace? Until the kids start throwing sand at us and screaming they need to pee this very minute (and of course, there are no toilets nearby, in addition to the fact you just got to the best part of your novel…)

Yet what if that breath of fresh air, that delicious feeling of being at peace, were readily available in your everyday life, and in your career? Not just when you’re on that much-awaited vacation. Not just when you’re home alone and you can finally pee alone without anyone asking for anything as you’re trying to accelerate your natural urine flow (excuse the graphic image…)…

Adding meditation as a success practice in your career not only provides you with that much-needed break in your life and career. It also sets you up for great success at work, for the very reason that for the majority of people, work is one of the biggest sources of stress. As a result, our work performances, attitudes and outlook suffer from it. All in all, it ends up being a lose-lose situation.

So today, I encourage you to add meditation to your career as a major success factor. Even when you think you have no time for it. Even when you think this would be pushing the craziness factor even further than mismatching your socks underneath your suit (or quietly picturing that awful colleague at work with toilet paper sticking from their pantyhose, or some other scenario you’d never let slip out of your over-imaginative mind)….

Set some time on your calendar for it.; all you need is really about 10 to 15 minutes to sit in silence, quiet your mind, and breathe deeply. Find a quiet place where you can spend some time alone and quiet your mind. It doesn’t matter if you can book a room, or if you have to sit in a toilet stall for that time (true story).

However you choose to do it, just choose to cater to your mind’s health by practicing quiet time. And it may just be exactly what you need to do in one of the least quiet places and times of your life, at work.

Do you practice meditation as part of your career?

Love and Light,

The Corporate Sis.