You're a self-employed professional. How can you use mindfulness to manage stress?

Keep in mind that we call it "stress management" and not "stress elimination" for a reason - stress isn't going away, and that is never the goal! ;) When we talk about "mindfulness," the thing we often want to practice is how to RESPOND instead of REACT to the things in your life, both personally and professionally by being present. Here is one way to practice this...find YOUR time of day. Forget the "wake up at 5 am people" and the "work 17 hours a day" people. When do YOU have energy & focus? For me, I am most present and focused (i.e. ABLE to be mindful!) between about 1:30 pm and 4:30 pm. I can get more accomplished in those few hours than in the entire rest of the day. Work when you are focused, and mindfulness will often follow. :)

Managing stress as a self-employed professional starts with owning your calendar. Often, it feels like there's never enough time, with every moment given away to clients, customers, and vendors. This habit places their needs above your own well-being. To combat this, prioritize mindfulness in your daily schedule. Dedicate a specific time block for practices like breath work, meditation, or exercise, and treat this time as sacred. It’s essential to maintain flexibility with this block, but never eliminate it. By making mindfulness the cornerstone of your day, rather than an afterthought, you not only manage stress more effectively but also prioritize your health and well-being, leading to increased productivity and overall satisfaction.

As a self-employed coach I practice what I preach. My MAGical Morning routine is a must. Just as I teach my clients to honor self-care and healthy boundaries, starting my day this way is non-negotiable (barring any emergencies). We set the tone for our entire day based on the way in which we start it. Jump out of bed, race, rush, hurry….you build stress. Wake, reflect, breathe, think uplifting thoughts, visualize good things happening…you build calm. This can be as simple as spending 10 minutes before getting out of bed to start your day. Give it a try and see!

As we transition into Daylight Saving Time (DST), many of us struggle with the adverse effects of losing an hour, including sleep disturbances, mood changes, and a temporary decline in cognitive function. Mindfulness emerges as a powerful tool to ease this transition, offering ways to enhance sleep quality, regulate emotions, improve cognitive function, and cultivate acceptance. By integrating simple mindfulness practices into our daily routines, we can mitigate the challenges of DST and embrace a smoother adjustment period. I invite you to share your experiences and tips on how mindfulness has helped you navigate DST transitions, fostering a community of support and learning.

I completely agree with the power of my morning “Quiet Time”. Before looking at my phone(charging away from my bed because that works best for me). I love my time reading my devotional/Scripture, thanking God for the day with arms up, journaling(morning or night depending on the day), writing 3 Things I’m grateful for(at night usually yet sometimes in morning), and just being still before all the activity of the day. I notice that I am “off” after just 1-2 days when I don’t prioritize my quiet time consistently. It is a necessity for my mental, emotional, and spiritual health and also something I encourage with my patients and coaching clients.??????

This is something I started doing last year. I have given myself permission to pause whenever I sense the least overwhelm in my being. Often I will lie down on my bed a read for five minutes then resume what I was doing. That short break seems to calm my nervous system and I am back into the work that I love.

This is how to break. Fill your favorite cup with coffee, place your hand on the warm cup, and close your eyes. After a while, you will feel calmer. I imagine writing down my feelings on a label and pasting it on a label, such as how I'm feeling right now, whether I'm anxious about something, angry, or disappointed. It's like my other self is objectively looking at me from the outside. When I opened my eyes after a while, I found myself being reset.

While taking mindful breaks, please do not use them as a productivity asset. Mindfulness is a practice where we try to find an existence in the present. Relating this experience with some expectations will not help you. Do the mindfulness to do mindfulness, not anything else. This is what the practice tells itself too. Breathing in, I know I am breathing in. Breathing out, I know I am breathing out. That's all you need to do is repeat this poem during your practice. Furthermore, it's not about saying "Breathing in, I'll be calmer and do better after this break."

Mindful walking is the key! Immersing yourself in a sensory walking experience can be truly transformative. Start by observing the world around you as you walk, noticing how shapes and objects shift and change before your eyes. Then, shift your focus to the sensations beneath your feet, feeling the varying surfaces as you move. As you continue, listen to the sounds surrounding you, from the rhythm of your footsteps to the evolving sounds of the environment. And don't forget to take in the scents and flavors of the air, each one offering a unique experience based on your surroundings. By engaging all your senses in this mindful walk, you can gain fresh perspectives and a deeper connection with nature.

I encourage my clients and practice myself, moments of pause throughout the day. Just a few suggestions take a short walk, around your yard or building, do some stretching exercises for the body, or making a cup of tea/coffee and savor while looking out a window. In doing so you give the body and mind a moment to come out of sympathetic response and into parasympathetic response, also known as the relaxation response. This is vitally important for the management of our nervous system. Bringing a sense of balance in our mind and body so we can return to our work recharged and renewed!

Taking small mindful breaks throughout your day can help so much. First, it’s easy to find 60 seconds! Second, it helps you stay in touch with yourself throughout the day. You can practice this by setting an alarm on your phone, say once per hour, and simply stopping and noticing your breath for 60 seconds. Or you can - with more practice - become more aware of your body’s signals: shoulders are tense, clenching teeth, etc. When you notice this, stop, pause, observe your breath. Try it! It’s only one minute but makes a real difference.

1. Desarrolla una mentalidad de crecimiento: En lugar de ver los desafíos como obstáculos insuperables, reframéelos como oportunidades de aprendizaje y crecimiento. 2. Crea un espacio de trabajo saludable: Dedica tiempo y esfuerzo a dise?ar un ambiente de trabajo que fomente la concentración, la creatividad y el bienestar. 3. Busca apoyo y comunidad: No enfrentes los desafíos de ser un profesional autónomo solo. Busca redes de apoyo, ya sea en línea o en persona, donde puedas compartir experiencias, recibir retroalimentación constructiva y obtener el apoyo emocional necesario.

I think the most powerful part of mindfulness is learning to be the observer of your emotions, thoughts and bodily sensations. I share in my coaching practice that emotions, create thoughts that influence our perceptions. By the way, your perceptions are predominantly not facts. But they have you convinced they are-lol. Learning to see your emotions for what they are, feelings that ebb and flow and notice how they influence the thoughts you create and the signals they send the body, like aches and pains, is the greatest gift of true self awareness. Learning this stance you can manage what you can control which is self.

This is one of the most important progresses, I made during my 35+ years - to recognize my thoughts and emotions. I learned, that thoughts are just this: thoughts! They come and go CONSTANTLY! The flow of thoughts can be made more conscious and reduced through regular meditation. Finally, thoughts don't lead to anything without ACTION. So it was helpful to learn to divide constructive from destructive thoughts and act accordingly... The same applies to feelings, although these can be influenced even less than thoughts. But the following also applies to them: if I don't give them any energy, i.e. if I don't hold on to them or constantly revive them, they simply disappear.

Maybe you want to consider not to ?monitor? your thoughts and emotions but to simply become aware of them and watch them. It is not a strict and arduous routine to uphold. That in itself creates stress. Try a curious approach instead and your system relaxes already. I watch my thoughts. I am not my thoughts. I watch my emotions. I am not my emotions. I have thoughts and emotions but they don't have control over me. I can watch them come and go without taking me hostage.

Mindfulness helps you to break your conditioning, become more aware of your thoughts and allows you to anchor yourself to your Centre Core. Stress is on the surface level, deep down there is only Stillness and Calmness. The ocean shows turbulence on the surface but deep down is Still and Calm.

A winning combination= mindfulness plus growth mindset When you are beaten for the millionth time - if still mindfulness comes to your rescue, that means you have unknowingly developed this winning combination. Growth mindset is that grit in us that refuses to back down no matter what the odds. .. that takes every failure as an opportunity to learn, grow and try yet again. Mindfulness enables us to quickly detect and correct our trajectory before we sink into self pity and inaction Through positive affirmations, unbiased SWOT analysis, SMART goal setting , better time management plus constant review and improvement… growth mindset helps us move step by step on the ladder of growth and progression Both are deeply interlinked.

I believe that Mindfulness can help manage stress for self-employed professionals by fostering a growth mindset through awareness of thoughts and reactions. By staying present, we can approach challenges with curiosity and view setbacks as opportunities for learning and improvement, reducing the impact of stressors.

Yes I agree with this, it really helps us come away from goal setting and the sense of failure. Recreating through developing ideas based on new information helps us approach the process again with more understanding.

Developing a growth mindset involves overcoming limiting beliefs. A fixed mindset holds onto all the subconscious beliefs we've learned in the past, many of which are not true and are often rooted in our oldest experiences, even from childhood. By recognizing these limiting beliefs and ideas, we can take significant steps toward transformation to the growth mindset, creating new possibilities and the life we want to live.

Here are three ideas to get out of the self-employment isolation bubble: - Move your work-place to your local coffeeshop a few times per week. Whenever you need a mindful break you can watch people, have a little chat here and there and if you become a regular: build meaningful connections. - Get yourself a flexdesk in a coworking space that you can use whenever you like. Look for a coworking space that attracts inspiring people or people working in inspiring fields, if you have the option. Connect with them, share and exchange ideas! - Set up short walk-and-talks with people that you find interesting. I recommend setting a clear intention for yourself. What would I like to know about this person?

1. ?Conéctate y colabora!: No te aísles en tu trabajo como profesional autónomo. únete a comunidades en línea o presenciales donde puedas compartir experiencias, obtener apoyo y colaborar en proyectos. La conexión con otros te ayudará a mantenerte motivado y enriquecerá tu trabajo. 2. Comparte tu viaje: No tengas miedo de compartir tus experiencias con amigos, familiares o mentores. Compartir tus logros, desafíos y ideas te ayudará a sentirte más conectado y respaldado en tu trayectoria como profesional autónomo. 3. Practica la empatía: Al interactuar con otros, practica la atención plena y la empatía. Escucha activamente, muestra interés genuino y ofrece apoyo cuando sea necesario.

Science shows that connecting with other people, having community, is one of the most critical aspects to our own happiness and joy. This can be really hard as a self-employed professional. A few quick things you can mindfully create connection: 1. Set a goal to talk with X number of friends per week 2. Schedule time with friends 3. Go to a coffee shop or coworking space, be around people 4. Send a gratitude text to someone who you appreciate, with something you're grateful for 5. Set time to go volunteer Many of these things take very low effort, not much time and will make you feel so much better!

There are three simple questions which I regularly use to review not only my progress, but life in general: 1) What has someone done for me (who was helpful how in my progress)? 2) What did I do for someone (what did I do for my progress)? 3) Which difficulties did I cause someone (what difficulties did I cause my progress, i.e. what could I have done better)? These questions help to clear a lot:-)

What gets measured, gets managed. In order to grow, you need to be intentional to decide what you are measuring, what are you paying attention to and where you want to spend your energy. Mindfulness doesn't have to be sitting silently in a cave. It can be working with intention. It can be simply taking a deep breathe your next work activity. Maybe it's worth measuring daily. How stressed am I feeling 1-10? Notice if you take a walk, talk to a friend, meet with a client, close a project, see your bank account. Check-in again 1-10? See what helps bring you up or takes you down and move from there with intentional action.

The practice of mindfulness is being aware / mindful of every activity that we do routinely. Mindful eating, mindful walking, mindful communication etc. Mindfulness is a way of life not just a solution to stress. Such benefits just happen as the result of mindfulness. Whether one is self-employed or part of an organization, the stress can be a challenge. In such a situation, practice of mindfulness helps us recognize the source of stress so that we can get rid of it, if possible. If not, mindfulness helps us be aware of the ways to manage it. Mindfulness helps to look at life with an objective perspective, to be in the present moment, not worry about unknown future and build a happy state of mind. Stress is no longer a problem then.

I start the day and end the day with a 10 minute mindfulness of body sensations, dropping the storyline and allowing sensations to change and flow (which they will do, even if slowly, if you let go of them). Once I stop holding onto sensations and the thoughts and impressions that go with them, life can flow more as it was intended to! Once the sensations can flow again, the rigid thoughts and impressions lose their fuel!

Befriend stress. Stress is not all bad. A certain level of stress is helpful in motivating one to get things done. Only when stress becomes higher that it starts to negatively impact performance.

Além das técnicas conhecidas e faladas, vivenciei em minha trajetória profissional e que funciona muito bem na prática foi trabalhar no autoconhecimento, fazer uma pequena pausa para reflex?o diárias, sobre auto responsabilidade e nossas próprias escolhas, e assim passando a ter consciência de que nosso futuro será movido através dessas pequenas atitudes e/ou escolhas diárias.

Managing stress is about building a systemic approach to life. What one must build are a series of habits and systems that allow you to increase in 3 aspects: 1. Expanding the range of tolerance 2. Bouncing back faster each successive time 3. Creating space and tools that help you process the stressors so that one may move ahead with healing and improve one's ability in points 1 and 2 above. This creates a constructive feedback cycle for dealing with what comes one's way. The system ought to work irrespective of whether you are self employed or in any other capacity. Simply because the system has to be about YOU - all else is external to you.