CUS Business Solutions - May 2023

Five minutes in the morning – how mindfulness can be the key to entrepreneurial success

Running a business is hard. Every day you juggle a myriad of issues from budgets to staff to marketing schedules, throw trying to have a personal life into the mix, and at times it can be very overwhelming.?There are simply never enough hours in the day.?

Trying to keep everything going as you build and grow your business can be exhausting, it’s so easy to forget that to be successful you must make time for yourself. After all, you are the integral piece of the puzzle, the key to your own business's success, and fostering good habits to keep you in tip-top physical and mental condition is essential.

So let me share something with you, the solution is free, takes minutes a day, and is absolutely simple.

Tomorrow morning, before you begin your day, try this. Find a quiet spot where you won’t get distracted and just sit for 5 minutes; get comfy, close your eyes, and breathe deeply. Focus your mind and just allow thoughts to just come. Think about how you feel at that moment and what your intentions are for the day.

Mindfulness is simply purposefully focusing your attention on that moment, and thinking about how you feel and what you want. With its roots in Buddhism, it’s a concept that is now being examined scientifically because of how it reduces stress and improves happiness.

If you think that you don’t have time to do this, or are sceptical about its benefits you really should think again and give it a try, because it is incredible what that short amount of reflection time can bring you. It’s well understood that changes in attitude and behaviour can improve our health significantly and mindfulness allows you the time to focus on just that.

By taking just 5 minutes a day to practice mindfulness you will:

• Improve your focus, enabling you to stick to the task in hand and get more done
• Free your mind, and as you step back from the noise, achieve greater clarity and consequently find decision-making easier
• Boost your creative thinking – make way for those Eureka moments!
• Savour life! As you practice more and your well-being improves you will savour things in life as they happen and learn not to overthink
• Feel better! Mindfulness is?equated with physical health benefits like lowering blood pressure, improving sleep,?relieving chronic pain and reducing anxiety

All of these benefits are essential for success, so tomorrow morning carve out that special 5 minutes for you and just be. I promise you won’t regret it!

Sam Fisher is a Senior Innovation and Growth Specialist for Innovate UK Edge in the Midlands. She is part of a team of specialists that work long-term with growing businesses to exploit innovation, enter international markets and scale. Sam is an award-winning entrepreneur with a background in publishing and ed-tech.

You can contact Sam via her email [email protected] or mobile 07392 097028