Frank is considering changes in his staffing that will help his company grow but also impacts the business in significant ways. He could not decide, arguing both sides of this decision and wearing himself out. Frank had all the data, a new organizational strategy, a three-month budget, new position agreements, projected metrics and had conferred with all his staff yet he could not decide.
Not all decisions can be made with logic and data, when we cannot decide it is time to stop thinking and meditate. Call it meditation or some other term but it refers to an experience in which we stop thinking, get quiet, go within and reflect. In this way, we open to our intuition about things. Getting out of the logic of the situation, the pressures from others and the risks of either decision, we find a calm and quiet place to simply know the right decision. When Frank asked me what to do, I suggested that he meditate.
Carol was burned out. She wanted to sell her business and get a life. The pressures of her work followed her home and she could not enjoy her husband or her kids. She asked me what she should do. I suggested to Carol that she meditate at the end of her day before she went home.
We gather a lot of energy in our space during the course of the day, creating stress and tension. If we do nothing about it, the energy builds day after day until we explode, quit, and get ill or some other undesirable outcome. To avoid these experiences, if we simply took time at the end of our day to stop, get quiet, close our eyes and relax, it would change everything. I call this meditation. You may call it something else. During this time of quiet, we stop thinking, place our attention on our self and decide what we want to let go of. What are we holding onto? We can relax and release the tensions from our day so that we can transition from our work to our personal life with ease.
George could not think straight. He felt there was no right answer and desperately wanted to be clear and make the right decision but he had lost his perspective. So many people with differing opinions were pressuring him to decide and he was not certain. When George asked me what I thought he should decide, I suggested that he meditate. In this way, he could get out of all the noise in his head, release the pressure and regain perspective to be clear.
I could go on with stories about how business owners and professionals use meditation to support their success and their life. When you cannot decide, meditate. When you feel stressed or overwhelmed, meditate. When you want to gain perspective, meditate.
Meditation in its simplest form is tuning out all distractions, closing our eyes, getting quiet, releasing energy and not thinking then placing our attention on our self and observing our self. It can take one minute, five minutes, an hour or whatever time you have. Take time to meditate. Meditating will change everything.