15 Super Easy Ways: How Mindfulness Can Help You Achieve Your Goals
“If we don’t consciously plant the seeds we want in the gardens of our minds, we’ll end up with weeds!”
What can you achieve with mindfulness?
You will have goals that you want to achieve in life, and mindfulness can help you achieve your goals. Whether it is to purchase your dream home, find your ideal partner, reach your ideal weight or attain your perfect career, goals that you set for yourself propel you forward to gaining bigger and better rewards in life.
They are important because without them you wouldn’t move in the direction you need to be going and you would end up with an unfulfilled life. Goals help you organize your time and resources to get the best out of life.
Setting goals is one of the best ways to attain what you want from your life on an emotional and physical level and using mindfulness can be an amazing tool to set and achieve them.
It may seem a bit of a contradiction to use mindfulness to set future goals, after all, we are all told that mindfulness is about being in the now, focusing on the present, not the future and that mindfulness teaches us to not think about the past and not to project ourselves into the future but to be present and committed to this moment in time.
This is all true but mindfulness can still aid in setting and achieving goals by mindfully setting goals.
How does mindfulness lead to success?
Using mindfulness will allow you to set meaningful and purposeful goals. When you are practising mindfulness, you will be in a settled state, relaxed, calm, and focused. Your mind will be free from the racing thoughts that you can suffer from daily.
Your attention will be set on the present, so you will not be ruminating on a problem that you perceive you have and you won’t be reliving old issues that your mind can’t let go of.
From this situation, you are going to get your best results, hence this is a perfect time to set goals and plan what you would like for your future.
Having the right mental attitude is the best grounding for achieving any goal that you set for yourself.
“Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.”
How to reach your goals using mindfulness
According to the Cambridge Dictionary, mindfulness is “the practice of being aware of your body, mind, and feelings in the present moment, thought to create a feeling of calm.” It is this state that makes using mindfulness such a powerful tool.
Being in control of how you are thinking and feeling, and being in a balanced, calm state of mind is the perfect condition to be in to set realistic, achievable and desired goals.
To accomplish what you want in life you need to be living purposefully. If you have no purpose then it will be almost impossible to set and achieve goals as you will have no real grounding or control of your life.
Without purpose, you can be sent off in any direction losing control of what you want and who you are. Living with purpose gives you meaning and direction and it is this state that you can achieve from mindfulness.
Mindfulness promotes a greater sense of well-being. It reduces stress, anxiety and depression and can promote optimism, positivity and productivity, all emotions important to reaching desired goals.
15 Ways to Achieve Your Goals
1. Mindfulness promotes productivity
One thing that we all need to reach goals is productivity. Nothing is ever achieved with procrastination and thoughts that can’t settle on something.
I am sure that you will have had times in life when you have had to work towards deadlines or targets and haven’t been able to settle down and work because your mind has been wandering without being able to settle on the task at hand.
This is where the art of mindfulness is so important. Being able to train your mind to work in the present moment and not have it flitting back between something that has happened in the past or thoughts about the future will promote much greater productivity. When you practice mindfulness you will get things done!!
If you are the sort of person who constantly lives in the past, this can affect how you work in the future. Living in the past means that you tend to see everything as how it has already happened which could mean that you miss out on present opportunities.
If you have had bad experiences in the past, you are more than likely to view present situations, in the same way, meaning that your decisions may be biased and this could adversely affect your outcomes.
Being mindful will leave you less likely to think negatively and therefore will make you more productive.
“Learn from the past, set vivid, detailed goals for the future, and live in the only moment of time over which you have any control: now.”
2. Erase stress and reach your goals
A stressed mind and body is an unproductive mind and body. You will no doubt have suffered from stress at one point or another in your life and so will understand the damage that it can do.
When you are stressed, you can often suffer from depression and feelings of despair and hopelessness. With this mindset, very little will ever be achieved. If you are setting up goals from this standpoint, they will very rarely be realised.
If you want to be your most productive and achieve the best possible results from your goals, then you need to be stress-free and in a great state of mind. This is where your goals will be achieved.
3. Mindfulness helps you to observe negative thoughts
You would never think that you are self-sabotaging your own goals and dreams but if you have the wrong mindset then this is exactly what you are doing.
When you practice mindfulness, you are aware of exactly what you are thinking at that moment in time.
If you are thinking negatively, then you will be fully aware of it and you can change your thought pattern to a more helpful and constructive one.
Watch your thoughts and replace unhelpful ones with positive thoughts.
4. Using mindfulness can help you to learn from past mistakes
Many times the best way to move forward and achieve a goal is to learn from past mistakes. You will have had times in your past when things haven’t worked out quite as planned but don’t see this as a negative. Instead, use these occasions to make your future better.
Thinking about past errors in a mindful way will help you to see where you made mistakes and will show you how to move on from them and use them to your advantage in the present.
All experiences can be helpful, it is how you view them that will determine how they affect you.
5. It can help you to set and organise your intentions
Being present with your thoughts will allow you to set plans and organise your intentions in a measured and constructive way. Goals can have a habit of going off in different directions if not organised well so setting them from a mindful position will mean they will be far more organised.
6. Mindfulness can enable you to keep focussed on aspects of life you can’t control
There are always going to be areas of your life that you won’t be able to control. This is fine as long as you are aware of it and are accepting of it.
Mindfulness will allow you to understand this position and work with it when working towards your goals by helping you to stay focused on the areas that you do have control over and by allowing you not to stress about the areas that you can’t control.
7. Mindfulness can help with the process of dealing with difficulties and hurdles
Many goals will bring with them obstacles and hurdles that you will need to get over to accomplish them.
Use mindfulness to help you break through anything that could potentially hold you back.
If you are faced with an obstacle, sit for a while focus on your breath and bring yourself into a mindful state.
From there you can start to evaluate the problem at hand in a calm and measured way and it will help you to reach positive conclusions.
8. It can help you to become more consistent in your actions
Mindfulness can help you to stay centred and consistent. It can aid in concentrating your thoughts to stop them from going off in different directions.
This can help you to be more consistent in the actions that you need to take to reach your goals.
9. Being mindful can offer you an entirely new perspective on how you are achieving your goals
When you are being mindful, you can start to view life from a different perspective. You could be looking at a goal in a negative unproductive way, that has your mind throwing up potential obstacles that have been created by you.
Mindfulness can help you to view your goal with positivity and optimism.
10. Mindfulness can keep you focused on positive actions, not the results
When goal setting there is always the temptation to focus purely on the result rather than the actions of getting there.
Mindfully approaching a goal can help you focus on the actions that you need to take and can keep you in a more positive mindset, thereby helping you to reach your desired goal.
11. Mindfulness can help you see the long-term picture
If you are reaching for a goal that is going to take time to achieve, use mindfulness to help you see the long-term picture.
Resist racing ahead, cutting corners or potentially making mistakes to reach your goal faster by focusing on the present moment and the task at hand.
12. It enables you to understand and control how you feel in relation to your goals
Goal setting can throw up many different emotions both positive and negative. Being able to control your emotions and understand why different feelings are surfacing can be crucial to success.
Mindfulness allows you to sit with the thoughts that you are having and lets you work through them so they don’t affect your progress towards your goal.
13. Using Mindfulness can allow you to keep aligned with your core values
Whether you are aware of it or not, your core values will influence every decision that you make in life. This is the same for the goals that you set yourself.
When you practice mindfulness, you become aware of the thoughts that you have and the values that you hold. This can help you to set goals that are more aligned and congruent with your values and beliefs.
14. By being mindful you are more able to visualize your goals and outcomes accurately
Sitting and thinking about your goals will give you a far better idea of them and their future outcomes. When you sit and visualise something, you get a richer and more vivid picture of what you want. This is an important step as it will put your goals into a more realistic place for you and will guarantee more success for you.
15. Mindfulness allows you to gain more enthusiasm and joy from goal-orientated actions
When you sit and practice mindfulness, even for a few moments, you will be in a place of contentment and relaxation.
This helps you to experience more positive emotions from the thoughts that you will be having.
If you are thinking about a goal and are calm and relaxed in your thoughts, you will gain more joy and enthusiasm from the goals that you have set for yourself and this, in turn, will produce a much higher success rate.
Final Thoughts
Mindfulness can be a very powerful tool when used correctly and can help you reach the goals and ambitions that you hold dear.
If you find that you have difficulties using this tool then working with a coach can offer you the ideal environment to practice and hone your mindfulness skills.
Investing in yourself is always the best investment you can ever make.
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