Why is Mindfulness Important for Athletes, Musicians and Leaders?
I know. I know! You are probably sick of hearing about mindfulness and probably don’t want to hear much more about it. You may think it’s some new age, unattainable BS because of the way it’s referenced but today I want to explain why it’s important and how you can use it in a really simplistic way to benefit you.
Mindfulness isn’t new age at all. Buddhists and Hindus have used mindfulness as a way of helping people get in touch with their inner self/soul for a very long time. Other words for mindfulness are awareness: being aware of what’s occurring (in your inner self/soul) and focus: being focused on a something, know when you’ve lost your focus and refocus (in your inner self/soul). If we think about it that way I bet you’d say that you need both of those things. Yeah? It’s important to have awareness of what’s occurring otherwise you can’t change or redirect your thoughts and behavior. It’s also important to have focus otherwise you’d never get things done but it’s also important to know when you’ve lost focus and learn to refocus. All of this is important for athletes, musicians and leaders, right? This article is not going to discuss how much and what kind of awareness and focus you need but those are some other very important things to figure out.
Back to mindfulness. You cannot be mindful every second of everyday but you can learn to develop general mindfulness (a stop and smell the roses type – but don’t just smell them, see the tiny droplets of water) and situational mindfulness. For example, a while back I realized that my dog was going after food that was in the gutters on the side of the road and I wanted to stop that from happening. As I was getting ready to take her out I would tell myself to do something different. One day I tried shortening the leash. Another day I tried being really good about the command leave it. I finally realized that if I walked on the outside of her close to the gutters I could deter her from going into the gutters to eat whatever garbage was there. Wallah! I had a solution to my problem. I had to be really mindful before I left so I could think about what I wanted to do differently and I had to be really mindful as I was walking my dog to see what was she was doing so I could respond. This did not happen in a day. It took some time but developing this skill takes determination and consistency.
Situational mindfulness can be developed through yoga and meditation and I do suggest those things to some clients but I also suggest that clients set an alarm for one minute and pay attention to what’s going on around them or take a time out and check in with their mind and body. I also use an old Buddhist exercise called washing the dishes. It’s made a huge impact on the lives of some of my clients. Why put so much stress on a simple thing? That’s precisely the point. My clients are standing there and washing dishes following their breath, having conscious of presence, and conscious of thoughts and actions.
How often in life do you feel like you’re 100% in control? Like things are going in the wrong direction, but you don’t have the power to correct yourself? I hate that feeling. It feels like you’re drowning, like you’re fighting to keep your head above the water, but no matter how hard you kick and push back up to the surface, that breath of air is just out of reach.
Besides all the other positive impacts for athletes, musicians and leaders, the practice of mindfulness allows me to feel like things are back in my control, like the world isn’t speeding past me, and I have no ability to keep up. When I’m living my life mindfully, I’m able to experience things in and around me in the moment they’re happening. I’m able to feel my feet on the ground. I’m able to take a deep breath and exhale it calmly. I don’t feel like I’m lagging behind, but I’m exactly in the moment in which I need to be. I love that feeling, that feeling of being present, grounded, and fully alive.
Here’s an example of one client who gained a lot by becoming more mindful partly through Washing the Dishes!
“I first came to Dr Michelle after years of doubting myself and my capabilities in my sport. I had had coaches over the years who I allowed to reinforce my negative thinking and while they pushed me to work harder and achieve more, I believed less and less in myself. Without totally knowing it, I created a negative thinking pattern which kept me from feeling good about myself, my goals and my own potential. I was damaged from the past, fearful of the future and stuck in an uncomfortable place.
In our first meeting, Dr Michelle asked me the hard question that I was too afraid to ask myself; she wondered what I thought was so wrong with me that I couldn’t achieve greatness? Her approach was gentle and we got right to getting to the root of my insecurities. We went way back to some of my earliest memories and uncovered where my pattern of self-doubt stemmed from. I remember when Dr Michelle first told me that I have a perfectionist mentality and in each performance I would judge myself so harshly if it didn’t go as perfectly as I wanted it to. Since my expectations were on things mostly out of my own control, I had no idea how to confront my fears and insecurities; I was a prisoner of my own negative mind.
Dr Michelle gave me so many tools and exercises to begin to retrain my brain. One lesson that has had the strongest impact was about objectivity and not adding anything to my performance or my practice. In the past, I would judge myself based on if something went good or bad, which often left me doubting myself and feeling like I had failed. Instead, Dr Michelle encouraged me to look at the situation with an objective eye. I have learned, and continue to learn, how to live more in the moment of the performance, how to share the performance with my audience, rather than be stuck in my own mind about it. This really helped me to see the bigger picture, to free myself from judgment and open my eyes to a new world of happiness and acceptance. In the end, I was thinking negatively over a past performance, bringing that negativity into each new situation, only reinforcing my own doubts and fears. Dr Michelle helped me to catch the moment this would happen, stop it from happening and to become more present.
Dr Michelle changed my life and has helped me to tackle some of my magic thinking habits. I’m so grateful that I have her in my life as my mental coach.”
Eve D., Aerialist
Why not give it a try?
Dr. Michelle
