You may have heard about mindfulness and its benefits and then decided to incorporate mindfulness activities into every aspect of your life. The question is, could the magic of your mindfulness activities be spoiling your chances of succeeding? Is it even possible that mindfulness, with all its benefits, can spoil your success? We explore some of the circumstances under which mindfulness may actually be unhelpful in the attainment of your success professionally and in other aspects of your life.

Losing sight of why you are doing it

Different mindfulness activities, such as meditating and breathing exercises, may be suited to the attainment of different objectives. It is therefore important to remember why you are engaging in a given mindfulness activity so that you aren’t diverted from your path to success.

For example, if you feel anxiety creeping up over a situation you are going through, it is best to select mindfulness activities which can help to calm you down and help you to keep anxiety at bay. You wouldn’t want to engage in mindfulness geared at helping you keep alert and focused when your primary intention is to beat back anxiety, would you?

It is important to know why you are engaging in any mindfulness activity. This will help you to choose the most appropriate mindfulness activities best suited to your need at that time. Remember, our needs vary from time to time, and so our mindfulness activities must also vary in tandem with the objective we wish to attain at a specific time. Otherwise, the magic of mindfulness could spoil your success.

Not taking action to move forward

Mindfulness is an aid, not an end in itself. You want to be in the present so that you can do a stellar job while writing that report you are working on. You want to be in the present moment so that your date can be a memorable one. You want to be in the present so that you can complete all the items on your to-do list at work. And so on, and so forth.

As you can see, mindfulness is an enabler, and so you need to take action in order to make progress towards attaining your goals. No amount of meditating about your career growth will yield any tangible results if you don’t roll up your sleeves (so to speak) and take the necessary actions that will result in career success. The same applies to any other measure of success that you are pursuing; mindfulness must be accompanied by action so that you see the results you yearn for.

If you don’t act, mindfulness will spoil your success because you will fall behind despite any progress you may have made.

Allowing self-doubt to cloud your vision

Mindfulness may also spoil your success if you don’t banish self-doubt from clouding your vision. You must cultivate confidence in your ability to attain the goal you are working towards. If your self-confidence falters, so will your actions falter. The moment you aren’t steadfast, success will elude you despite all the mindfulness activities you engaged in.

To enjoy lasting success, start by having unwavering belief in your vision, and then use mindfulness to keep you on course as you work to bring that vision to life. Short of this, mindfulness may actually spoil your success.

Procrastinating by engaging in mindfulness activities

We mentioned earlier on that action is a must on the journey to success, and now let us turn our attention to another way in which mindfulness can spoil your success. If you practice mindfulness in order to keep putting off doing the things that you need to do in order to be successful, forget about ever attaining success.

For example, if you are a salesperson and you keep meditating about your success instead of getting on the phone and talking to prospects, you will never see success. Practicing mindfulness shouldn’t be done at the expense of taking action.

The more you procrastinate, the farther away you push your success. It is therefore advisable to deal with the real reasons why you are procrastinating and then turn to mindfulness to help you take consistent action aimed at lifting you to success. Don’t let practicing mindfulness be the reason why you procrastinate!

Not aligning your subconscious beliefs with your intentions

We all have beliefs that are embedded in our subconscious mind, and those beliefs control our reality. If you would like to attain lasting success, ensure that any unconscious beliefs which aren’t consistent with your intentions are addressed.

For example, if you start a business and set a goal to build it into a multi-trillion enterprise giving you seven figure profits annually, you better have subconscious beliefs that support your desire to join the ultra rich. Otherwise, if you have a subconscious belief that rich people are greedy, there will be a mismatch between your subconscious beliefs and your avowed intention of becoming very rich.

In such a situation, no amount of mindfulness will help you to attain your stated goal. You will need to address those deep-rooted beliefs which don’t support your goals before you can embark on the journey to realizing those objectives. Only then will mindfulness be helpful in making it easier to attain those goals.

In summary, we aren’t in anyway suggesting that mindfulness isn’t useful as you work to attain and maintain your success. What we are saying is that success is a result of several elements working together in a synergistic way. If any of those elements is out of whack, success may elude you. In the discussion above, we looked at how mindfulness may go counter to your desire to achieve success. Address the issues that may make mindfulness work against your success and you will see your progress to success accelerate as mindfulness works for you!

To Your Success,

Jairek Robbins