Productivity, Wellbeing and Mindfulness
BurstOut Magazine
BurstOut is a ‘premier urban magazine’, providing definitive coverage of literature, music, art, fashion, technology, business and culture. Dreamers, rising, aspiring, and up and coming successes have a community with the magazine; a place where they can learn how to forge ahead, persevere, and make their goals a reality. BurstOut immerses itself in what will be next, and how to be it by leading readers on paths aimed at achieving success.
You wake up late and struggle to get out of bed, thinking about all the work you have to do - all the work you hate doing. How far you are from your goals terrifies you, makes you feel inadequate. You always get distracted, and never get as much work done as you think you should, for which you feel guilty, adding to all your negative feelings.
You wake up naturally, spring out of bed, thinking about all the work you have to do - all the work you love doing. How far you are from your goals motivates you, makes you feel inspired. You get some work done, eat, take a break, and continue working. At the end of the day, you feel thoroughly satisfied with how much you’ve achieved, leaving you feeling fulfilled, adding to your motivation for the next day.
What’s the difference between these two?
One is positive, the other negative? Yes, that is obvious.
One is happy, the other sad. One is inspiring, the other depressing.
One is an upward cycle, the other a downward spiral. All of this is obvious.
The key difference between the two is in their method and journey, the first is working hard towards uncertain goals, is stressed about everything and that acts as friction in their journey. The second is striving forwards, perhaps not to certain goals, but importantly doesn’t feel pressure from themselves to achieve. They might be stressed with work, but it doesn’t affect them in the same way, and as such they fly effortlessly on their journey - the key they have is mindfulness.
Professor Mark Williams, former director of the Oxford Mindfulness Centre, says "It's easy to stop noticing the world around us. It's also easy to lose touch with the way our bodies are feeling and to end up living 'in our heads' – caught up in our thoughts without stopping to notice how those thoughts are driving our emotions and behaviour"
Mindfulness is about reconnecting with your emotions, seeing the world for what it is, without the endless layers and mental obstructions of stress, worry, anxiety and depression.
The key to mindfulness is subjective, each person will have different experiences, just as no two people have the exact same life. Common prompts might be yoga or meditation, it could be cooking or knitting, watching a fulfilling movie, or writing. Some people find mindfulness in taking a break with family, others find they need a break from family. Some like gardening, or using essential oils. Some find caring for someone else, a person or a pet, to be beneficial. Some even find astrology and spirit crystals, for all their scientific impossibility, helps them reconnect with themselves. These are all the things we choose to identify ourselves with, the things that resonate with us, which we adopt into our lives, simply as ways of living.
It’s ultimately also about how far you are in your journey; not a literal journey to your goals and aspirations, but a journey with yourself. But it is important to stress that this journey isn’t about success, at least not to me, but about virtue. What I mean by virtue is not the moral high-ground, but about being as close to complete happiness as possible, as closely realised both inside and out as possible.
Some find it easier than others and have less obstacles, while others have better starting points, which is why you can’t compare yourself with others.
We also get virtue and success mixed up in our heads all the time, comparing our material success to others’ material success, when we should be saying to ourselves “are they further on their journey?”, and if they are, how and why? They are no better than you for being further, likewise you are no better than anyone behind you. In fact, we need to throw out this idea that life’s journey is a linear, set in stone, like a road, when in fact it is much more like endless pastures of green.
Going back to the question, what’s the difference between these two? So much.
Perhaps a better question: which one am I? Which one is you?
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