Simple ways to stay calm and grounded during the working week...

What qualities come to mind when you imagine the daily life of a founder? Passion, maybe. Or drive, ambition and motivation. If you’re a founder – or if you’ve worked with one – you’re probably imagining a lifestyle filled with energy, intensity and speed. What doesn’t often come to mind is the mindset we associate with meditation: contemplation, deep reflection and slow deliberation. But, as much as founders do need to move fast, there’s also a strong case for pausing to sit still. It might sound impossible to blend the two, but there are some simple ways it can be done. This article will take you through three of them.

1. Start your day with a moment of stillness

As founders, our daily schedule can easily get taken out of our hands – we’re pulled in one direction, rushed into a meeting or required to deal with a last-minute emergency. But there is one time of day for which we can (usually!) set our own pace: first thing in the morning. Many people adopt a mindfulness or meditation practice in the morning for this reason, and it can result in a calmer, more collected start to the day.

If you’re experimenting with a morning practice, try to do it before diving into your email inbox. If you can, keep the first ten minutes of your day just for yourself: set a timer, sit comfortably, and bring your attention to the present moment. When thoughts cross your mind – worries about the day ahead, or important tasks on your to-do list – watch them pass, without engaging with them. Some people like to visualise interrupting thoughts as clouds passing across a clear sky, or as leaves floating down a stream: try a few variations, and see what works for you. The intention is not to have an ‘empty’ mind, but just to observe, or bring attention to, the landscape of your mind, as if you were looking in at your thoughts from outside yourself.

It might help, on busier mornings, to keep a notepad and pen beside you during your meditation practice. That way, if something urgent does come to mind, remove the distraction by making a quick note for yourself. You can pick up your tasks right after you finish your practice, but for these first few moments of your day, see if you can be nowhere else but in the present moment. 

Once you’ve had a short period of practice (even five minutes is great, but aim for ten or fifteen), you can slowly bring yourself back into your day. Give yourself a moment to stretch and adjust to your surroundings, and then – slowly, if you can – step back into your daily routine. But whatever you do next, whether it’s meetings, emails or calls, see if you can hold on to an element of mindful awareness. When you notice your stress level rising, focus on being fully present with yourself, and give yourself a moment to pause. This type of ‘mini-meditation’ can be placed throughout your day, available whenever you need it.

2. Pause before important calls, pitches or meetings

Every founder will be familiar with the build-up to an important call, pitch or meeting: whether you’re doing it for the first or the thousandth time, we often end up feeling the pressure. This isn’t always a bad thing – nerves can indicate that we really care about something – but we need tools to be able to use it to our advantage. A mindful pause is one of those tools, and it’s a simple process.

In the ten minutes before you begin the task, schedule yourself some time away from everything else – from your team, from your email inbox, and from any other distractions at work or home. During this small window of time, find a place – ideally, away from your desk – to sit comfortably. Bring your awareness to your breath. See if you can notice all the details of the breath: ask yourself, how fast am I breathing? Does my breathing feel tense, or relaxed? By giving yourself a checklist of body-focused questions, you might find that your mind comes deeper into the present moment, rather than worrying about the task ahead.

After you pay attention to your breath for a few minutes, see if you can intentionally deepen your inhale and exhale. Deep breaths have been shown to regulate the energy of the body, and can even help to fight anxiety. Use the technique to your advantage: you can count to four, five or six as you breathe in, and the same as you breathe out. Notice what happens to your body and mind as you do it. If you lose your focus, or get distracted by something else, just bring your awareness right back to the breath.

After your practice, you can take a brief stretch, and then return to your desk. And your awareness of your breath doesn’t have to end there: you can keep returning to the sensation of the breath throughout your day – especially during the most stressful moments.

3. Make mindfulness a part of your decision-making

Making ‘mindful decisions’ doesn’t sound particularly practical, especially when it comes to the day-to-day pace of being a founder. But mindfulness doesn’t have to involve long practices or complex rituals. You can bring an element of simple mindfulness to almost anything, and it’s especially useful when you’re making significant decisions at work.

The main components of mindfulness are awareness of the present moment, and non-judgment. So, to bring this into a decision-making process, you can pause before making a decision, and bring yourself fully into the present moment. Decision-making, by its nature, relies on forecasting the future and learning from the past, but this is work you can do ahead of time. When it comes to making the decision in the moment, you want to make sure you’re making it from a clear, focused, grounded place – not giving an emotional or reactive response. And for this, mindfulness can help.

As you come to finalise your decision, check in with yourself briefly. You could use a technique like a body-scan (running your awareness or attention up and down the body), or a simple focus on the space around you (noticing sounds, movement and visual distractions). Once you’ve taken a moment to observe yourself, just as you are in the present moment, you can ask yourself: am I comfortable with this decision? Is this a decision I’ll stand by in the weeks and months to come? Do I need more time to reflect on this?

Each founder is different, of course, and there are a huge variety of productivity and wellbeing tools out there to experiment with. But, in my experience – as a founder and meditation teacher! – mindfulness techniques can be a great way to stay present and focused. And the best thing of all? These aren’t really practices you can ‘fail’ at. Instead, think of it as a process of experimentation: try them out, see what works, make changes where you need to, and – if you can – stick with the practice over time.

Eloise Skinner is an entrepreneur, author and teacher working in the field of education and social impact. She is the founder of The Purpose Workshop, a social impact consultancy, and One Typical Day, an edtech startup. Eloise is also a meditation, mindfulness and yoga teacher.