Mindful Mindset asserts the premise that "you are what you choose to be".
We all have a choice. Those choices are often unconscious or habitual, still they are "a choice". The challenge is to develop clear insight and awareness around them. This enables us to understand how those play out in communication and behaviour.
The process of discovery is a multi-disciplinary approach. It needs an objective awareness not just of what our mind is up to and how it is thinking. In addition we must develop a clear insight into the emotional and physical knowledge and habits that make up our actions and reactions.
It also reaches beyond the individual. It recognises the importance of our learned social behaviours and the environment that they play out in. An adaptive development that takes shape as we interact and process feedback. This comes together in what we refer to as the Learning Machine.
In practice this is about establishing robust and effective levels of emotional and social intelligence. These are built upon a foundation of mindful practices infused with a positive developmental mindset. It recognises the complex influences that underlie our behaviour and performance. We acknowledge the contextual threads that draw together the individual, their experiences, their network and the situation.
What is the foundation of a Mindful Mindset?
The foundation of a mindful mindset is built upon six pillars which influence our experiences and behaviours. To quote Anais Nin "We do not see the world as it is, we see it as we are." Our perception of a situation drives how we approach it, which ultimately shapes how we perform. This is why we start with the assertion that "you and what you choose to be."
These foundations lie at the heart of the services we set out to deliver.
Here is where you are
the first pillar is about presence. We live in an age of distraction. How long does our attention rest where we intended it to be? The first step is to recognise our distractions and develop the tools that ground ourselves again, in the moment.
You always have a choice
our behaviour is driven by choice. We may not always recognise the choice before us, or the decision making process, but we still choose. We need to nurture objective self awareness if we are to be more than automatons. To understand ourselves. And that includes our decisions.
Think about your thinking
how we think about something frames our experience and shapes our performance. Our thinking is too often accompanied by judgements which are prone to creating fixed and inflexible positions. These fixed ideas make us brittle and so inhibit resilience. The challenge is to challenge ourselves.
.. it's the way that you do it …:
humans are at their most effective in a flow state. It is the unconscious pleasure of doing, or should I say becoming. Yet we measure so much of our world in terms of outcomes. Too much of our experience ends up in the binary of success or failure. This pillar celebrates the learning within the process, the contribution and the commitment.
See beyond - see further
too easily we focus on the problem. As the proverb states, energy flows where attention goes. We must see our challenges with fresh eyes and alternate perspectives. Only then we can see around what was otherwise insurmountable.
There is always a bit more
we are prone to seeing ourselves as complete. We are all work-in-progress, every day offers potential to learn, to change and to develop. Change is natural and constant, resistance like everything is a choice. We all carry within us the resources to accept and adapt, we all contain the necessary natural resilience.
A few kind words “Graeme was recommended to me as an experiential coach, learning to manage self before others. Through my time with him, I learned to manage my own emotions and create mindfulness in my day-to-day tasks. Particularly recognising responsiveness in others. To learn to sit within the body rather than the mind and maintain authenticity. This meant holding a degree of vulnerability but cultivating stillness and delivering connectedness in my leadership. I found Graeme’s approach was compassionate, encouraging and challenging and allowed me to hold my space. Graeme seemed to ‘get it’ at every stage of my self-development and I absolutely felt heard and ‘held’ safely at every step” - Shivali
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