Mega Challenge

Herding Cats: A Quest for Mindfulness

As we started preparing for this round of challenges, the entire A Clear Vision of Life volunteer team found themselves drawn towards the idea of mindfulness. If you’ve participated in challenges previously, you may remember a term we utilize called “Mega-Challenge”. Instead of five separate Challenges, one for each element of Wellbeing, we develop one big (or “mega”) Challenge that encompasses all five elements. This challenge is just that—the idea of mindfulness is so critical to living a more fulfilled life, that it made the most sense to capture all elements into one challenge that showed the interconnectedness of the five elements of Wellbeing: community, purpose, social, financial, and physical.

We used the following definition of mindfulness as we planned and organized ourselves: “The practice of maintaining a nonjudgmental state of heightened or complete awareness of one’s thoughts, emotions, or experiences on a moment-to-moment basis.” Merriam-Webster Dictionary. You can likely find variations of this—some longer, some shorter, but the essence remains the same. As part of the research that went into creating this mega-challenge for you, we decided to try our own hand at managing our mindfulness. Our task was to track our mindfulness for two weeks and then write about that experience in 300 words or less. 

Read our Wellbeing team's mindfulness challenge results. 

The Challenge:

Because this is a Mega-Challenge, it has several components. Please note that these components are recommended to be utilized in conjunction with one another to give you a more complete experience, however make this work for you! If something doesn’t resonate with you then opt out of it. The point of participating in these challenges is to build your personal wellbeing in a way that makes sense for you—and only you can determine that.

Know Your Starting Point: This quick (truly, it only takes a few minutes!) assessment, The Mindful Attention Awareness Scale, will give you a point from which to start and help you identify the path for your mindfulness journey

Make Note:

Determine a time for which to check in with yourself on the progress you’re making towards being more present and aware. If you’re not sure what to choose, start with Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. If you’re already a person who journals on a regular basis, consider adding and answering the following questions to your already-existing routine:

  • On a scale from 1-5 (one being the least) have I been making an effort to be present and in the moment

  • When have I been successful in doing so? (try to identify specific instances)

  • When have I missed an opportunity to be present? (try to identify specific instances)

  • When I was being present, how did that impact my experience?

If you’re not someone who regularly journals, we’ve created this resource for you. You can download it and print or just use it as a guide.   

Another option is to use the method that Dr. Amit Sood, the chair of the Mayo Mind Body Initiative, provides. The following mindfulness schedule can be used as a template:

1. Monday: Gratitude – Find things to be thankful for throughout your day, and include them in your lovingkindness meditation or a gratitude journal.

2. Tuesday: Compassion – Set an intention to decrease any pain or suffering in others that you encounter throughout your day.

3. Wednesday: Acceptance – Accept yourself as you are and others as they are; appreciate yourself and other people without trying to change them.

4. Thursday: Meaning and Purpose – Think about your ultimate purpose in life, and where and how you find meaning.

5. Friday: Forgiveness – Forgive yourself first, then extend your forgiveness to others for any past transgressions.

6. Saturday: Celebration – Make sure to take a day to celebrate all the joy in your life and the lives of others.

7. Sunday: Reflection – Reflect on your week, your month, your year, or whatever period of time makes sense to you in the moment; this can be accomplished through meditation, prayer, or simple awareness.

Check Yourself:

If you chose to take the assessment mentioned above, periodically check in with those same questions to see if you have changed where you fall. Are there areas in which you can focus and make specific changes in which to increase your mindfulness?  

Build Your Community:

For many people, being in the moment is really hard. We have so many distractions at our disposal. Having people around you that are also trying to achieve the same things that you are can be helpful. Be it at the office, with your friends, with your significant other or someone else, take this as an opportunity to get the conversation started. Having your network buying in to the importance of mindfulness can help you stay committed to being more aware yourself. Consider the following ways to broach the topic with these different subcategories below. We've created this infographic to help you get started. 

At the Office:
  • Do you plan the staff meetings or manage people? If so, introducing a personal development concept is a great way to show others that you value them. Use some of the resources provided in this challenge. Encourage your co-workers to take the inventory and then ask them to spend time each day assessing where it is they were successful or challenged. Use the first 15 minutes of your next meeting to discuss the successes and areas of challenge. Encourage your team to provide feedback and ideas on ways in which each individual can improve. Consider spending some professional development funds on having a “mindfulness minute” where you celebrate with some type of treat. Perhaps you could deem it “Muffins for Mindfulness”!

  • Not in charge? No need! Get a lunch group together and attempt to do the same thing. Plan the amount of time you’d like to track yourselves and then stick to it.

  • Send this article to your colleagues and then chat about how portions of it could become a reality in your work environment.
With Friends:
  • Mindfulness Mondays has a nice ring to it, but any day of the week would work. Gather your friends and make a plan—dinner, a walk, coffee or drinks—you decide and pick something that appeals to you and the rest of the people attending. During your time together commit to a few things (you will have to lead the charge in communicating the benefits of mindfulness) like staying off of your phones (even avoid using google to fact check your friend’s story…we’ve all done it!); or really listening to someone talk about their day or an experience and asking good questions rather than trying to think of a response just for the sake of responding.

  • Start a conversation about how you can all slow down—what’s one thing you can stop doing that can help you be more present and in the moment? We all have different ways of distracting ourselves and talking about how we can remove one of those things from our daily rotation will guide us in being just a bit more present. 
At Home:
  • Be it your partner, your children, your parents or your roommate—home is where most people find sanctuary. It can also be a place that you retreat into those hard-to-break habits like turning on the TV as soon as you get home, having a meal away from the kitchen table, or allowing your phone to be your default entertainment despite all the things that are going on around you. Focus on cutting out one of these distracting habits a week:
  1. If you allow smartphones at the dinner table—make a commitment to yourself and have others do the same, to leave them in another room (not your pocket or purse) until you’ve ended the meal.

  2. If you’re not watching a specific show, turn off the TV.

  3. Engage in a conversation fully. Don’t chat in front of the TV or with your phone in hand or while flipping through a magazine—just engage.

  4. While doing pleasant household chores, focus on the good that you’re brining to your space through that activity.

  5. Honor the feelings in yourself and others by asking good questions and allowing either yourself or them to dig deep in whatever it is that’s happening.

  6. As a household, use the template outlined above created by Dr. Sood. Discuss it each evening or each morning. 
Wrap Up

For most of us, living like this—a state of mindfulness—is new. It’s hard to change how we generally operate. It truly is like trying to herd cats. You can see them, but they are elusive and they scatter just when you think you’ve got a grasp. However, with a bit of effort and a bit of attention, you can wrangle those cats! And, you can increase your mindfulness to help lead to a more present state of being. 

Report and Win

Document your participation in A Clear Vision of Life: The Wellbeing Program and be entered to win a challenge incentive! Click here to let us know you participated in this challenge.