Please see Part 5 of the series here.
Now, despite the doom and gloom of the last few posts, not all programs that our minds run to “keep us alive” are negative in nature. Humans contain the wondrous abilities to learn, grow and develop, as visualized on the right-hand side of the chart above. If you want to be all extrinsic about it, these abilities are hard-wired into us to serve the same “staying alive” function, but in the interest of being more adaptive to our environment. For example, imagine long ago walking through a forest with an elder and being taught all the various useful properties of what you’re seeing: that mushroom helps with swollen legs; this bark eases aching heads; those flowers ease digestion, and so on. The ability of your mind to be captivated by this critical lesson of the forest’s offerings reflect your brain’s automatic, positive programming: it can automatically sustain its attention on things that help it improve. (Please note: in this case, positive means generative, not necessarily optimistic and certainly not Pollyanna-style blind hopefulness.)
Many of us experience automatic, generative positive thinking as a state of flow, and particularly entrepreneurs, so enamored they are with their business and product. For example, an entrepreneur may start work on an interesting work project around 10am; they work, steadily and lose track of time, feeling completely shocked when they look up to find the clock read 6pm. What is happening here? The part of our brain that tracks time actually downregulates when we enter into a state of flow – our brain going its part to ensure that we can really, fully immerse ourselves in the task at hand. I’m not sure that entrepreneurs prize any state of being more – it is when their innermost creative ideas form, blossom and are executed, and this flow is germane to the generative ideas and projects entrepreneurs push forward.
Seen from a more macro perspective, for entrepreneurs, this automatic, positive thinking appears a great boon. To think orthogonally about how a product, a consumer, a market or the like operates requires intense concentration. Being able to shift into this state of seemingly unending, effortless attention helps an entrepreneur sustain focus on the problem they seek to solve, or develop the insight needed to move their idea forward. Yes, it is true that automatic, generative, positive thinking does mean that attention is sustained. But it’s not quite mindfulness because, while you may intend to start thinking about Problem X, you do not need to apply continuous effort to remain focused. Mindfulness, in contrast, requires deliberate effort to steady awareness. With flow, that awareness comes automatically.
Still yet, you may ask, why is mindfulness necessary when we have at the ready automatic attention available to us? First, not all projects, tasks or obligations in our lives will spark flow because they lack inherent interestingness to us (personally). At the end of the day, an entrepreneur still needs to fill out those IRS disclosure reports with intense focus, and such an activity may not automatically inspire focused attention because of its banality.
And second, flow can be a magical, deeply satisfying state of productivity. I’m sure we all feel amazed at what we produced – be it sheer quantity or superior quality – during a flow state. But flow taxes the human brain. It takes a lot of energetic resources to maintain focus on deeply complex, challenging tasks. Eventually flow breaks, sometimes at the completion of a task, but often due to basic tiredness. What resources do you have to finish off the task if this is the case? (Mindfulness applied to the task at hand!) Or, what resources do you need to replenish after the task is over? (Equanimity of the mind, that is, peacefulness, non-judgment rest of the mind, which mindfulness offers!)
In summary: as the last three posts have shown, to optimize your thinking, first recognize all the automatic, default programs that your brain runs – constantly – in an attempt to direct your attention toward anything threatening in your environment. Recognize also that some of these programs may be positive – such as being able to enter into a flow state when learning something new – but can also burn you out when you do not actively choose where to place your attention. So, too, start to recognize when your brain edges toward that “need to zone out” state and settles into unproductive and inefficient mindless checking out as a way to restore itself. Opt, instead, to be mindful: to mindfully rest your brain, watching your breath; watching your hands wash the dishes; watching the nuances of your business partner’s emotions as she conveys her vision for your company’s next step. Within mindfulness you stop time travel to unrealistic could have beens and should have beens, and instead, with concentration and peaceful effort focus on what now sits in front of you, right now, waiting to be explored.
Up Next:
Hopefully this motivated you to leverage mindfulness to push you into the flow or mindfulness zones. We’ll spend the next three posts building skills that enable this leap.
Mindful Reflection:
- Do you recognize growth-oriented drive within yourself? How can you use mindfulness skill to ride the wave of motivation to grow?
Questions?
Reach out to Professor Grace Lemmon at glemmon@depaul.edu if you have questions about this post. Or, if your company is interested in applied mindfulness training, Professor Lemmon is happy to connect with you through collaboration with DePaul University Executive Education.
This is Part 6 in the Spring Cleaning for the Entrepreneurial Mind Series by Associate Professor Grace Lemmon.
- Read Part 5: How Entrepreneurs Can Use Mindfulness to Shift Away From Mindless Thinking
- Read Part 4: How Entrepreneurs Can Use Mindfulness to Shift Away From Ruminative Thinking
- Read Part 3: Habits of the Mind
- Read Part 2: Why should entrepreneurs be mindful?
- Read Part 1: What is mindfulness, and what is its basic practice?
Grace Lemmon is an Associate Professor in the Department of Management & Entrepreneurship in the Driehaus College of Business. A research expert on topics related to stress management, including burnout, engagement, work detachment and work recovery, Professor Lemmon is particularly interested in how people develop more fulfilling relationships with work through value alignment. One of her most popular course is The Mindful Leader, which explores how to apply mindfulness to be a better leader of others and oneself.