Today we’re constantly being bombarded with things that get our minds going. The internet, social media, entertainment, etc., is being used to keep our minds active. While connecting with other humans has become more accessible, we’ve lost the connection to our own consciousness.

In Season 6, Episode 50 of The Making Bank podcast, Dr. Eric Holsapple talks about why mindfulness is essential for business owners and entrepreneurs. Dr. Eric is a successful real estate developer and entrepreneur. He has been using mindfulness to transform his life and business while helping many others do the same. Eric has been practicing yoga and meditation for 30 years and has developed a unique perspective on how merging business and mindfulness can be a catalyst in changing lives. Dr. Eric Holsapple is also the Founder and Lead Facilitator of Living In The Gap. Through his company and the workshops they hold, he has taught countless CEOs and professionals how to operate mindfully while improving their bottom line.

On the podcast, Dr. Eric explains mindfulness and how you can achieve it. He also explains why mindfulness is important for CEOs and entrepreneurs and how they can use mindfulness not only to live more presently but also run their companies better.

To fully grasp mindfulness’s impact on your life and business and how you can attain it, you first need to understand what mindfulness is at its core.

What Is Mindfulness?
The most basic definition of mindfulness is to be in a state of awareness or consciousness. Psychologists have determined that most humans have around 6000 thoughts every single day. There are so many things going on in our minds at any time of the day, and that’s why many of us feel disconnected from our consciousness. We don’t give ourselves time to slow down and be aware of what’s going on. Especially CEOs and entrepreneurs today, we spend so much time focusing on our business and get so caught up in the flow of things that we rarely ever have time to be mindful. The essence of being mindful is a lack of mental activity that allows you to quiet down your mind, eliminating the clutter. This will enable you to become a lot more present and aware of your surroundings — the people you’re with and the things you’re doing. Rather than going full steam ahead and living life in autopilot mode, we are giving ourselves time to be conscious and aware of what’s happening in our lives.

Slowing down our minds and being mindful sounds amazing, but how exactly do you achieve a state of mindfulness?

The Process Of Being Mindful
Like most things, achieving a state of mindfulness isn’t something you can attain overnight. However, you can start whenever and wherever you are. The first step is to acknowledge that you need to be more mindful and commit to living more mindfully. Once you’ve made that commitment, it’s your duty to honor that commitment and stay true to the process of achieving mindfulness.

The second step is to start small but start. Most people associate mindfulness with meditation. However, meditation isn’t necessarily mindfulness; instead, meditation is one of the methods of achieving mindfulness. If you’re looking for a start to achieving mindfulness, you need to find things in your life that allow your mind to quiet down. Look for different methods that will enable you to reach a state of mental awareness — meditation, going for a walk, spending time in nature, doing the dishes, washing your car, etc. Whatever it may be, allowing your mind to slow down is the most important thing. Once you’ve found your method, start by trying to clear your mind for only a few minutes at a time. Meditation is one of the most common methods since it removes most other distractions. When you’re meditating, your body is in a state of relaxation, which helps with clearing your mind. Try it out and start for two minutes, and once you’re comfortable with two minutes, work your way up to 5, then 10, and so on. That’s why achieving mindfulness isn’t an overnight process; you start small and gradually scale your way up.

Now, once you’ve reached a state of being able to slow down your mind, it doesn’t mean that your mind will be completely thoughtless. As humans, we’re constantly forming thoughts in our heads; however, not all thoughts are good. That’s where the process of clearing your mind begins. You want to remove the thoughts you don’t need and plant seeds of thoughts for what you want your life to be like. You must put yourself in discovery mode and connect with your consciousness — feel who you really are and who you want to become. It’s a process of envisioning what you want out of life and realizing your true purpose. This process can take months, so staying committed to achieving mindfulness is the most crucial step of this journey.

Finally, the last step is to narrow things down. When envisioning what we want from our lives, our visions are sometimes too big to accomplish right away. That’s why we begin the process of narrowing it down to an achievable state. Find one or two things that you want to focus on — it could be your health, your profession, or your relationships. You want to pick one or two objectives and focus on them for the following year. Give yourself a smaller time frame with an achievable goal, and then set out to work on changing your life in a meaningful way.

Mindfulness is about being aware of your life’s purpose and then being intentional about how you achieve that purpose.