On the surface, it might seem like ambition and mindfulness are on two opposite ends of the scale. Afterall, mindfulness is all about the present. When you’re mindful, you’re living in the moment, taking it all in, and accepting life as it comes. Ambition, however, requires thinking ahead. It requires thinking about all of those things you need to do to reach your goals in the nearest possible future. So, how can ambition work together with mindfulness?
At Technalink, we encourage mindful ambition and striking that balance between living in the present and striving for a better future. The secret can be found in purposeful thought and setting aside space for focusing on your ambition while you keep a mindful baseline through it all.
We compartmentalize our time all the time. Think about what you’re doing when you wake up in the morning, when you’re on your way into the office, while you’re at work, your commute home, while you’re at home, and what you do to wind down for bed. These are all little chunks of time we set aside for various things, many of which are broken down into even smaller segments. These segments are where you can fit in your ambition, your planning, and figuring out what your goals are while you keep mindfulness in the forefront during others.
An effective mindful ambition practice would be setting aside scheduled time each day to outline your goals, write down the steps you need to get there, and bring those small steps into your everyday. For instance, you may use the hour before you go to bed to write out your goals, and then write out your goal steps. During the next session, you can schedule how you’re going to work those steps into your day-to-day life, and you can structure your plans in a way that allows you to check off boxes as you achieve your milestones during each nightly session.
As you’re going about your day, practice regular mindfulness. Using meditation stones or mala prayer beads, you may even meditate on your daily goals or achievements in a present and mindful way. Become so comfortable with your being in the present that it becomes second nature and move out of that space when you get to your goal planning sessions each evening. In this way, you can invest time, energy, and effort into your ambitions while retaining a mindful baseline.
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