How Leading From the Heart Can Help You Reduce Overwhelm in Your Business
As a mindful entrepreneur or leader, your hearts beats with a sincere desire to help people. You want to help them live a life they truly love in each present moment.
Yet it’s one thing to feel this passion in your heart and another to use that energy of love to make a tangible impact on people’s lives.
When you lead from the heart, you feel excited about going beyond your comfort zones. Once your work is inspired by your heart, you no longer feel overwhelmed by the tasks on your plate or burned out. You’re in touch with your inner guidance so you know where to focus your efforts and when.
Your work no longer feels like “work” but like a fun and joyous way to serve. You're no longer in it for you. You're in it for them - the people you most want to help.
After spending a beautiful week at a retreat where we practiced many ways to open our hearts, I felt inspired to extend my moments of insights into the world of leadership.
If you want to make a greater impact in the world through your mindfulness programs or work, these tips can help you run your business, organization, or community in a way that makes your heart feel wonderful as you help others.
Connect with the people you most want to help
That desire to help others is in your heart for a reason. It’s because you have unique skills, talents, and strengths of character that no one else has. And when you share them, you’ll get the joy of feeling your strengths flow through you while you make another’s life better.
Mindful and heart-based leadership starts with a clear focus on the people you want to help. You know there are people out there who could benefit from meditation and mindfulness in their lives. Who are these people? Take a moment to go within and feel the connection to them on a heart-to-heart level.
Reconnect with how mindfulness has improved your life. Then visualize the people who may be going through something in their lives that mindfulness helps with. What all do you have in common with them? Close your eyes and feel what it’ll feel like when they’re able to feel more present and excited about their lives thanks to your mindful guidance.
This exercise is also a great way to hone down your niche within mindfulness if you ever struggle with figuring out that “ideal client profile” or “target audience.”
Align your goals and objectives with your vision
Take a few minutes to visualize the people you’re helping. Feel how your work is making a difference in their lives. Send them love even before they start working with you. Be grateful for the opportunity to help them lead better lives. Sense into the feeling of leading from a place of compassion and heart.
"You can evaluate the quality of your authority by looking deeply to see if compassion is the foundation of your leadership. See if your authority comes to you because of your spiritual insight rather than your wealth or your position in the community.” - Thich Nhat Hanh (The Art of Power)
When you enjoy the work you're doing and trust that it will be of benefit, your heart will naturally know what your clients/students need. You'll be open to receiving their feedback without taking anything personally. This will allow you to take more focused actions in the direction of helping them.
Based on this, you can set clear intentions and goals for the work you should focus on that day and how you will lead. As you set goals and objectives for your business, let your heart lead the way. If you do quarterly or monthly goal planning, connect with your big-picture vision and mission first. You can use this Impact mini-retreat workbook to help you with this process.
Feel what it’ll feel like when your students' or clients' mind and heart is at peace - just like yours is when you practice mindfulness. Soak in those feelings and let those pull you forward as you go throughout your day.
Get focused by setting a heart-based intention each morning
Sometimes it might feel overwhelming to know where to focus your energy next so that you can impact the most lives faster. Rather than letting that stress you out, take a moment to get in touch with a clear heart-based intention about the impact you want to have. The how will naturally come at the right time as you trust yourself and your inner guidance.
You don’t always have to know HOW you’re going to achieve your vision. Just keep focusing on the people you want to help. See them radiating with presence, love, and joy because of the guidance and leadership you provided.
It’s important to keep connecting with your intention on a daily basis. Take just a few moments each morning (perhaps after or during your meditation) to connect with the people you most want to help in the quiet space of your mind.
Then, set an intention for what you will achieve that day that will get you closer to helping those people.
Maybe it’s sharing a blog post that might reach tens or hundreds of new people. Maybe it’s reaching out to five new people who lead summits or conferences where you can share your mindfulness wisdom with new potential clients or students.
Whatever your intention is for that day, always bring the focus back to the people you want to help and how great it will feel when they feel great as a result of working with you.
Center yourself in your heart before any meetings
Block out at least 5 minutes on your calendar before any meetings - whether in-person or online via a platform like Zoom. This is your time to get centered.
Use this time to close your eyes, put your hands over your heart and take a few deep breaths.
Reconnect with your intention for doing the mindfulness-based work you’re doing. Visualize the best outcome of this upcoming meeting for both you and everyone else involved.
Perhaps you’re going to be talking to new potential students or clients. Imagine what it’ll feel like when they’re finally free of their stress and anxiety. When they can truly enjoy the little (and big) moments in their life because they’ve felt what it’s like to be fully present.
Release whatever takes your focus away from serving
Your time and your energy are the most precious resources you have in this lifetime. What are you spending most of your time directing them towards? Is it something that uplifts you, inspires you, takes care of you, and brings you joy? Or do you feel like you’re constantly scattering your energy all over the place?
Take a week to do an inventory of where you’re spending most of your time each day.
Consider how each activity that you spend your time on makes you feel. If you can, get creative with loving ways to let go of attachments or commitments to activities or people that take your energy away from your mission.
Here are some questions to help guide you as you do an inventory of your time:
What in your life right now do you feel like is holding you back from touching more lives?
What fears or doubts do you have about your ability to lead and have an impact? Where did those come from? Can you be compassionate with yourself as you mindfully become aware of and release them?
Who are some role models who may have had similar challenges in the past but moved past them to help others? How did they do this?
Feel safe and grateful for the opportunity to give
It’s a blessing to come across the teachings of mindfulness and know how to access that still space of peace within. But an even greater blessing is that you can now use your experience to help others - even as you deepen your own mindfulness practice.
There’s no greater gift than the opportunity to help another. It gives you that beautiful warm feeling of fulfillment and knowing that your life makes a difference. Feel the gratitude in your heart for having the skills to help others.
If you notice any fears about your own needs being met as you lead or serve others, simply return to the feeling of gratitude. When you feel into how you're helping others, does it help you to see that you are the source of these wonderful feelings for yourself too?
Let this feeling wash over you so you can feel safe in this present moment. Sense how it feels to trust yourself and your inner wisdom to guide you along the way towards your mission.
Commit yourself to using your life force to to help others. Trust that when you do, you can’t help but feel amazing yourself as we are all interconnected in this loving web of humanity.
Embody mindful and conscious leadership with beginner's mind
Living mindfully allows us the opportunity to keep experiencing each moment as a fresh, living and vibrant unfolding. To truly embody the concept of beginner’s mind. To notice what it’s like to be a mindful leader.
With a beginner's mind, consider what it might it feel like to be an entrepreneur, business person, or a leader who is centered in the heart and trusts in themselves.
Perhaps leading with the heart means leading from a space of abundance. From a space where you feel grateful for the wealth of inner resources you have to help others. From a space where you know you are enough, where you see others as enough, and where your love of life pulls you towards loving others by leading and serving.
If your heart is excited to help more people but you're not reaching as many of them as you'd like, you can schedule a free discovery call with me here. Together, we'll get to the heart of how you can touch more lives from the heart without feeling stressed or overwhelmed by your marketing approach. Let's bring more heart to the world through mindfulness together!