Balancing Innovation With Mindfulness as a New Business Owner

One of the big topics that, in response to new technologies like AI, has been given more airtime over the last year is mindfulness. 

Due to increased funding and global investment, the amount of start-up AI-driven companies has increased to 7,800 in the last three years alone, but due to the controversial nature of the technology, it has led to the conversation of business mindfulness getting louder. 

Specifically, businesses are being asked to champion innovation but nurture it with mindfulness that can ensure their impact is ultimately positive in the future. 

So if you’re a new business owner, why is it important to do this and how is it done? 

The Relationship Between Mindfulness And Innovation

To understand why it’s important to balance innovation with mindfulness, it’s first important to understand their relationship. At their core, mindfulness and innovation are closely linked concepts. Mindfulness is all about being present in the moment, being aware of your impact, and being open to new perspectives. 

This makes it a key part of an innovator’s arsenal. As an innovator, you need to be looking at concepts from different angles and championing creativity. 

If you were to balance both in business, you can enhance your self-awareness, reduce stress, and grow a wider understanding not just of the present, but what your solutions will have on society in the long-term.

Balancing Innovation With Mindfulness

Mindfulness in business is not just about maximising your chance of creative success, but minimising the risks of a non-ethical impact on society, helping your business to positively enrich the lives of your customers. This starts with growing aware of your own practices.

As an innovator, you have to work hard, especially in a competitive landscape where speed and adaptability are crucial to success. When trying to keep up in this landscape, it is normal for emotions to get heightened, and this can lead to decision-making which is purely inspired by a bottom line.  

But to become a mindful innovator, you have to give yourself the space and the freedom to slow down, think objectively, and avoid letting your emotions and biases influence your decisions. Set aside some of your budget to cover the cost of online therapy, and focus on cutting out stress, anxiety, and pressure related to the business itself. 

Meditation and short mindful techniques can also be helpful in mastering the ‘thirty-second rule’ – where in the heat of objective decision-making, you take a slice of time to enhance your self-awareness and focus, become more aware of your thoughts, your feelings, your behaviour at the moment, and understand how each can interact to find a solution that is positively enriching. Journals can be a great help for this, too – developing thoughts and making them tangible. Check out this Free People journal, for example.

This will also help you, as a business, to think beyond yourself. Because a lot of businesses focus mainly on short-term profits, they do not spend the appropriate time mastering their core organisational values and beliefs. 

Meditating, taking the time to observe your environment, and mastering your own emotions and feelings, will help you to combine creativity and integrity – ensuring that you always work towards having a positive effect on society as a whole.