Attending a Mindfulness & Goal Setting Workshop. What It's Really Like.

The option to attend a mindfulness and goal setting workshop combined, all started with following my intuition. In other words, listening to my heart when the opportunity presented itself in my inbox from one of my local shopping malls, only weeks before the delta strain of COVID-19 was spreading in the community. One of my clients gave me a $50 prepaid visa card to spend on online purchases only (due to only being a digital card); and therefore it was a no brainer to secure my place, and at the price of $10, it was so worth it, despite being immersed in a busy shopping centre.

Why bother, you might ask? This workshop came with a pleasant twist. Not only was yours truly promised a crash course in mindfulness, or should I say a meditation in such; but also a silent mindfulness meditation, followed by a goal setting workshop wearing headphones, to help block out external noises, as a natural by product when shopping at a mall on a weekend. The host spoke to you in a microphone, of which no other person in the centre could hear those words, unless you were present at this workshop. A genius idea.

A dedicated area was barricaded off, with a semi-circle. Despite cases of community transmission of COVID-19 charging back into Sydney, Australia upon the workshop day approaching; the workshop still went ahead, where I turned up in a face mask, and had to sanitise my hands upon entry. The chairs were physically distanced, yet it was wonderful to still be able to connect to the positive vibes and energy of our small, close knit group of participants.

The workshop opens with a gentle mindfulness meditation, where we all had to take deep breaths to the count of five, and hold that breath for a couple of seconds, and then exhale deeply for another count of five. The facilitator then talks about gratitude being the breath of life, and for being able to breathe in the first place. From there, it occurred to me that gratitude not only gives us more great things to appreciate, but also helps us to acknowledge and appreciate that each and every challenge and obstacle thrown at us is fertile ground for growth and expansion. Being mindful of those deep breaths enables the attitude of gratitude for being able to breathe to shine to the surface, and then you begin to search for more things to be grateful for; and that folks enhances the quality of your life, in improving your personal circumstances.

Gratitude intertwined with mindfulness made me also realise (in that meditation); that being able to breathe deeply, and to be grateful for such helps us deal with life both physically, emotionally, and cognitively. We then come up with an appropriate response in dealing with life's problems, as a by-product of being alive. There is a difference between calmly responding to a problem, as opposed to reacting to the same one.

Having the headphones on in the middle of a busy mall during this workshop was intentional. It helped all of us participants better tune in to the meditation in the first half in this 45-minute treat. Through these headphones, I could still hear bells going off at nearby cafes, as well as children crying, and people talking. The key was to tune into the facilitators voice, and to be present to her words. That did work, because the mindfulness meditation ended so quickly, where I was a touch disappointed for that; yet in the spirit of gratitude, I was grateful for the experience in the first place, as a small group of us happened to be the lucky ones that made our booking to be here in a timely manner.

This workshop then progressed with the goal setting component. It was a refreshing take on goal setting, where you not only come up with achievement goals (with a due date), but also continuous (more like go with the flow) type of goals, that serve as maintenance style goals, with no clear end date. A beautiful diversion from the SMART acronym.

The group had a couple of minutes to write down (really to brainstorm) the areas of our life that are most important to us. We then circled the top four from that list. The first four are not necessarily the most important. Those areas (for example, your health, of which happened to be my third most important life area) were highlighted. This then gave us clues as to what area/s of life we need to set both achievement and continuous goals towards, because then they are more motivating to us.

If yoga teaching is important to you (for example), your achievement goal would be to become a yoga teacher by (say) the 21/12/21. This is how you would write such a goal, as this workshop clearly explained:

"I will become a fully qualified yoga teacher by the 21/12/21."

Leaving this workshop with continuous goals keeps your goals in check consistently, and comes across more like a system (what you need to do) than a goal. Continuous goals also allow for rainy days and rest.

An example of a continuous goal would be to clean your home for an hour every Saturday. The outcome and the direction is clear. You will have a cleaner home every Saturday if you follow this goal, and therefore you can clean your home anytime each week, provided you clean on a Saturday. Meditating daily would be another example. Whether you meditate for five minutes one day, and half an hour the next; it does not matter, because you have met that continuous goal, and have allowed for some flexibility for that goal to be achieved, less the pressure. If you miss, you simply start again.

One of my continuous goals is to walk a certain amount of steps every day. StepBet is an intuitive app that helps keep me accountable towards this maintenance goal, as real money is on the line. This app also allows for a rainy day when you need it most, to account for any unexpected emergencies, and for when the time calls for me to work overtime in my business. The latter actually happened last Tuesday (as at the time of writing this), where yours truly was stuck at home in lockdown, working away for 11 hours straight.

The workshop then delved into the elements of a goal.

Reach. Refine. Time.

You need a structure (in other words a road map) to reach the goal, and you also need to refine it if things are not quite going to plan; and you also need to set a completion date for achievement based goals. The facilitator of the goal setting component mentioned that goals should be set to be achieved within 6-18 months, because any longer than that, you will lose momentum towards achieving your goal. You need to carefully think about the motivational reasons as to why you wish to achieve the goal/s you have set, for both achievement and continuous goals. That makes sense, because he goals have to inspire you to take action.

To conclude the workshop, we then had to think about the action steps we would take towards achieving our set goal/s.

For example, with my continuous goal of walking a set amount of steps six days a week on StepBet:

• Access the StepBet app, and choose three challenges at a time to participate in, as a member, and organise the PayPal payments for the wagers that are at stake.
• Allocate 2-3 hours a day, six days a week to accomplishing this task, as I see fit. (That is, to walk 10,000 to 13,000 steps, as pre determined by the StepBet algorithm).
• Keep my smartphone (that measures my steps) in my backpack, and take that out with me.
• Have my water bottle topped up.
• Go for a walk, and check progress on the iPhone health app every hour.
• Complete steps, celebrate, and relax.

For the achievement goal example (the facilitators one) of becoming a fully qualified yoga instructor by the 21/12/21; this person would need to:

• Attend yoga sessions at their studio of choice.
• Research and attend information sessions on appropriate yoga teacher training courses.
• Enrol in the suitable course of choice, and attend.
• Purchase a new yoga mat, and/or some active wear etc. (If applicable)

I am sure you get the drift here.

You then need to find someone, and/or ways that can keep you accountable for achieving your goal/s. You can tell a close friend, who can then text you often to see how you are going. You can tell your partner (if you have one). If you use any time management apps, they can check in on you too.

In closing off, the facilitator asked if anyone wanted to share one of their goals with their group, and guess who volunteered. That's right, yours truly did, and for that I ended up winning a Lululemon Yoga mat, and a mother of one of my friends came to approach me, of who I have not seen in a while. She recognised my voice. I had no idea she was at the same workshop, as I was 'mindful' about social distancing requirements in keeping covid safe. And I did not expect to get my money back, with a $10 voucher to spend anywhere in the same shopping centre, together with scoring a cool Kikki.K notebook and pen. These cool unexpected treats came in a goodies bag provided to all workshop attendees.

Such an inspiring and awesome event, of which turned out to be better than expected. I am no mindfulness expert, nor do I expect to be, yet the tools gained are simple and valuable, and the timing could not be perfect, as I took all of the wisdom gained into the current COVID-19 lockdown (as at the time of writing this) in my home city, where I am at more peace with this unexpected twist in external circumstances.

Now that is something to be grateful for.