Hello, Competition Hunters! Have you noticed the trend that is sweeping the Western world? – No, it’s not a new gangham style dance but a new way of reducing stress called Mindfulness and it could help your comping!
I am one of the worst people in the run-up to Christmas. The shopping, arranging the oven to be cleaned, the decorations, writing the cards, wrapping the presents – my mind is a constant blur of tinsel and ‘planning’ the short-term future (How many days to go????). I have a huge list of competitions that require my creative attention – and like most people with large families; I am starting to feel the pressure (Cue that Queen song!).
Can mindfulness help this? Can it help with comping? Over the past week, I have been employing certain aspects of mindfulness into my comping in order to report back to your good selves!
Before I tell you the results, and for those of you hearing about mindfulness for the first time, what IS it? In a nutshell, it’s about ‘being in the moment’. For example, rather than thinking about what you have to do in the future – and getting stressed, you instead try to concentrate on the ‘now’. That’s the theory! So, following a few articles that I found in my favourite magazine called ‘Flow’ I tried some of it out!
Being ‘in the now’ is all about focus. For those of you that are already focused, I can’t see that it would massively help you – but if you are a little fuzzy around the edges and want to get onto the next thing, like me – then it might really help you too!
I began a ‘to do’ list to prevent me stressing out about the future or forgetting things because after all, we can only do one thing at a time! Focusing on the competition at hand without thinking about the next comp was pretty useful. I found myself making less mistakes on entering my details and the dreaded ‘captcha’ boxes. More importantly though, was the ‘feeling the moment’ – I really concentrated on what it would feel like to win these prizes – and while this didn’t bring me the physical prizes, I certainly enjoyed entering a lot more.
If I had won some prizes during my ‘Mindful Comping’ then I could have employed another aspect of mindfulness – that of feeling happy! Our world is such a sceptical, cynical place. It’s usual to dwell on the bad things for days, yet ‘explain away’ our wins, saying: ‘it’s about time!’ or to see other people as winning much more and thus feel a sense of disappointment rather than happiness. Mindfulness says concentrate on amplifying the high points and diluting the low points. It sounds obvious, but really, we are so stuck in our ways, that questioning whether we are making the most out of our wins is something we could all do more of! Shout a big win from the rooftops, or make it little cakes – ah…that’s probably a little too far – whoops!
Letting go of envy is another aspect – but I SWEAR if I see one more winner of a posh pen, I might pop my mindful cork! Haha. Guess I’m more intrinsically mindless than mindful – I’ve got a way to go yet! I had some fun with it though – not a life-changer for me, but not a complete waste of time either!
Have you heard of mindfulness? Do you think there are other ways that our hobby could be enhanced by following some of its advice? Let us know in the comments below!