mindfulness = 1. “bringing one’s complete attention to the present experience on a moment-to-moment basis” (Marlatt & Kristeller in “Integrating Spirituality into Treatment: Resources for Practitioners”)
; 2. “The first component [of mindfulness] involves the self-regulation of attention so that it is maintained on immediate experience, thereby allowing for increased recognition of mental events in the present moment. The second component involves adopting a particular orientation toward one’s experiences in the present moment, an orientation that is characterized by curiosity, openness, and acceptance.” (Bishop et al in Clinical Psychology Science and Practice)
Marketing is by definition a future-oriented practice: you act now hoping to reap a future reward.
You strategize to figure out the best way to reach your market. You build an identity that will attract your ideal customers. You develop an email campaign to promote a deal that aims to bring in new business. You tweet and post Facebook updates to build a reputation as a resource or an expert in your field.
They say it can be 18 months before a marketing program yields meaningful results.
What if there were immediate rewards from conducting your marketing program? And what if the utility of such present rewards far surpassed that of the future ones?
Tomorrow, tomorrow, just not today*
Delayed gratification is commonly hailed as a positive force in human psychology and cultural development: impulse control is a positive psychological trait of emotional intelligence and a great predictor of one’s success in life.
Delayed gratification underlies marketing. Though every marketer would prefer results now, we know we must plant and cultivate our marketing program’s seeds in order to succeed.
The major problem with acting now to achieve future goals is the focus on the future. Yes, you do need to set goals, and yes, it takes a while — and a lot of actions — to get there. With your eyes set on the distant ball of your goals, however, it’s easy to forget the now.
What’s your marketing doing for you today?
Bringing mindfulness into marketing
I’ve written about intrinsic goals before: “Intrinsic goals inject value to the current action itself and … allow you to gain control over the present moment.” According to Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi, writing in “Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience”
, “When experience is intrinsically rewarding, life is justified in the present, instead of being held hostage to a hypothetical future gain.”
The focus on the present value of the present action (as opposed to marketing’s future value of the present action) meets intrinsic goals; valuing the present for what it is, for its own sake, rather than what it may bring is a reward in and of itself.
The focus of attention on the now, on the present moment, is mindfulness. The focus of a marketer’s attention on what she’s doing in her work now, and valuing it for its own sake instead of its “hypothetical future gain”, goes a long way toward mindful marketing. Mindful marketing justifies marketing activities now and for what they are, instead of for what they will bring tomorrow or in 18 months.
You don’t live in the future, you live now; you don’t do marketing in the future, you’re doing it now.
Mindfulness results in “increased recognition of mental events” and an “orientation that is characterized by curiosity, openness, and acceptance”. All positive qualities, right? Just as mindfulness in life can provide for a richer, fuller experience, mindfulness in marketing can make for more meaningful work. And isn’t that why we’re in the business?
Before you object and bring up the need to demonstrate ROI and what not, I can (almost) guarantee that incorporating mindfulness into marketing and focusing on its own intrinsic rewards will improve your externally-measured performance as well.
Have you ever, during a run, focused on your breathing, your pace, the path, while ignoring your stopwatch, only to find out at the end you’ve beaten your best time, seemingly without even trying? Have you ever focused on a task so intently that you forgot about the outside world, only to learn the result has surpassed your (or your boss’s) expectations? “Flow” is full of examples where applying mindfulness generated superior outcomes. The same can go for your marketing: pay attention and enjoy what you’re doing now and the rest will follow.
To be sure, the shift from future outlook to mindfulness in the present will require you to rearrange your marketing priorities, mindfully. Its reward, as distant as it may seem now, will be an improved experience and better results.
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* The section title comes from a Slovak saying, “Tomorrow, tomorrow, just not today, says every lazy person.”
(Top image credit: mag3737)
