This month I attended my first class in a 9-week Meditation Instructor Certification Course and I’m excited to be back in student mode. There’s so much to learn when we take on a Beginner’s Mind. I’m soaking up all knowledge I can while still pacing myself and I’m showing myself compassion when I start to feel like I’m “never going to get it” or I am overwhelmed.

I’m noticing how this idea of a Beginner’s Mind is super helpful to apply to business as well. Whether you are indeed a beginner brand new to your business or you’ve been running your company for years, approaching your work with a Beginner’s Mind can help you see your offers and opportunities in new, innovative ways.

Here are a few prompts to help you embrace a Beginner’s Mind in your business:

• Openness: What do you notice when you look at your business with fresh eyes? What new information, sensations, insights, and experiences can you allow in? Sometimes hints about your next move are right under your nose but you have to be open and willing to receive them. Quieting down helps with that, too (I share some tips on that in the Creative Heroes interview with RBBP Facilitator Stephanie Dyke on her Creative and Mindful blog).
• Eagerness: What are you passionate about? What can you not wait to get your hands on? What’s lighting you up now? Give yourself permission to follow those hunches and curiosities with no expectation of where they will lead you.
• Letting go of your preconceptions: Your routines, habits, and engrained experiences can keep you stuck in a rut and innovation far from reach. What assumptions, judgments, or beliefs about your business, your customers, and your goals can you leave at the door? What possibilities will this open up for you?

If you were to start your business over from scratch, imagine what you would you begin with. What would be the first building blocks? Even if you weren’t going to completely tear down and rebuild, this can be an enlightening reflection exercise, especially as you prepare for 2017 planning.

From a more incremental perspective, give yourself permission to “begin again” over and over in your business. This gives you latitude to conduct small tests as you go and learn from them so that you can continue to evolve and innovate.