Today’s world of Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity generates unprecedented levels of challenge and change. There’s ever increasing pressure to deliver better results, faster and at lower cost. Rapid change, increasing complexity and a constant deluge of information all add to the challenge.

The resulting stress impairs clarity, focus, confidence, creativity, communication - key qualities necessary for peak performance. It also impacts well-being, and can lead to exhaustion, burnout and even depression. It’s been reported as the biggest cause of long term absence from work, and is a factor in many other accidents and illnesses.

That’s why more and more organisations are investing in mindfulness training, organisations such as Bupa, BT, Microsoft, VW Audi, Carlsberg, Unilever, KPMG, Axa, Google, eBay, the London Business School, Cambridge University and many others. In the UK Parliament, 25% of MPs are now trained in Mindfulness.

There’s an impressive evidence base for mindfulness: the following benefits have been reported in peer-reviewed published papers:

• Well-Being: reduces stress, improves immune function, reduces blood pressure and increases enjoyment (both inside and outside of work)
• Cognitive: Mindfulness generates a clearer focus and the ability to sustain it for longer. It improves memory, boosts creative problem solving skills
• Emotional: Mindfulness also boosts emotional awareness, emotional intelligence and relationship skills
• Organisational: Mindfulness also boosts engagement, satisfaction and decision-making
• Leadership: Mindful Leaders produce improvement in performance, job satisfaction, psychological need satisfaction and organisational citizenship in their staff

Resilient Mindfulness training combines live training workshops with lightweight eLearning, and personal eCoaching. This combination provides excellent levels of support for embedding Mindfulness in busy working lives, and also maintains high levels of engagement throughout the programme.

The training programme is modular, and can be adapted to meet the needs of your organisation.

Blended Learning

To help integrate Resilient Mindfulness into busy schedules, a blended learning format is used:

Workshop: The main learning is 2 hour workshops, one per module.

Lightweight eLearning: each module is followed by a lightweight eLearning course delivered by email. This helps participants implement learnings even amidst high pressure and rapid change. The emails are brief enough to be easily readable, yet substantial enough to make a real difference.

Guided meditation practice recordings are also provided, to support participants in developing their mindfulness practice.

Support for Modules Missed: with multi-session training, it’s rare for anyone to be able to make every single training workshop. Resilient Mindfulness training therefore provides very comprehensive materials and resources, so that participants can keep up with the course and get excellent results even when they miss 1 or 2 sessions. (It’s not uncommon for participants to take the materials on holiday with them, for example – and they often find that mindfulness enhances their holiday as well as their wellbeing and work when they return).

Personal eCoaching: Shakya Kumara (the course trainer and designer of Resilient Mindfulness) is available by email to help with any questions, to make sure participants can get real benefit from the course. This personal support continues through the 3 week period and beyond.

Dropout rates can be a real problem with mindfulness training. Most multi-session programmes suffer from high dropout rates, and with on-line or app-based mindfulness the drop out rates can be as high as 80%.

With the combination of learning formats and resources described above, and ongoing personal involvement of the course trainer, Resilient Mindfulness has much lower dropout rates. When participants have volunteered to attend the programme, dropout rates are typically below 5%.

The complete Resilient Mindfulness programme comprises a sequence of 8 modules. This enables the programme to cover the whole syllabus of Jon-Kabat Zinn’s 8 week MBSR training (but in a way that’s especially adapted to the workplace, providing specific tools for busy and pressured environments).

For more information about the content of the programme, see the details of the Resilient Mindfulness training modules.

When required, Resilient Mindfulness can also be delivered as a shorter programme with fewer modules. In fact, we recommend that everyone starts with module 1 (the “Mindfulness QuickStart”) and only then makes a commitment to the full programme if they wish.

Training modules can also be scheduled flexibly, to fit in with shift working for example. Pairs of modules are frequently combined, to help control costs and simplify scheduling.