10 Tips for New Meditation and Mindfulness Graduates
This month, ACMM Coach and our ACMM Business Lounge Program host Tim James shares his 10 tips to support new meditation and mindfulness graduates in stepping out confidently into the world!
Graduating with your Certificate, Advanced Certificate or Diploma is a huge achievement. You’ve put the work in, have developed deep skills at guiding and teaching meditation, and holding space. You’ve shown passion and commitment and have developed a solid meditation practice to support your offering. Congratulations! The world is waiting.
Let’s dive into it!
Here are my top 10 tips for new meditation and mindfulness graduates.
1. Trust yourself
You ARE amazing! The underlying essential heart-felt presence or aliveness is always already here holding the space whether you recognise it or not, whether you’re feeling nervous, excited, calm, anxious or another emotion. This essential nature of yours is what is nurturing the space when guiding meditation and what you share with everyone there. So trust it.
“When you realize nothing is lacking, the whole world belongs to you.” Lao Tzu
2. Trust your training
The ACMM training is thorough. You are now very capable of guiding meditations, weaving your natural creativity through the framework . This is an engaging way to guide and hold listeners safely. Use the Positioning and Grounding stage to ground yourself as well!
3. Continue to further develop your skills
I remember learning as much about meditation and teaching in the year after graduating as I did while I was studying. The learning doesn’t stop and remaining open to learning may just expand the opportunities available to you as your skills and depth develop. There are so many ways to continue to develop your skills from doing the Diploma, to staying connected through services like the Business Lounge, to further courses or electives. Sit with other teachers, listen and connect, soak in what resonates.
4. Continue to dive into yourself and to meditation
Possibly the most important point. You are your own greatest teacher, guru and guide. Exploring meditation, exploring self may just open up to incredible insights and create new possibilities and opportunities. At the least it deepens your understanding of meditation and will enable you to engage with others to support your groups and business development. Huge!
5. Clarify what you want moving forward and take the first step
Are you expanding into teaching others, or sharing only with self, family and friends, or are you starting a business, or do you plan to offer meditation and mindfulness to a specific sector? What do you want to do with your skills moving forward? Maybe the course was a personal healing or deepening journey, that’s great too. It’ll always be there ready to lean into. You don’t have to have all the answers now, allow this to unfold too in a way that works for you. Make a start and see what happens!
“Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” Martin Luther King Jr
6. If you haven’t yet, start a group
Start a family and friends group, run community groups, volunteer to guide meditations, engage in the meditation space in general. Whatever way speaks to you. It’s fun, beneficial for all, including yourself and there’s a possibility that some of the people you engage with will open doors into areas that you want to move into.
7. Collaborate and connect
Find a way to connect with others that works for you. Social media, face to face, online, business networks, meetup, the ACMM Business Lounge; the options are endless. Actively engage with other meditation teachers in your city online and in-person. Create and grow your network. Listen, listen and listen some more, be there for them – give openheartedly without expectation. Meditation teachers are generally happy to collaborate and share all sorts of information to support one another. There’s no competition in this space, only cooperation and collaboration. Maybe you have a project you need a brilliant partner for. This is the way to find them. Connecting up and collaborating can be so rewarding!
8. Work on your offerings
This doesn’t need to happen immediately, it can be a slow build. I started with 1 beginner’s community group and guided almost every technique taught at ACMM plus others. I wasn’t filling a specific niche, rather let it unfold. What kind of meditations do you enjoy listening to? What type of meditations do you enjoy guiding? Start there and allow it to develop and unfold. What does your ideal meditation teaching environment look like? Start to play and experiment.
9. Develop your online presence and business support documents
Whether your preferred online presence is social media or website, start something and slowly nurture it. Have somewhere your network and clients can land and learn more. Begin to work on your business documents, such as a Marketing flyer, website or Facebook Page, Quotation format and Measurement tools. This stuff is tangible and means you’re getting closer to delivering and sharing your amazingness with clients. The great part is, when you’ve done it once, you can then tailor your existing documents to suit new clients.
10. Understand your value
Research the net for similar businesses, ask your network, talk with fellow meditation teachers to get a handle on appropriate pricing for your market and offering. Gain an understanding about the costs of your business and how much you need to make a profit from each job. Give yourself permission to charge for the amazingness that you’re delivering and for the years of experience and training that have gone into equipping you with the understanding and skills to guide and teach others meditation and mindfulness.
“Your light is more magnificent than sunrise or sunset.” Rumi
Continue your journey and transition from student to meditation teacher by joining our ACMM Business Lounge Program! All our ACMM students who have completed Session 6 and our graduates are eligible to join our ACMM Business Lounge Program. This one of a kind tailored program is designed to help you grow your business from as little as $11 a month! Find out more about this program today
