There is no formula for success
Written by Greta Jonaityte.
From a war zone to a quiet neighborhood, from a successful career to the uncertainty of her own business, from constant anxiety and dissatisfaction to a resilient and peaceful mind – what does it take to make such changes in life?
By putting her values first, Maaike van Min has learned that every change is a choice, but the latter takes a bit of honesty to yourself. She has created MINDstrength So that others can also benefit from knowing how to take care of their minds. We talk about the power of self-awareness and kindness, the ways of holding touch with your authenticity, and measuring success.
You had a successful career in international development; you were in a comfortable managerial position; you would give interviews to newspapers such as The Guardian or BBC news in the name of your company. Seems that you had the heights one would be seeking. Why did you decide to quit everything?
There were a couple of things that came up at the same time. I did have a great job. I really enjoyed it; I loved the organization and the mission we worked for. However, it did not seem there was much growth for me left. I felt that I was ready for another growth jump, but it was not available. Besides, I started to really question international development and my role within that field. Even though I very much enjoyed it up to that point, I concluded that I didn’t want to stay in that area anymore.
As I’ve always loved psychology and have my master's in clinical psychology, I got time off from my work and finished training in Mindfulness at the Oxford Mindfulness Centre. Even though I had enormously benefitted from mindfulness in my own life and career, I studied it without thinking that I would make a career out of it. However, I think it just ignited in me this kind of desire to explore this area a little bit further. I felt that it was an important topic that needed to get out into the world, more people needed to know about it. I got much more passionate about this matter and wanted to try to do something with it. The only way to do so was to quit my job. Otherwise, I would never have time to do anything. I did not want to be working in the evenings or on the weekends and to be always tired and busy. So I felt like it’s time for a change.
It has been a couple of years since you made this decision to change and started working on your online business. How did you come up with the idea and what is your goal? Can you tell me more precisely what is it that you do?
When I quit my job, I knew I wanted to explore the field of psychology and mindfulness but didn’t really know what that meant. And even though the choice to quit was based on calculations that I was going to be okay, I still got worried about money. Eventually, I accepted a couple of consultancy jobs, and within no time, I had so much work that it could keep me going for a hundred percent. I realized it was not what I wanted either, because that was not the point of leaving my job.
So I took a sabbatical and went to the other side of the world to teach mindfulness. I taught my first mindfulness class in Australia. And even though I really enjoyed it, I figured that teaching individuals or groups was not enough for me. What I really wanted was to get a lot of people to know a little bit about mind training. I knew that I could reach more people online, and this idea started to grow in my head.
Having no experience in how to make it happen, I did a few marketing courses. It helped me put my thoughts together. That’s how I decided to go for an online platform where I could offer down to earth and simple mind training techniques. I wanted to make sure it offered not only a number of meditations but also an educational cycle. It is so important we understand the functioning of our human mind and the fact that being caught up in stress, worry, anxiety, or whatever, is a totally normal mechanism of our mind. This is completely human because it is just how our mind works. So I wanted to offer tools that could help people understand that we can build minds that are resilient to the ups and downs of life, and not get caught into the stress mechanisms.
Once the idea was ready, I had to build everything up, and that was a completely different challenge. It took me more than a year to create the training program and all the content for the launch of MindStrength. On the side, I still did some consulting work to make money. When the platform was done and running, I needed to get people to know that it existed, and that was yet another challenge. Today once again, I find myself in a different phase. Starting is a process full of challenges, but it’s all about moving forward step by step. The lesson I’ve learned is that you have to keep going, just try different things, and even if you don’t see immediate results, you kind of have to trust you are doing the right thing. There is no formula on how to do things to be fine. In my case, I did many online courses and learned a lot throughout the process itself. And I am still learning every day. I think, if you stay consistent and present, you will get to a point where your work becomes viable.
Usually, beginnings are the hardest. What did yours look like? Have you experienced any tough moments?
Despite the many challenges I’ve faced in my career, I would still say that launching MindStrength is by far the biggest challenge I have faced, even though I chose this challenge myself. The reason why I stick with it is that I don’t ultimately get my motivation out of the people who use the platform and benefit from it. My motivation comes from the fact that this is really what I think is important and where I want to spend my energy and time. I was convinced that it was the right thing for me to do. That was the main reason that kept me going even though it was very hard.
If you do start your own business, you have to be very authentic about what you are doing. If the motivation is outside of you, like money or fame, I think it can leave you struggling to be successful. If the motivation is internal and in line with your values, then, I believe, you stand a chance. Even though it does not mean it’s a guarantee for success. I think the most difficult thing that I had to deal with at the beginning, was the incredible ups and downs. I had to learn not to wait for success, because the timing of the success is completely outside of your control. You can’t really count on getting motivated by success stories, because you don’t know when (or if) they are going to come. And then disappointments are part of the process too. I had to learn not to get too excited with success and not too disappointed with failures. When things are not going as well as you wish, ask yourself if you can learn something from the process, and continue.
Sometimes it can be tough to keep your motivation. People around you do not necessarily understand your decisions, like changing a successful career into something completely uncertain. Of course, we all want recognition and feedback, but when you start out, there will be a long period of time when you will not get that feedback. So it can be very lonely working by yourself. After all, I guess if you believe in what you do, you will meet people who stand together as guards and guarantee success. And that is very encouraging.
Have you ever had any doubts about your choices?
I doubt it all the time, but not fundamentally. Doubt is a massive factor in everybody’s life. If you start listening to it, then you are never going to get anywhere. I think you have to stand strong in your values because they go deeper than your doubts. I guess I was lucky because I knew what I wanted to put in this world and where I wanted to put my time and energy. Lastly, if you stay connected to what’s authentically important to you, it takes many difficulties off because you know why you are doing this.
It's really great to see meditation and mindfulness reach more people. As it has been gaining in popularity and has become ‘a thing’ lately, we see more and more various offers emerging. How do you differentiate your business and avoid being compared to others? Especially now when the pandemic has pushed training online.
Yes, it’s true. Mindfulness has gained in popularity in the western world. I feel that in the west we have become too detached from our mind and our brain. Too often we feel the need to always be happy, strong or successful, and as soon as our mind is a little bit sad, anxious or insecure, that is deemed to be something wrong. It’s nonsense because everybody has a mind that sometimes is anxious, sad or even depressed, everybody knows these feelings and this is just the fact of being human. The problem is that the western culture has made it almost impossible to deal with such feelings in a healthy way. We tend to get so stuck in our own stories and rumination. The reason why mindfulness has become more popular lately is that more and more people accept to try it and acknowledge the impact it can have on their wellbeing, that genuine feeling of “OMG, this is really powerful”.
So yes, today there are a number of really good mindfulness teachings out there. Most of them respond to these feelings and treat symptoms we do not want, like feeling anxious, being unhappy, depressed, not performing or whatever it might be. The way that I look at it and the way I want it with my training is not to treat symptoms. I don’t want my training to be a sort of solution to the pain people have, but rather give them the knowledge about how to be with our human mind. If you know a little bit about the functioning of your mind, it can change massively how you position yourself in this world. You will start to see that your mind is creating a lot of this suffering that you feel, in which you can get so stuck and so unhappy about. I am convinced that if people have more understanding of meditation and mindfulness, we will have less conflict and dissatisfaction.
Sometimes all of us have low moments and negative thoughts that hold us back from moving ahead, and everyone deals with it differently. You give it a lot of attention in your meditation training. Can you tell me how you yourself take care of your mental health and find strength to move on again when feeling low?
I’d say kindness to myself. When I started meditating, this was one of the most transformational moments. What happens when you start meditating is that you start seeing your thoughts. When I became aware of mine, I thought, “Why am I so incredibly hard on myself? Why is there this constant running commentary in my head about what I did wasn’t good enough?” I was looking at that voice and thinking that I would never talk this way to someone else. It’s ridiculous how unkind we are to ourselves.
So for me, the first step was seeing these thoughts, and then by doing so, 90% of their power was gone. Sometimes they are still there, but I just let them pass. I think that this is the first step toward kindness to self. It’s the same as with the doubts, if you start believing those thoughts of self-unkindness, you are constantly beating yourself down, and it has an impact on everything: your mood, your health, and even your body.
The second big thing that I had to learn was not to always push through. I come from a family and culture where you just always push through - being tired or ill is not an option. It took me a long time to realize that this is nonsense. I think it’s still something I struggle with. But I’ve learned to allow myself moments of asking what I need most right now, and sometimes it is just to sit on the couch and fall asleep, even if it’s 2 pm. For me, kindness to myself is to allow myself to be tired, to have no inspiration, or not know what to do. This “allowing” gives a lot of freedom. The thing is that you have to be careful with that freedom because it’s very closely related to procrastination. I’m lucky to have a genuine motivation to work, but if this is not the case, you have to watch and find balance. For me, the challenge is not to do stuff; it’s to do less and ask myself what I really want or need. Sometimes people might find it selfish, but taking care of me is also a way of taking care of those around me. I think that saying it’s selfish can easily be an excuse not to take care of yourself. If you are not thinking of yourself, you are not thinking of others either. And you are not helping anybody by not taking care of yourself.
What does your daily routine look like? Seems that it should not be difficult for you to disconnect from work.
I don’t really have a routine. I would say it’s a side effect of meditation and mindfulness. I am okay with not having a strict routine, although I would always advise people to have one. Here again, the reason for me is kindness to self. I noticed that sometimes a routine just doesn’t work for me. One day I might wake up early and want to get on things immediately; another day not. This is the freedom I’ve created for myself, being my own boss but also being aware of my thoughts and emotions.
I try to get a list of things that I want to get done in a week, and I plan it at the beginning of the week. Sometimes I get them done; sometimes I don’t. There are things for which my motivation is so essential that I don’t have to force myself to do; I will do them anyway. However, this may not work for everyone. I think you just have to feel yourself and find what works best for you. The same is if you do certain things just because they are deemed norms in your society but do not necessarily resonate with what gives you energy and power. Sometimes it takes a bit of honesty not to lose touch with your authentic self.
That being said, have you ever experienced burnout?
No. I never had burnout, but as a student, I struggled with anxiety. Living too far away from what you want to do and who you want to be can be so exhausting that it might lead to burnout. It is a complex thing. Sometimes people build a whole life on expectations and on something they think they should live up to, and at some point, it comes back with a bang. And suddenly, they are unable to move. Burnout is really hard, but I think I was prevented from having one because I first encountered psychological challenges when I was very young and as such made choices that supported mental wellbeing.
So you’ve always been very aware of yourself.
No. I think I always had this interest in human behaviour, but meditation has changed everything. I realized how you create your own world, how your mind creates your own world. I think my awareness is something I intrinsically like, and it was always there, but it has become much more mature with meditation.
You’ve been living in places like London, Brussels, Dakar, Congo and Chad to mention a few, and always saw yourself working in big cities. However, just recently, and even to your own surprise, you decided to leave big city life and move to a small town surrounded by forests and beaches in your home country Netherlands. What made you make this decision?
It was the lockdown. I spent it there and loved that calm, easiness. It got me thinking. I have chosen big and busy places before, also difficult ones like Chad or Congo, where I saw a lot of poverty and suffering – I was in a war zone. I think it is a very powerful experience to figure that you have the privilege to see things up close but not to be part of it, meaning that I was never the victim of what was happening in certain places, and I could always leave. That is actually a very humbling experience to not just know but also feel that enormous privilege. It has changed who I am massively. I realized that I have an enormous luxury to be able to make these kinds of choices.
So today, I decided to use that privilege to go back to nature. Nature is the ultimate source, we are all part of it, and I think being close to nature is good for us. To be honest, I do not know if this is going to be a long-term project, but for now, I know it is the right thing to do. I do have a backup plan though, if it drives me crazy, I’ll just move to a busier place again. I needed to have this backup plan; otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to make this choice.
Lastly, what piece of advice do you wish you had gotten before launching your business?
If I had known how challenging it would be, I might not have done it. So in a way, it’s good not to know. Other than that, I wish I had thought more about how I would measure success so that all ups and downs, and the lack of success, wouldn’t have been so tiring. Now I think I have a better measuring of success - I see it as a process rather than a set of achievements.
For those who want to start their own business, I would say – do it by all means, but make sure to put your values first. You will certainly have moments of doubt, moments of loneliness, and you will not get straight to success. Success stories that we hear are often stories that have started off with years of struggling too.
