achievement – Grow Mindfulness

Healthy Confidence or Superior Conceit?

In a previous post I discussed how mindfulness can be an effective antidote to narcissism, both in curbing our own narcissistic tendencies and managing the aftermath of a relationship with a narcissistic boss or intimate partner. I also highlighted the work of Rick Hanson who promotes healthy confidence to achieve an effective balance between needing to be seen as superior and developing a grounded but strong sense of self. Rick pursues this dilemma in his podcast titled, Confidence or Narcissism? One of our challenges in developing healthy confidence is to find effective role models – many of our leaders in government, business and sport have failed to resolve this dilemma in their public lives.

Superior conceit displayed by sports stars – defective role models

In the earlier blog post, I shared Bonnie Duran’s perspective on narcissism where she relates it to the Buddhist concept of superior conceit – the need to be “better than” or “superior to”. Bonnie explains superior conceit in one of her podcast talks titled, Conceit and Latent Torments.

There are many instances of elite sportsmen and sportswomen displaying superior conceit and related narcissistic behaviour. For example, narcissistic behaviours have been exhibited by international tennis stars who:

Abuse chair umpires and line umpires
Throw their racquets in disgust or anger and/or throw tantrums on the tennis court if things don’t go their way
Demonstrate a total lack of empathy or concern for the feelings of others
Boast about how much they have earned from tennis and their total asset worth (as if their financial resources are a measure of their personal worth)
Show a lack of respect for their opponents and/or tennis fans
Seek to win at any cost, even if this means cheating or bullying others.

Ash Barty – an effective role model for healthy confidence

Ash Barty has achieved more in one year (2019) than most tennis players (male or female) achieve in a lifetime. She reached World Number 1 ranking in June 2019 (and held it at the end of the year) and won the French Open, the Birmingham Classic, the Miami Open, and the WTA Women’s Finals – Shenzhen (after being runner-up at the China Open). Ash was the winner of a tour-topping 52 matches.

On top of these achievements, she has been awarded (in 2019) the Don Award (by Sport Australia Hall of Fame), the Women’s Health Sportswoman of the Year, and the ITP Fed Cup Heart Award (for outstanding courage and distinctive representation & commitment). The individual Don Award is for an Australian athlete “who, by their achievements and example over the last 12 months, are considered to have the capacity to most inspire the nation”. These awards recognise that in so many ways Ash is a role model, not only for sportspeople but all of us who aspire to achieve “healthy confidence” and its attendant rewards. Her status as a role model for other Indigenous women had been recognised in 2018 when she was named Australia’s first National Indigenous Tennis Ambassador.

Ash demonstrates healthy confidence through the following traits:

Resilience in the face of adversity and setbacks
Recognition of the need to take time out to achieve a better balance in her life and master self-management (she spent 18 months playing state-level cricket)
Respect for tennis opponents, officials and fans (a trait that is widely acknowledged and appreciated)
Empathy and compassion for others
Authenticity and humility
Amazing capacity to focus and sustain her concentration
Valuing and publicly recognising her support team.

Ash readily acknowledges the profound contribution of her mentor and mindset coach, Ben Crowe, in shaping her outstanding success. Ben observed that, in addition to the abovementioned traits, Ash demonstrates the following characteristics:

Acknowledges that there is strength in vulnerability, rather than needing to claim or pursue perfection
Recognises that she can “write her own story”, not accept habituated, negative self-stories
Has the ability to let go of the things she cannot control while maintaining focus on what is under her control
Does not let tennis define who she is, but pursues her true self and values depth of character
Is prepared to put in the hard work to achieve continuous self-improvement and excellence.

His insightful and revealing explanation of the underlying philosophy that he has been able to impart to Ash explains why she is an exemplar of healthy confidence.

One of the problems for us in trying to develop our own healthy confidence is that bad behaviour has dominated the attention of mainstream media, whereas Ash’s exemplary behaviour has been buried under the controversy associated with narcissistic behaviour displayed by some international tennis players. Kate O’Halloran, writing for the ABC, expressed the hope that Ash’s French Open win will turn the spotlight more on “an exemplary sportswoman whose respected demeanour and success” has failed to attract the media attention that it deserves.

Reflection

There are some very profound lessons for us in the philosophy and behaviour of Ash Barty and some ideas about how we might develop our own healthy confidence. However, we should be careful of joining the chorus to criticise the narcissistic behaviour of individual international sports stars while indulging in narcissistic tendencies ourselves.

We can ask ourselves when the last time was that we made a point of highlighting our qualifications or the nature and breadth of our experience when meeting someone for the first time? When did we attempt to outdo someone else’s story (about the drama we experienced, the places we have seen or the achievements we have realised)? How often do we interrupt others’ conversations to focus attention on ourselves? When have we thought that our car/house/dress attire is better than that of someone else’s? Do we ever measure our personal worth in terms of the assets we have or the importance of our job? As we grow in mindfulness, we can become progressively more aware of our own narcissistic tendencies and begin to develop a healthy confidence and deep sense of our real self.

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Image by Alexas_Fotos from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Happiness Through Mindfulness

Shinzen Young, an internationally renowned meditation teacher, identified multiple ways that mindfulness meditation can contribute to our experience of happiness. In one of his videos – titled Why Meditate? – he identifies five specific aspects contributing to happiness that are enhanced by meditation. I will discuss these aspects below.

Five ways meditation contributes to happiness

Managing pain – neuroscience research strongly supports the view that meditation can reduce the suffering experienced by people in chronic pain. Jon Kabat-Zinn, through his Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Program, has shown that meditation can provide genuine pain relief. Diana Winston highlights the fact that pain is an inevitable part of human existence, but we have the choice through meditation of reducing our sense of pain (which is often exacerbated by the stories we tell ourselves and others about being-in-pain). She offers a meditation practice for dealing with pain.
Heightened fulfillment – a sense of satisfaction from doing what you set out to do or realising some aspects of what you see as your real purpose in life. Stephen Cope explains how meditation can assist us to progress along the four-stage path to realising and actioning our true purpose.
Understanding our self – Shinzen maintains that meditation leads to a deep level of self-understanding, learning who we really are. This self-awareness develops through meditation as we progressively challenge our self-stories and negative self-evaluation.
Improvements in behaviour – through meditation we can identify our reactivity and the inappropriate ways we behave. We can also develop the intention to change our behaviour, the motivation to realise this change and the reinforcement of the change through savouring achievements in desired behavioural change.
Contribution through selfless service – a spirit of serving the needs of others and helping them to realise happiness in their lives. This sense of service brings its own personal rewards and, according to Richard Barrett, represents the highest level of psychosocial development. Shinzen argues that this level of achievement is the natural outcome from realising the other four aspects of happiness mentioned above.

As we grow in mindfulness through meditation we can suffer less from our pain, experience fulfillment in our life, develop a deeper self-understanding, achieve desired behavioural changes and be in a good place personally to contribute to the service of others and their achievement of happiness. In turn, we will enhance our own experience of happiness and the equanimity of a life well-lived.

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Image by Shahid Shafiq from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

How to Do Those Difficult Tasks That You Avoid or Put Off Doing

We all have tasks that we ought to do, or want to do, but that we avoid or put off because they are difficult or challenging. Sometimes our negative self-stories get in the road, other times we may have developed the habit of procrastinating without knowing why. We find ways to distract ourselves from the task or take on other tasks that are not important or time-sensitive. We may have difficulty building up the energy to tackle the task in addition to overcoming the personal barriers we create that prevent us from completing the task.

Leo Babauta, creator of the Zen Habits blog, offers a comprehensive strategy to address this problem of avoiding or putting off tasks. In his article, How to Do Your Scariest Tasks of the Day – with Joy, he introduces an approach that he describes as creating a “training container”. He discusses how to develop the training container and offers a number of steps to encourage you to undertake the associated training in a spirit of joy.

Creating a training container to develop the habit of tackling a difficult task

Leo is an internationally recognised expert on developing habits – he has 2 million readers who seek out his wisdom in this area. The training container (or dedicated block of time) acts as a routine (for a new habit) that can be developed to suit your own personal and work style and that, with persistence, becomes an integral part of your day (just like any other training or gym regimen).

The key elements for creating a training container are:

Set aside a time of the day when you train yourself to do the task. It’s important to allocate a set time that suits your lifestyle and/or work pattern that you can dedicate to the training. I’m a morning person, so I find that mornings are best for training myself to complete a difficult task. You can let others know about your dedicated time and even set up a reminder through the alarm on your mobile phone. The time set aside may change as your circumstances change, e.g. when I was writing my PhD, I used to write at 4am for two hours before our baby woke up and before the phones started to ring.
Set aside a place for this training. You can find a space that is different to your normal place of working so that you break free of environmental blockages associated with your procrastination. If I have a difficult task to work on, I go away from my office and work at the kitchen table (with a view) or go to a tolerant, coffee shop. If you have a recurrent difficult task, you can go to an alternative space daily and treat it as your training space.
Set up a ritual for starting your scary/difficult task. Leo, who happens to be a mindfulness expert among other things, encourages you to develop a ritual at the start to focus on your intention and commitment to dedicate your attention fully to your task. This helps you to undertake your task mindfully, fully utilising the opportunity that the training container provides.
Focus on a single task during your training session, do not multi-task. I learnt early on that if I start the morning with reading emails, I get side-tracked very easily and hours can pass before I get back to my difficult task or have to put it off to another day. If you find that you feast on the news, you will have to develop the discipline to put off chasing the news until you have finished your training session. This discipline of undertaking a single task during your training session, not only builds your capacity to focus but also enhances your productivity.
Revisit your “why”. You need to get in touch with the fundamental reason you want to do the difficult task – Who are you doing it for?, Who will benefit from it? In my case, I try to keep my focus on my readers who come from all walks of life but who share many common personal difficulties that impact negatively on their lives. Richardo Semler suggests that you ask yourself three “why’s” to get to your deeper purpose. Focusing on purpose builds motivation.
Express gratitude at the completion of your training session. Leo suggests that initially you set a timer for your training session. He urges you not to rush off to something else when the session is completed, but to take the time for a brief gratitude meditation. As he puts it, “Bow to the practice, and to yourself, out of gratitude.” In the long run, you will certainly be grateful for having set aside the time, place and focus for your training container.

I have found these tactics very useful in creating the discipline and focus to write this blog. Yesterday, I completed my 300th post. I now have a set time and place every second day when I write my blog and maintain a single focus throughout the research and writing involved. I have found, too, that some preparatory work in the form of thinking or research before my writing day also helps me to start writing because I am not starting from a blank sheet. So, jotting down some notes during the day may be helpful when you come to tackle your task within the training container.

Training with joy

Leo provides a number of ideas to help you bring joy to the challenge of completing your training session. Two of these steps – dropping into your body & staying with your sensations – are consistent with my previous discussion on managing anxiety with mindfulness.

Leo also suggests that playing some music can help to achieve the mindset and focus necessary to realise joy in undertaking your difficult task. I play classical music when I write this blog. I find that Mozart’s music strengthens my concentration and increases my relaxation. I have yet to follow Leo’s final step, “Dance with the chaos- let your body move to the music”. He also suggests that the dance can be figurative in the sense of having fun while you are encountering uncertainty and venturing into an aspect of your life that you used to avoid or put off.

As we grow in mindfulness – by bringing a disciplined, mindful, focused, curious, grateful and joyful attention to a difficult task – we can experience greater productivity, energy and sense of achievement. Overcoming procrastination takes time and persistence but having a plan like the “training container” can help us to remove the blockages that get in the road of achieving our tasks and associated, meaningful endeavours.

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Image by rawpixel from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Mindfulness – Start Small, Start Right Now

The benefits of mindfulness seem enticing – not the least of which are improved mental health, clarity of mind and calmness.

Yet the change from the habit of busyness seems such a big step. How do you go from filling every moment with activity – designed to keep up with a racing mind – to the ability to stop and “be in the moment”, fully present to what is happening around you?

The first step is to change your underlying assumption that busyness will get you what you want – achievement, happiness and success. Unless you change your underlying assumption, you will not be able to sustain a change in your habituated behaviour – you will keep returning to old habits when under stress.

The second step is to “start small, start now”. These are the words of wisdom from entrepreneur and marketing guru, Seth Godin who writes a daily blog. Seth’s advice is:

Start small, start now.

This is better than “start big, start later”.

One advantage is that you don’t have to start perfect.

You can merely start.

While Seth is writing in the context of internet marketing, the above advice has application to many facets of life, not the least of which is how to grow in mindfulness.

In an earlier post, I suggested that to sustain mindfulness practice, you can begin with “one breath at a time” – practising mindful breathing. To start small, is better than not to start at all. If you begin with one simple mindful practice that breaks your current routine, you will be able to persist and progressively grow in mindfulness. Persistence then brings its own reward – increasing benefits and reinforcement of your new habits.

The secret is to find a mindful practice, and timing for that practice, that suits you. Everyone is different, you need to find your own starting point – your next step.

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Image source: courtesy of geralt on Pixabay