Garret Kramer's Blog, page 31

A Recommendation

Friends,

As you know, I don’t make a habit of recommending other people’s work here in my weekly article. In fact, I’ve never done it (at least I can’t remember if I have). Anyway, I’m about to, so listen up.

On March 12th, my friend and colleague, Jamie Smart, is launching his new book, Clarity: Clear Mind, Better Performance, Bigger Results. Never have I come across a book on the subject of productivity that’s so valuable—groundbreaking, actually.

In Clarity, Jamie takes the inside-out nature of our perceptions and experiences and applies it directly to success. In an informative and fun way, Jamie proves why traditional performance strategies almost always backfire, and what you already know deep down that holds the key to bringing out your best.

You can, of course, find Clarity online at Amazon and the like. However, this link: http://bit.ly/15gXDus , will take you directly to a pre-launch page with a video about the book, etc. I suggest you go there.

As always, any questions about Clarity or anything else—you know where to find me. Next week, we’ll get back to sneak peaks at my new book, The Path of No Resistance.

 

Here’s to Jamie’s new book, and to the “clarity” of our world,

Garret

Introduction of The Path of No Resistance: Part Two

The following expert is the second half of the Introduction to my upcoming book, The Path of No Resistance: Why Overcoming is Simpler than You Think. As I said last week, I’m only sharing it with my email list and friends.

Any questions or nice comments (er, okay, any comments at all), please reach out.

Garret

 

……If you don’t know my story, for most of my first twenty-eight years I was a grind-it-out-at-all-cost athlete, business person, and high school ice hockey coach. But one day I found myself in the midst of a chronic depression. And just like I had done previously, I was certain that I was going to fight or will my way out of it. So I labored and searched for the answers. I visited therapists, read self-help books, tried meditation, running, even anti-depressants—with no salvation. All I was really doing was stepping on the gas pedal with my tires in mud. Of course, I sunk lower.

Then one day, I had an insight: “What would happen if I simply stopped trying to feel better? What if I was resisting clarity and happiness instead of allowing them to appear?” Thankfully, I decided to listen to this inner wisdom (truth be told, I was kind of out of options at that point). I took my foot off the gas pedal and slowly but surely the mud started to dry. Pretty soon I was effortlessly pulling myself out of my funk, and, as the noise in my head quieted, I embarked on a path of good fortune and wonder.

I met my mentors, Richard Carlson, George Pransky, and Keith Blevens. They introduced me to the innate principles of mind, consciousness, and thought which form the foundation of my consulting practice, Inner Sports, today. And while Inner Sports started out as a mental-performance and advisory company for athletes and coaches, most of my time these days is spent giving talks to teams, organizations, and businesses. Plus, I write articles for various magazines and websites about the absolute necessity of looking to your own inner wisdom and instincts, and not to anything external, in order to rise above what life has in store.

In reading The Path of No Resistance, my hope is for you to realize what I did: By looking outside to circumstance in order to excuse, and remedy, your feelings and/or behaviors, you’re spoiling the fluent, happy, and fruitful life journey you seek. One purpose of this book, then, is to fortify you with this fundamental tenet:

You create your perception and experience of life from the inside-out; not the outside-in.

Nothing or nobody can make you feel something you don’t think. Your thinking, and only your thinking, creates your feelings. So when you feel low it’s got nothing to do with the events of your life—no matter how much it might look otherwise. What I’ve witnessed, over and over again, is that people with a keen sense of the thought/feeling connection consistently achieve three things in life. They:

Retain inner peace.
Excel.
They set inspirational examples for others.

To the contrary, people who in error form a direct connection between their feelings and the world outside, consistently feel the need to cope. They look to external strategies, vices, motivational experts, or illicit behavior with the expectation of finding relief. These people make three inadvertent but damaging mistakes. They:

Mismanage their thinking.
Detach themselves from their own inner wisdom.
Thwart their innate ability to overcome.

The truth is that human beings are wired to rise above anything, without resistance. Our ability to get over things is so natural that most of the time we don’t even notice it. One morning last summer, for example, I arrived at my desk and realized that it was extremely hot in my office. I felt upset that the air conditioning wasn’t working. But then the phone rang, and I had emails to write and people to see. Before I knew it, it was 6:00 p.m., and I became aware that I was perspiring slightly—oh, right, the air conditioning was broken, wasn’t it?

It may be difficult to grasp in the midst of uneasiness, but only when a person interferes with the mind’s natural capacity to regulate to clarity will he or she struggle. In my case, I became distracted by the busyness of my day and so my irritated and bound-up thinking quickly flowed away. If from my upset perspective I had hunted down the building superintendent or tried to fix the AC myself, I would have exacerbated my confusion and the day would have turned out unproductive.

But what was it that truly allowed me to overcome my upset thinking about my hot office (after all, distractions can’t last)? Why do some people seem to handle adversity and get on with life, while others seem to wallow?

The answer has to do with the degree to which a person understands how the human mind functions. The mind is designed to take out old, stale, and churned-over thought—and bring in new, fresh, and uncontaminated thought. People who move gracefully through misfortune recognize that when their minds are racing, or snarled-up, their perceptions are distorted. So if they try to fix things (e.g., small stuff such as the broken air conditioning, a more acute life event such as a tragedy, or even their own thinking), they’ll prevent new thought—and solutions—from arriving.

In brief, people who seem to not sweat the small stuff do sweat the small stuff. Yet it’s not lengthy because they also understand that fighting a wayward experience will always make matters worse. This brings us to another important lesson that I hope you’ll take from this book:

When troubled, knowing that your feelings come from thought and not circumstance—or from the inside; not the outside—is what allows your state of mind to self-correct.

You might not feel it right now, but, in principle, your mind is an energetic and powerful source of consciousness. It doesn’t care if your thoughts are negative, despondent, insecure, judgmental, or obsessive. If you simply stay out of the way when defective thinking shows up; untarnished and free-flowing thinking will emerge. And so will your predisposition to get over anything that life has in store.

Actually, you might find it gets better than that: When you allow the self-regulating function of the mind to do its job, you uncover enduring and impactful answers—and, at the same time, demonstrate to others the might of looking within.

–

The Path of No Resistance is an amalgamation of my personal stories and insights about the inborn human characteristic of resilience. My job is to help you strip away heaps of outside-in programming and point you back to the inner wisdom from which excellence with ease is born. While it’s not your fault that “experts” are constantly throwing does and don’ts your way, my belief is that through the paradigm revealed in this book, you’ll find a better sense of who to listen to and what information just might spark something inside.

That’s my point. Virtually all self-help resources today are telling you what to do. This book is built to bring out your ability to decide for yourself.

Finally, I do have a couple of early suggestions—I found these suggestions helpful as I began my own journey in the freeing direction you’ll soon learn about, or, if you read Stillpower, learn more about: First, please take your time as you read The Path of No Resistance. Second, don’t fret if you’re not grasping the underlying theme of the chapters right away. Trust me, I get it, it’s hard to fathom that both external circumstances and your own thoughts are inherently powerless against you. Once you see it, though, I’m optimistic that your aptitude to rise above anything and everything will kick in. And regardless of what occurs on the outside, honesty, determination, and achievement will become dependable norms for you.

Like I said in the introduction of Stillpower, “There’s nothing you must do to get the most out of playing the game (or living a giving and gratifying life). For the truth is this: You already know.” In other words, answers are not found outside, they’re found in innate principles that rest deep within you. This book is the next step in my quest to point you down a path where overcoming is as natural as the air that you breathe.

Good luck.

Coming: The Path of No Resistance

The following excerpt opens, and is a portion of the Introduction to, my upcoming book, The Path of No Resistance: Why Overcoming is Simpler than You Think. As it’s unedited, I’m only sharing it with my email list and friends. More to follow next week.

Thank you for your ongoing interest and support. It means the world to me,

Garret

 

The Golf Channel once interviewed a ten-year old girl who qualified for the US Amateur Championship. The host asked questions such as, “What are your expectations going into the tournament?” “What’s the best part of your game?” “What are your goals in golf?” “How do you handle the pressure at such a young age?” The young golfer’s response to every question: “I don’t understand what you are asking.” The host, figuring that she was too young to comprehend his words, asked the questions again, trying to use more basic language. Her response this time, “I understood the words, just not their connection to playing golf.”

 

Here’s a line of questioning that, until now, you probably never considered: What do we really see and then experience as we look outward? Do we experience our circumstances: the world around us, our family, our finances, our job, our friends, the weather? Or, does the nature of our perceptions and experiences come from somewhere else? It goes without saying that each of us has looked at a specific circumstance in our life and experienced a low or worrisome feeling. But then looked at the exact same circumstance, later on, and wondered what in the world was troubling us in the first place.

So can it truly be one’s circumstance that determines how he or she feels? Can it be one’s circumstance that needs to be confronted and overcome? Yes, I realize that the world bombards us with coping mechanisms and mental strategies to use when it seems like life makes us feel low, but are they actually necessary? Do they even work? Can the world make us feel a certain way? Again, if our circumstances have the power to raise or lower our moods, wouldn’t the same circumstance make us feel happy or sad every time we experienced it?

I told you that these questions were different. But still, if it’s not the situation on the outside, what is it then? What determines the quality of our experience and level of inner peace on a moment to moment basis? And why is the answer to this question important? In this book, you’re about to find out.

In fact, in my many years consulting with athletes, coaches, parents, teachers, and business leaders, I’ve found that those people (such as the young golfer I mentioned at the outset) who understand that their experience is not created from the world outside, are the ones who consistently rise above what others would define as difficult circumstances. They’re the ones who possess an innate fortitude and almost never play victim. They’re the ones who sail along The Path of No Resistance.

That’s the “why it’s so important” part.

Now to the “why do our perceptions and thus our experiences of the same circumstances, vary” part. Why, for example, does my wife do something and it irks me, but then at a different time she does the same thing and I find it endearing? Why does your boss or coach look like a monster one day, but then the next, he or she is the epitome of kindness? Why do you get cut off on the highway and feel angry and vulnerable, but then get cut off again and feel sorry for, or even concerned about, the other driver?

The simple answer to these questions that most people are missing is this:

We don’t live in the feeling of our circumstances. We live in the feeling of our thinking, and our thinking is always in flux.

That’s why your outlook on the situations of your life is constantly changing. If your thinking is clear, life situations look like a dream; if your thinking is cluttered, the same life situation looks like a nightmare. That simple.

In my first book, Stillpower, I introduced you to a revolutionary paradigm for performance and contentment, on and off the playing field. I suggested (actually insisted) that willpower or revving up one’s mind and body, as well as external mental-performance techniques, only lowers one’s chances for excellence and success. My message was that if left alone when a person struggles—stillpower—the human mind will self-correct to consciousness.

In this book, I’ll dive into this notion a little deeper as I introduce you to some new, exciting, and hopeful insights about the human mind’s ability to overcome—and the principles that govern this ability. I’ll still use sports metaphors and talk about my clients, experiences with my family, and current events. I’ll also disagree with a few experts, and tell you about one or two who just might be on the right track. But the intention here is for you to see how universal the principles that govern faith and resolve, among other things, actually are.

Continued…

On Honesty

It seems like honesty, or a lack thereof, is a hot topic these days. I agree that from athletes on performance-enhancing drugs, to politicians who lack clarity, to unauthentic musicians, to Wall Street’s myopic focus on self, things are running a bit amuck. But, you’re probably wondering, why does this type of behavior occur? And what can be done to curb it in your own life, and, thus, set a freeing example for others?

Dishonesty, if you look real close, is the off-shoot of a misunderstanding for how all of us create our feelings. Everyone, including you and me, has thoughts about lying or taking shortcuts. Those of us, who know that these thoughts—and nothing on the outside—create our insecure feelings, usually won’t act on them. However, those who believe that circumstance causes these feelings have practically no choice but to take the shortcut or lie. It’s this misunderstanding about the source of our feelings that results in dishonesty—nothing else. And to be clear: I’m not excusing dishonesty; I’m explaining it.

That’s why judging, punishing, or preaching right and wrong to those who act untruthfully won’t help (and isn’t helping) rein things in. Think about it, did your parent’s overbearing rules when you were a teenager make you fib more or less? Rather, if you want to help create a more honest world, teach others about the true cause of behavior: People feel the ebb and flow of their thinking and not the ebb and flow of what happens to them.

Don’t forget: You create your outlook on life; life doesn’t create your outlook. Thinking unethical thoughts doesn’t make you unethical. It makes you feel unethical—no harm in that. Provided, that is, you get a solid grip on the principle that acting on unethical, or insecure, feelings won’t ever make them go away. It makes them come back even stronger.

The Delusion of Acceptance

A portion of the following article comes from my new book, The Path of No Resistance: Why Overcoming is Simpler than You Think. More posts from the book in the weeks ahead, and more information about the book coming soon. 

 

I don’t know about you, but over the past few weeks, I’ve heard plenty of self-help experts, coaches, and spiritual teachers promote “acceptance” as a practice. Just yesterday, for instance, I watched author Eckhart Tolle say that acceptance of a troubling situation is the first step toward effective action and change.

To me, acceptance is irrelevant. The more you try to accept something, the more attention you are placing on something that has nothing to do with the way you feel in the first place. So by suggesting acceptance as a strategy, Tolle and others are looking outward, toward one’s circumstances to explain one’s feelings, when our feelings have one source only: Our thinking.

The truth is that it’s impossible to make someone do something, or feel something, they don’t think. Including yourself. To illustrate, if you suffer a loss (an unsuccessful competition, a failed job interview, or even a tragedy) and your thoughts are aggrieved, overwhelmed, or “unaccepting,” looking to this circumstance and trying to accept it will only fill your jam-packed head with more thoughts—thereby escalating your distress. But if you look inward to explain your feelings, you’ll notice the direct link between your thinking, moods, and perceptions no matter what’s happening externally. The loss then loses its gnawing grip; providing the opportunity to learn and grow from it.

It may seem otherwise at times, but there’s never a cause-and-effect relationship between a person’s circumstances and his or her feelings. That’s why trying to do something about one’s circumstances (change them or accept them) for the purpose of feeling better simply doesn’t work. Have you ever gone through a low period in your life and tried to change, or accept, your career, house, hairstyle, or mate because you identified this external circumstance as the source of your discontent? I bet that didn’t work out as planned, did it?

Don’t forget: Any time a self-help method requires doing, fixing, or accepting, it does so in complete disregard for the state of mind of the person in question. People are just not capable of accepting anything (nor should they try) when their thinking is bound up, and, thus, they are suffering. People are always capable, however, of understanding why they currently feel bad—their thinking, not their life, has inadvertently trended lower.

And, by the way, we don’t need to strive to “accept” or do anything with a low feeling. We simply need to remember that these glitches of consciousness are designed to self-correct, with no effort on our part, at all.

Feeling the Fall of Lance Armstrong

The masses are taking shots at reviled cyclist Lance Armstrong. If you want to jump on the bandwagon, that’s your business. Although if you do, you’re falling into the same trap that he did. You’re misunderstanding or trying to fight through your own feelings about something (in this case, Armstrong’s actions)—which is never helpful.

By contrast, here’s how the Armstrong saga looks to me: Armstrong claimed that, at the time, he didn’t feel bad about using performance-enhancing drugs or running roughshod over others to win seven straight Tour de France titles. That’s impossible. Feelings don’t work that way. Errant behavior (including judging others) is always the result of a person doing something in spite of feelings that are telling him or her: “You know better!”

In other words, Armstrong simply didn’t (or doesn’t) grasp the purpose of feelings. He believed that the off feeling in his gut was a sign to wage war. So he did just that—and you know the rest.

What human beings feel is the up and down nature of our thinking. What we don’t feel is the up and down nature of our circumstances. When Armstrong felt insecure—and we all do at times—he wasn’t feeling his cycling career or those around him. He was feeling his temporarily insecure thinking. When he looked outside to explain and fix these feelings through drugs, coercion, or any means, he was bound to find trouble. He was looking in the wrong place.

Don’t misunderstand; I’m not condoning Armstrong’s behavior. I’m explaining it. He’s not evil; he’s not a terrible guy. In fact, he’s no different than you or me. Our feelings are an inborn barometer of whether or not our thinking is productive in the moment. When you work against this inborn barometer, confusion sets in. Act from confusion—you’re toast. Think about it: Are the mistakes you’ve made in your own life about the situations you encountered, or your feelings and mindset when you encountered the situations? I know the answer.

That’s why if Armstrong wants to learn from what he did, examining what he did won’t help. Rather, he should examine the feeling state from which he acted. The same goes for you and me. All of our sensory experiences come directly from our thinking. And the nature of our thinking is always bound to improve. Unless, that is, we make circumstantial excuses for it.

Consider this different take on Armstrong: Based on what he understood to be the source of his feelings, he was actually doing what made sense to him at the time. Armstrong believed he was feeling the world around him. This, alas, is the biggest error a human being can make.

And, again, if you’re one of those who’s taking shots at him these days. You’re looking outward to justify your feelings, so you’ve become a victim of circumstance, too. Look inside—your answers, and Armstrong’s, always rest there.

The Problem-Solving Fast Track

In virtually every business, organization, or family in the world today, people are doing their best to solve problems. And that’s admirable. Yet, in my opinion, most are working way harder than they should. Even me, at times.

Yesterday, I absentmindedly scheduled two meetings for the same hour and didn’t know what to do about it. I racked my brain searching for the solution, and, before I knew it, my head was spinning. So I resigned myself to the fact that at least one person was going to be upset with me, possibly two. Funny thing, though, the minute I did that my thinking slowed and the answer to my supposed dilemma appeared. Since both people are members of the same organization, I offered a joint training where insights could be shared freely. It worked, and they both thanked me for what they learned that day.

Here’ the way 99 percent of us approach our problems:

We perceive a circumstance as difficult, so we conclude that the way to solve it is to think about it some more.

Here’s the way we should approach our problems:

We perceive a circumstance as difficult, so we conclude that we’re not thinking correctly.

That’s right, to solve a problem, you must understand that issues always exist in your thinking, never in your circumstances. From a clear head, answers and revelations abound. From a cluttered head—a state of overthinking—confusion and roadblocks abound.

In other words, just because you can’t find a solution at that moment, doesn’t mean that one doesn’t exist. All of us have experienced struggles that appeared to be the result of a certain situation, only to later ask ourselves: This situation isn’t so complicated, what in the world was troubling me?

Contrary to what we’re led to believe, then, problems are never the cause of a disquiet mindset; they are a symptom of a disquiet mindset. So when you try to willfully dig into your problems, you are merely holding the same misinformation system in place—a head jammed with thought—that created the problem to begin with.

How do you get on the problem-solving fast track? It’s pretty simple, actually. Realize that all experiences (including perceived problems) are born from thought—not from the world outside. This understanding alone is what points you inward, thus activating the mind’s natural ability to find clarity, and answers, without little to no effort at all.

 

 

 

Garret Kramer is the founder of Inner Sports. His clients include Olympians, NHL, MLB, and collegiate players and coaches, and he often conducts seminars about his “inside-out” paradigm for performance excellence. Garret has been featured on ESPN, WFAN, FOX, and NPR; and in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and Sports Illustrated. He is the author of the book, Stillpower: Excellence with Ease in Sports and Life, www.stillpower.com.

The Critical Difference Between Leadership and Motivation

Here’s something that might surprise you: The best leaders do not attempt to motivate their employees, athletes, students, or children.

In fact, those people in leadership positions who try to light fires for others tend to not keep their jobs for very long. But those people in the same positions who know the difference between leadership and motivation create a different legacy; their impact on others endures forever.

The difference between leadership and motivation, to me, is summed up like this:

Leadership: A consistent example of rising above any and all circumstances. Leadership is external.

Motivation: The inner knowledge or insight that makes rising above circumstances possible. Motivation comes from within.

So true leadership isn’t about encouraging, pushing, or cheering on; it’s about pointing others inward so they recognize that the ability to be motivated rests with them. If you are a parent, for instance, you know that it is virtually impossible to motivate your children to work hard at their studies. But you can lead. You can show your children that no matter how sick you might get or how difficult your circumstances might appear, you can passionately apply yourself to your own job or projects. Thereby pointing your children inward toward their innate ability to rise above any circumstance, and excuse, and crack the books with vigor.

My message about leadership is simple: Great leaders serve to bring out the inner wisdom and free will of those they serve. Instead of inducing people to view life situations a certain way (or their way), great leaders demonstrate that there are an infinite number of ways to view any life situation.

To illustrate, one of my mentors, Sydney Banks, must have given hundreds of seminars and lectures during his lifetime. Like clockwork before each talk, the audience would file in with notebooks in hand. Yet while Syd was incredibly generous with his wisdom, he would always instruct the audience to not take notes. His words were his alone—his interpretation of “truth,” he would say. He wanted the audience to develop their own feelings and ideas, and draw their own conclusions, not follow in his footsteps.

I believe, then, that great leaders are those individuals who, like Sydney Banks, set great examples. Why can’t we simply leave leadership right there? Who ever came up with the belief that leaders must be motivators of others anyway? It’s time we recognize the difference between leadership and motivation because if we don’t—our companies, teams, schools, and even families will be overrun by followers who are incapable of lending an imaginative hand, let alone coming through when the chips are down.

Motivation is personal; leadership brings out personal potential for the benefit of the greater good. Take note of the difference. The business, sports, education, and political worlds—actually the world in general, can use more of both.

 

 

 

Garret Kramer is the founder of Inner Sports. His clients include Olympians, NHL, MLB, and collegiate players and coaches, and he often conducts seminars about his “inside-out” paradigm for performance excellence. Garret has been featured on ESPN, WFAN, FOX, and NPR; and in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and Sports Illustrated. He is the author of the book, Stillpower: Excellence with Ease in Sports and Life, www.stillpower.com.

Now You Know—So Let it Start with You

You’re about to consider something that, perhaps, you didn’t know was possible: When you feel down or you’re hurting, you do not have to gaze out on your life to find the reason. There is another, less demanding, option available: You can look inward to the unavoidable fact that you think.

Did you get that? You have a choice. You don’t have to try (and try and try) to explain, fix, or excuse your feelings by examining or delving into your circumstances, including your past or future. Rather, you can look within and realize that your feelings come from your thinking. That’s why sages throughout history insisted that we “look within for the answers.”

Now, if that sounds a little far-fetched or even spiritual, then so be it, because it is. And that’s the point. Thought, at its root, is a spiritual principle. Thoughts simply pop into our heads and we have no say about their content, quality, or which ones stick. And although thoughts do create our reality in the moment, they are not reality. When a person thinks judgmental or pessimistic thoughts, his or her reality suffers; when the same person thinks compassionate or affirmative thoughts, his or her reality thrives. Therefore, if we look outward to an impermanent perception of life to explain our feelings, we will always sink deeper into our troubles—i.e., and it pains me to say, Newtown, Ct. But if we look inward to the random nature of thought to explain our perceptions of life, answers become obvious and we move forward productively.

Here’s a less acute, personal example of this. I was about to give a talk last weekend, when suddenly I felt nervous and unconfident. Could it be the talk that was to blame for my feelings? Could it have been my lack of sleep the night before? Could it have been that there were a lot of people watching? Could it have been that my public-speaking profesor in college told me I had no chance to make it as a speaker? You get the idea. If I had chosen to look outward to validate my insecure feelings, I could go on looking forever—without any resolution or relief. So, instead, I chose to look inward to the fact that the quality of my thinking at that moment had crafted my perceptions of my talk. Once I had chosen that course, I jumped on stage raring to go.

I will admit, sometimes it’s easy to miss that your struggles come from thought and never from circumstance. It so much looks and feels like your environment has the might to make you feel a certain way. Yet, take a closer look. Could that really be true?  Are your feelings about the same external situation a constant, or are they constantly up for grabs? You probably don’t even realize it, but throughout your lifetime you’ve ignored thousands of errant thoughts and perceptions and quickly felt better. But you’ve also made many molehills into mountains and gradually felt worse.

The choice is always yours. Option A: You can look outward to defend your feelings. Option B: You can look inward toward the random nature of thought. Whatever you decide, though, only option B prevents you from raising hell for yourself and those around you. Why? Because looking toward thought, and away from circumstance, allows the self-corrective power of the mind to effortlessly snap into action.  

Oh, and one more thing: Yes, it is this simple. Just imagine the pain, carnage, and suffering that could be eliminated if mental health professionals, parents, coaches and teachers would understand, and then teach, the basic and spiritual principle of thought.

Now you know—so let it start with you.

 

 

 

Garret Kramer is the founder of Inner Sports. His clients include Olympians, Universities, business leaders, NHL, MLB, and collegiate players and coaches; and Garret often conducts seminars about his “inside-out” paradigm for performance excellence. He has been featured on ESPN, WFAN, FOX, and NPR; and in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Sports Illustrated. Garret is the author of the book, Stillpower: Excellence with Ease in Sports and Life, www.stillpower.com.

The Secret Lies in Thought

Why do you suppose that small children don’t get hung up on things? I mean, they don’t hold grudges, they’re open and inventive, and momentary upsets are quickly replaced with marvel and joy. Simply put, youngsters seem to own some sort of secret to inspiration and happiness that most adults lack.

But what is the secret? And how do we adults get in on it the act?

The secret is that children possess an inherent understanding about their own thinking. And while adults possess the same understanding (you can’t lose it), layers and layers of misinformation over the years have innocently covered it up.

To illustrate, when my daughter, Chelsea, was young, at times she would tell me that she hated me. That is, she would say exactly what she was thinking when she didn’t agree with my opinion. If I said no to a sleepover, for instance, I was the worst father on the planet. But these moments were always short-lived since another thought would appear in Chelsea’s head and, in a flash, she’d be off in a new direction.

What’s interesting to note, though, is that this tendency did not apply to her positive thoughts. When Chelsea followed her loving or non-judgmental thinking she’d stay on that path for hours.

My message is that children intuitively recognize that we live in the feeling of our thinking—not the feeling of the world around us. Although Chelsea could not control when she thought negatively, she somehow knew that the wayward feeling that accompanied these thoughts was her guide to not go there for long—for if she did, her life would suffer. On the other hand, the free and peaceful feeling that accompanied her wonderful thoughts was her guide to keep looking in this useful direction.

For adults, and those young people who have forgotten, the implications of this understanding are immense. We cannot determine the thoughts that pop into our heads, but we certainly have a say about which thoughts to follow. Therefore, the key to contentment or productivity is not trying to think a specific way or judge yourself if the value of your thinking lowers. The key is seeing that all thoughts are neutral until you give them power.

Here, again, is the secret that you once knew as a young child: Your experience of life is tied directly to the fact that you think, not who or what you think about. That’s why young children automatically turn their back on thinking that makes them feel bad, and turn their attention toward thinking that makes them feel good—no matter the circumstance.

Actually, it’s a pretty simple secret, after all.

 

 

 

Garret Kramer is the founder of Inner Sports. His clients include Olympians, universities, business leaders, NHL, MLB, and collegiate players and coaches; and Garret often conducts seminars about his “inside-out” paradigm for performance excellence. He has been featured on ESPN, WFAN, FOX, and NPR; and in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Sports Illustrated. Garret is the author of the book, Stillpower: Excellence with Ease in Sports and Life, www.stillpower.com.