The Practice of Groundedness: A Transformative Path to Success That Feeds--Not Crushes--Your Soul

by Brad Stulberg

We need to stop spending so much time worrying about our metaphorical overstory, our high-hanging branches, and instead focus on nourishing our deep and internal roots. The stuff that keeps us grounded throughout all kinds of weather. The foundation. The principles and practices that we often overlook, that get crowded out in a too-busy life focused on the relentless and all-too-often single-minded pursuit of outward achievement.

Groundedness is unwavering internal strength and self-confidence that sustains you through ups and downs. It is a deep reservoir of integrity and fortitude, of wholeness, out of which lasting performance, well-being, and fulfillment emerge.

Studies show that happiness is a function of reality minus expectations. In other words, the key to being happy isn’t to always want and strive for more. Instead, happiness is found in the present moment, in creating a meaningful life and being fully engaged in it, right here and right now.

I’m not interested in “hacks,” quick fixes, or single small studies, all of which tend to be big on promises but low on real-world efficacy. Regardless of what the marketers, clickbait headlines, and pseudoscience evangelists say, there are no magic lotions, potions, or pills when it comes to deep happiness, lasting well-being, and enduring performance.

What I am interested in is convergence. If multiple fields of scientific inquiry, the world’s major wisdom traditions, and the practices of highly fulfilled peak performers all point toward the same truths, then they are probably worth paying attention to.

happiness, fulfillment, well-being, and sustainable performance arise when you concentrate on being present in the process of living instead of obsessing over outcomes, and above ...

Out of a commitment to these principles—acceptance, presence, patience, vulnerability, deep community, and movement—comes a firm and resolute groundedness.

Accept Where You Are to Get You Where You Want to Go. Seeing clearly, accepting, and starting where you are. Not where you want to be. Not where you think you should be. Not where other people think you should be. But where you are.

Be Present So You Can Own Your Attention and Energy. Being present, both physically and mentally, for what is in front of you. Spending more time fully in this life, not in thoughts about the past or future. Be Patient and You’ll Get There Faster. Giving things time and space to unfold. Not trying to escape life by moving at warp speed. Not expecting instant results and then quitting when they don’t occur. Shifting from being a seeker to a practitioner. Playing the long game. Staying on the path instead of constantly veering off.

Embrace Vulnerability to Develop Genuine Strength and Confidence. Showing up authentically. Being real with yourself and with others. Eliminating the cognitive dissonance between your workplace self, your online self, and your actual self so that you can know and trust your true self, and in tu...

Build Deep Community. Nurturing genuine connection and belonging. Prioritizing not just productivity, but people, too. Immersing yourself in supportive spaces that will hold and bolster you through ups and downs, an...

Move Your Body to Ground Your Mind. Regularly moving your body so that you fully inhabit it, connect it to your mind, and as a result become...

an interesting paradox: why letting go of—or at least holding more lightly—outcomes such as happiness and achievement, and instead focusing on building a durable foundation of groundedness, is the surest path to becoming happier and more successful.

“If you want to garden, you have to bend down and touch the soil. Gardening is a practice. Not an idea.”

“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”

When someone is deceiving themselves and not accepting of their reality, they become doubtful and insecure. When someone is honest with themselves and accepting of their reality, they gain a quiet and firm confidence.

Humans suffer from what behavioral scientists call the commission bias, or the tendency to err on the side of action over inaction. If we don’t see results, we get impatient and feel a strong urge to do something—anything—to expedite our progress. But often the best thing we can do is nothing—staying the course, tweaking as we go, and letting things unfold in their own time. Instead of always thinking, Don’t just stand there, do something, we should at least consider thinking, Don’t just do something, stand there.

“We must distinguish happiness from excitement,” writes Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh. “Many people think of excitement as happiness. They are thinking of something, or expecting something that they consider to be happiness, and for them, that is already happiness. But when you are excited you are not peaceful. True happiness is based on peace.”

When you feel the urge to intervene by taking expedited action, ask yourself what it would look like to slow down whatever it is you are doing by 10 percent. What would it look like to take a soft step back and let things unfold on their own time for a bit longer? (This practice can be used on a smaller scale, too, like holding off on sending an email.) Sometimes it does make sense to intervene. This pause—and more generally, adopting the mindset of a good enough parent—simply helps you bring discernment to that decision instead of going forward on autopilot. It helps to break the pattern of running around in circles and subsequent stress in favor of more grounded being and doing.

The master, wrote Lao-tzu, “accomplish[es] the great task by a series of small acts.”

In the fourth century BC, the Taoist philosopher Lao-tzu wrote, “When you are content to simply be yourself and don’t compare or compete, everybody will respect you.”

Psychological safety occurs when team members feel that they are able to show and deploy their whole selves without fear of negative repercussions.

“All of us are vulnerable,” she says. “The decision is whether to admit it or not. Recommendation? Acknowledging your humanness creates a safe place for others to bring their selves forward.”

self-determination theory, or SDT for short. SDT demonstrates that humans thrive when three basic needs are met: Autonomy, or the ability to have at least some control over how we spend our time and energy. Competence, or a path toward tangible improvement in our chosen pursuits. Relatedness, or a sense of connection and belonging.

We are social animals. Our ability to communicate and cooperate has been one of our species’ greatest competitive advantages. Millennia ago, back on the savanna, groups of primates and early humans who were tightly bonded had a significant edge over groups who were not. Consequently, over time, evolution favored well-functioning groups, as well as individuals who had a knack for participating in these groups. Scientists refer to this process as group selection.

Erich Fromm, in his 1955 book The Sane Society, warned against developing a marketing orientation: “[When someone’s] body, mind, and soul are his capital, and his task in life is to invest it favorably, to make a profit of himself. Human qualities like friendliness, courtesy, kindness, are transformed into commodities, into assets of the ‘personality package,’ conducive to a higher price on the personality market. If the individual fails in a profitable investment of himself, he feels that he is a failure; if he succeeds, he is a success.”

There is the collective joy our species is hardwired to feel when we move in synchrony with others, a phenomenon that at first was an evolutionary advantage that promoted cooperation during hunting. There is the release of neurochemicals such as endorphins and oxytocin, which promote affection and bonding. There is the ritualistic nature intrinsic to many exercise programs, leading to a sensation scientists call identity fusion—feeling connected to and part of something larger than oneself. And there is the shared confidence, vulnerability, and trust that emerges from undertaking physical challenges with others. Exercise scientists refer to this as “muscular bonding,” likely for its long-standing application as a rite of passage in tribal cultures and, more recently, in the military.

“We crave this feeling of connection,” says McGonigal, “and synchronized movement is one of the most powerful ways to experience it.” She writes that outsiders often fail to understand the social effects of movement. “Like any nature-harnessing phenomenon, it doesn’t make sense until you’re in the middle of it. Then suddenly, endorphins flowing and heart pounding, you find [the kind of belonging that exercise gives rise to] the most reasonable thing in the world.”

When you move your body, you move your mind, too.

Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard wrote, “Above all, do not lose your desire to walk: every day I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness; I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it.”

You don’t become what you think. You become what you do.

It is also true that in order to transition to a more grounded life, you may face resistance, both personal and cultural, especially since today’s society—and the heroic individualism it espouses—is in opposition to cultivating and nourishing the principles of groundedness.

stop trying to win at your hobby.

We often make things more complex than they need to be as a way to avoid the reality that what really matters for behavior change is consistently showing up and doing the work. Not dreaming about it. Not thinking about it. Not talking about it. Doing it.

The more complex you make something, the easier it is to get excited about, talk about, and maybe even get started—but the harder it is to stick with over the long haul. Complexity gives you excuses and ways out and endless options for switching things up all the time. Simplicity is different. You can’t hide behind simplicity. You have to show up, day in and day out, and work toward your desired changes. Your successes hit you in the face. But so do your failures. This kind of quick and direct feedback allows you to learn what works and adjust what doesn’t.

Buddhist psychology called selective watering. We all possess a diverse set of latent capacities and attitudes; these are our seeds. The seeds that we water are the ones that grow. If we want to develop unshakable groundedness, formal practice is not enough; we need to water each of the seeds, or in this case, the principles we’ve been discussing—acceptance, presence, patience, vulnerability, deep community, and movement—in our everyday lives. Equally important, we need to stop watering the seeds in our lives that thwart the development of these principles, aspects of heroic individualism such as denial, distraction, speed for the sake of speed, arrogance, invincibility, and rote optimization of everything.

when it comes to realizing a more grounded kind of success there is no destination.

The path is the goal and the goal is the path.

“The way practice works,” an anonymous Japanese Zen teacher once remarked, “is that we build up our practice, then it falls apart. And then we build it up again, and then it falls apart again. This is the way it goes.”

Practice means approaching an endeavor deliberately, with care, and with the intention to continually grow. It requires paying close attention to the feedback you receive—both internal and from external sources you trust—and adjusting accordingly.

When an activity becomes a practice, it shifts from something that you are doing at a point in time to an ongoing process of becoming. James Carse, a professor of history and religion at New York University, called this kind of practice an “infinite game.” In his underground classic Finite and Infinite Games, Carse writes that a finite game is one that will be won or lost, that will come to a definite end. An infinite game, however, as its name suggests, is ongoing. The whole purpose is to keep playing.

Do not worry about achieving a specific result. Focus on being where you are and applying the principles of groundedness to the best of your ability right now. If you concentrate on the process, the results you are hoping for tend to take care of themselves. Bring intentionality to everything you do. Keep coming back to the principles of groundedness and your actions for living them out. There is much about life that you cannot control, but there is also plenty that you can. Concentrate on the latter. Work with like-minded people whenever possible, and don’t be scared to ask for help when you need it. Asking for help is not a sign of weakness; it is a sign of strength. Take a long view and assume you will fail every now and again. If you expect occasional failures they won’t surprise you or throw you off course. They simply become part of the process, information that you can learn from and that will help you grow. Contrary to the cultural norms of heroic individualism, do not compare yourself to others. Compare yourself to prior versions of yourself and judge yourself based on the effort you are exerting in the present moment.

T. S. Eliot famously wrote, “Teach us to care and not to care.”

In the West, we tend to separate the mind and the heart. The mind thinks rationally. It knows hard and objective truths. It judges good from bad, right from wrong. The heart is emotional and soft. If we pay too close attention to it, it will make us weak or lead us astray. But the truth lies outside this dichotomy altogether. The mind is most powerful when it is situated in the heart, when striving and trying to get something right is held with love and compassion. As Kornfield writes, and as Lauren experienced, the mind in the heart gains “a diamond-like clarity.” Hence the jewel in the lotus.

Stay on the path. Fall off the path. Get back on the path. It’s as simple and as hard as that.