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November 6 - November 17, 2022
I’ve come to call this heroic individualism: an ongoing game of one-upmanship, against both yourself and others, paired with the limiting belief that measurable achievement is the only arbiter of success. Even if you do a good job hiding it on the outside, with heroic individualism you chronically feel like you never quite reach the finish line that is lasting fulfillment.
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.
everyone is longing for: to feel grounded—and to experience a deeper and more fulfilling kind of success as a result.
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.
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.
The Stoics believed that in order to have a good life, we must shift from trying to attain status or the approval of others, both of which are fleeting, and focus on becoming “properly grounded,” relinquishing the need to look outside ourselves for satisfaction and fulfillment and instead finding it within.
Whereas reaction is rushed and rash, wise action is deliberate and considerate. Wise action emerges from internal strength, from 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 turn gain the freedom and confidence to devote your energy to what matters most.
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...
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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...
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them real. In my work with coaching clients, I call this the knowing-doing gap. First, you need to understand something and be convinced of its value. Then, you actually need to do it.
“If you want to garden, you have to bend down and touch the soil. Gardening is a practice. Not an idea.”
Progress in anything, large or small, requires recognizing, accepting, and starting where you are. Not where you want to be. Not where you think you should be. Not where others think you should be. But where you are.
“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”
Accept what is happening without fusing your identity to it. Zoom out to a larger perspective or awareness from which you can observe your situation without feeling like you are trapped in it.
Choose how you want to move forward in a way that aligns with your innermost values.
Take action, even if doing so feels scary or uncomfortable.
Marcus Aurelius wrote, “It’s normal to feel pain in your hands and feet if you’re using your feet as feet and your hands as hands. And for a human being to feel stress is normal—if he’s living a normal human life.”
Epictetus, another revered Stoic, taught that when we hate or fear our circumstances, they become our masters. Contrary
four-step method called RAIN that can help. When you find yourself resisting an experience or situation, pause for a moment and take a few breaths. As you do: Recognize what is happening. Allow life to be just as it is. Investigate your inner experience with kindness and curiosity. Note or practice non-identification, not fusing with what you are experiencing but rather viewing it from a larger perspective.
if you judge yourself, you’re liable to feel shame or guilt, and it is often this shame or guilt that keeps you trapped in your undesirable situation, preventing you from taking productive action. If,
you want to marry self-discipline with self-compassion. When
“This is what is happening right now. I’m doing the best I can.”
What you can control, however, is your behavior—that is, your actions. Taking actions that align with your values—regardless of how you are feeling—is often the catalyst for your situation to improve.
Seneca warned against getting caught in a cycle of “busy idleness,” or as he said, “all this dashing about that a great many people indulge in . . . always giving the impression of being busy [while not really doing anything at all].”
The second principle of groundedness is presence. It is about being fully here for what is in front of you.
That’s because all this checking habituates us to distraction. In essence, we are training our brains to be in a constant state of hyper-alertness, always thinking about what could be happening somewhere else and feeling the urge to check in and see.
a big reason that all of us, including McMillan’s athletes, can’t put down our phones or log off our email is because we’ve come to associate nonstop notifications with validating our importance in the world.
“high dopamine makes everything look significant. . . . The news needs a fear to monger, regardless of how important it is. It deemphasizes the routine and constant, and brings irregularities to our attention.”
“It has become a habit to reach for the phone or computer and immerse ourselves in another world. We do it to survive. But we want to do more than just survive. We want to live.”
it is important to remember that whenever you say yes to something you are saying no to something else.
Seneca and his master work, On the Shortness of Life, written around AD 49. “It is not that we have a short time to live,” Seneca writes. “It is that we waste a lot of it. . . . People are frugal in guarding their personal property, but as soon as it comes to squandering time they are most wasteful of the one thing in which it is right to be stingy.”
In Buddhism, the goal of the spiritual path, if there is one, is Nirvana, or the dissolution of self in connection with something larger, with an ever-expanding spaciousness and timelessness.
The Stoics wrote that lasting satisfaction arises when one’s attention is fully absorbed in their work or conversation.
overstated. Research increasingly shows that what is important doesn’t necessarily get our attention, but what gets our attention becomes important. This
“If your mind isn’t clouded by unnecessary things, this is the best season of your life.”
It’s worth regularly asking yourself if you are directing your attention and energy in ways that align with these values.
The third principle of groundedness is patience. Patience neutralizes our inclination to hurry, rush, and overemphasize acute situations in favor of playing the long game. In doing so, it lends itself to stability, strength, and lasting progress.
Our society emphasizes results now. We
a side effect of our hyperconnected world is the “expectation of instant gratification.”
“Go slow to go fast.”
It’s not that these diets don’t work. It’s that the continual switching is detrimental to losing weight.
the best diet is the one to which you can stick. That’s all there is to it.
“successful diets over the long haul are most likely ones that involve slow and steady changes.”
If you rush the process or expect results too swiftly, you’ll end up repeatedly disappointed.
To make a meaningful difference in just about anything consequential, the work you put in needs to persist long enough to break through inevitable barriers and plateaus.
Instead of always thinking, Don’t just stand there, do something, we should at least consider thinking, Don’t just do something, stand there.
