Commitment to Calm day 28
My Commitment to Calm requires a paradigm shift, because accomplishments don’t lead to happiness. Instead, I am practicing being, not doing.
It’s very easy to feel overwhelmed with life. There’s a million things to do with constant distractions. The pressure from our achievement-oriented culture only makes matters worse. The more I’ve accomplished, the more I’ve realized my success never equates to happiness (a fundamental finding from The Happiness Advantage!). As I continue my work on being calm, I am reminded it’s not about doing a task. This week brought several reminders of the importance of being, not doing.
My focus on doing
Like most Americans, I put tremendous pressure on myself to be doing something useful, creating something of value, or constantly improving myself. When I was in school, I focused on things like getting good grades, earning scholarships, and getting into graduate school. When I was working, it was about meeting deadlines, pushing training participants to new levels, and scoring highly on student course evaluations. Motherhood changed the focus to making the kids’ childhoods magical, keeping the house in order, and being a better parent.
In other words, I approached my life in terms of accomplishments and productivity. After one thing was accomplished, a new task took its place. Graduate from university; attend graduate school. Complete Master’s; start Ph.D. I never felt happy or satisfied because it was never-ending. There was always more to do and a new accomplishment to fulfill. It’s not surprising I felt burned out.
A lesson from The Happiness Advantage
The focus on constantly doing lead me to feel unhappy. However, this was counter to what I always thought. Look at all I’ve accomplished! Shouldn’t I feel happier? This week I was flipping through some notes I jotted down a few years ago. At the time, I was becoming curious about happiness and how to feel calm and present. I had done a related google search and happened across a YouTube video of Shawn Achor’s TED talk. He’s a positive psychologist, educator, and talented speaker. I highly recommend watching the video.
In his talk, Achor discusses the main revelation of his book, The Happiness Advantage. His research confirms what I’ve experienced. Success does not lead to happiness. He recommends small changes we can make to increase happiness, which I’ll cover in another blog post. The take-away point is we have the happiness equation completely backwards. First, we are happy. Then, we are successful. Happiness leads to success rather than the other way around.
I noted two things after initially watching the video. First, I was shocked but also in complete agreement. Of course! It’s been right in front of me the whole time and somehow, I missed it. I was doing what I was taught: work, produce, accomplish. I never felt true happiness with an accomplishment. It was more a sense of pride in the accomplishment and/or relief the task was done. Then, I was on to the next task. Second, I noted this should be a warning to myself. It was a lesson to stop delaying happiness until x, y, or z was complete. Instead, I knew I needed to work on being happy first.
For much more on The Happiness Advantage, including my top five lessons from the book, go here!
This week’s email from Tara Brach
The same day I reviewed those notes on the Achor video, I received an email update from Tara Brach. As I’ve mentioned before, I look to her website as a great resource on mindfulness. The subject line of the email was “How do I trust that I am enough?” In a recent dialogue, one of her students wanted to learn to relax more. Her drive to constantly be doing and achieving were getting in the way of her ability to relax and enjoy the moment. This student was frustrated because she understood her ego was never satisfied and there was a constant fear of needing to be productive.
I completely related to this student. She was describing my experience. Brach’s response underscored Achor’s lesson. She told the student about her own experience. Essentially, Brach learned her own external strivings never result in anything of true meaning. For her, the things that matter come from her heart and her awareness rather than her accomplishments. It’s how she relates to herself and those around her and how she feels that are truly meaningful. This was another reminder for me to focus on being, not doing.
Practicing being and my Commitment to Calm
Despite my knowledge that success or productivity do not lead to happiness or mindfulness, I need constant reminders. My default is to do. I have this fantasy of the perfect, Zen version of me:
I meditate every morning because it’s the best way to start the day. My mornings are relaxed because I plan ahead. Processed foods? No way! I eat healthy always, making everything from scratch. My kids think I’m fun because we play together everyday after school. I never drink too much wine. When I get up in the morning, I’m well-rested because I went to bed at 9pm, after completing a calming nighttime ritual and reading a scholarly book. My creative outlet is amazing artwork I create and sell on Etsy. It’s rare to see me without my yoga mat because I practice for an hour every afternoon. I know all the poses. My body is lean and flexible, so I never get injured. Stress? I squash it!
None of this is realistic. This will never be me, and that’s ok. This will never be anyone. It would be all too easy to get wrapped up in the endless list of what I should be doing to create calm in my life. In fact, everything I listed above is an action. It describes me doing something to create calm. It’s not me being calm or experiencing it. Being calm may involve many of these activities, but I have to approach my Commitment from the perspective of experimentation with self-compassion. What I mean is my feelings are more important than my actions. I need to see what works to create calm without any agenda.
When I wrote my commitment, I knew four broad activities could help me to feel calm:
- Mediation/breathing
- Yoga/stretching
- Practicing gratitude
- Taking time for things I enjoy
A focus on doing would involve setting a goal to do ALL of these things EVERY day. I would set an impossibly high standard and feel shame when I couldn’t live up to it. Instead, I’m working on being calm by practicing one of these activities. I’m trying these things out, seeing what works and what doesn’t work. There’s nothing that absolutely has to be done. Nothing can be perfect. If I don’t get it done, it’s ok. If I don’t like something, it’s not a problem. I’m experimenting with how I feel. It’s a journey, a practice of being calm.
The biggest requirement in shifting from doing to being is in approaching my practice with self-compassion. It can be such a struggle for me to be kind to myself, but I’m working on it. I’m paying more attention to my self-talk and reframing it. I’m learning to talk to myself as I would talk to a friend. I am trying to be open to how my body is responding. This requires a shift from brain to heart, which is fundamental in both the Achor video and Brach email. This isn’t about doing one thing on my commitment, it’s about being calm. As a work in progress, this is a paradigm shift for me.
How do you differentiate between being and doing? Leave me a comment!
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