05/04/2022
To become mentally strong, the capacity to NOT do something plays a huge role. Anti-skills help you refrain to produce a result. This is the opposite of what you’re used to hearing in the frame of developing skills; which is acquiring the ability to do something (instead of refraining) to produce a result.
Anti-skills are essential today. Since we are bombarded with busyness and distraction, these three anti-skills help you stay consistent with your values and support long-term resilience (both key in the gym and beyond).
✅Take Risks
The societal narrative is to play it safe and the accompanying skill is to cultivate security. While defaults require baseline comfort, the challenge is when safety blankets the entire journey and there is no longer any opportunity for contribution. Reframing risk might be a good move. One way to do this is to use a simple equation: Reflection + Risk = Contribution. When we look at the people, groups, and movements who we admire, we often find there was a deep reflection on their part as to what they should do with their time. Then came the risk of actually doing the thing. And finally, the contribution. Taking risks will look different from person to person. But as the philosopher, Kieerkargaard said, “To venture causes anxiety; to not venture is to lose oneself.”
✅Make Friends with Discipline
The societal narrative is to seek comfort and spontaneity and the accompanying skill is to seek and design a life of ease. Again, modern conveniences are needed but when comfort and pleasure reign supreme as the guiding principle, one becomes fragile, unable to shoulder even the slightest blow. This is not an instruction to abandon pleasure or joy. Rather, it is to highlight that we are far more talented at seeking pleasure than we are practicing discipline. So, keep your senses tuned for joy and pleasure, but add in the practice of discipline. Start small if you are not accustomed to choosing discipline over pleasure. One mantra to consider is: “Do what needs to be done when it needs to be done in response to the present situation.”
✅Stop the War
Self-improvement culture can turn you against yourself and the accompanying skill is to build a mind that believes that you are fundamentally flawed. The mental narrative usually turns into something like “I’m not good enough.” Shunryu Suzuki said, “You are perfect the way you are and there is still room for improvement.” This is the middle way, a path that honors your true nature while still encouraging wise action. The idea here is to stop the war inside yourself. The shame. The guilt. The deficiency. It is possible to live life on a different kind of fuel. You don’t need self-improvement. You need self-liberation. By stopping the war inside your heart and mind by remembering your basic goodness, your basecamp can be love, joy, strength, and equanimity while being able to ride the waves of fear, worry, anxiety, and inadequacy with grace.