ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE

 Another excerpt from my coming book, The Competitive Buddha. You can pre-order it on Amazon now. 

Gratitude is the bedrock of all grate leadership and performance. If you like this, you'll love the book as it is chock full of similar nuggets. 

According to Buddhist thought gratitude is one of the best practices for living in daily life. It is closely connected to the concept of mindfulness. Practicing gratitude helps us all to get connected to our lives and how we are a small part of a larger purpose. It liberates us from the worry, endless desires and suffering caused by seeing what we lack. Gratitude is the key to personal happiness and joy. It helps you to change fear into faith, and faith into courage. It brings about feelings of love, compassion and connection. It is life changing.

Buddhist thought encourages us to be mindful of all the good that is in our lives. All that we’ve been given by our parents, friends, teachers and to do it intentionally, to cultivate it rather than to let it happen randomly. It is a simple daily practice of what I call “counting your blessings.”

How relevant is this concept to the world of sport? Many athletes complain about what they don’t have, what they’re not getting rather than what they have been given. The Buddha athlete does not dwell on lack of playing time, poor stats, little or no recognition. Rather, the focus of this athlete is on feeling well, healthy, strong and all the fortunate opportunities given like friendship, community,
growth, development, joy and fun being able to be part of a team, something bigger than personal gain or loss. It has become well known that gratitude is good for athletics: it tops negativity, rewires your brain, eliminates stress, improves self- esteem, and raises levels of performance.

What I notice working with athletes over several decades is how most of the truly great ones are filled with gratitude, one of the foundational strengths of the Mamba Mentality. The teams that perform at their very best are grateful. They are also very happy and joyful, states of mind that translate into better performance. My friend and Benedictine monk, Brother David Steindl-Rast reminds me that theroot of joy is gratefulness...it is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful.

In the world of sports, we fall into the trap of what’s missing; we’re not big enough, strong enough, talented enough, good enough...enough already! It’s easy to think about scarcity rather than abundance, to be grateful for what we have. To help with this, I recommend expressing gratefulness as a daily practice. For five minutes each day, focus on your gratitude for what you have been given, all of your blessings. Then go about the rest of your day making everything you do and how you’re being a mere reflection of these gifts.

Gratefulness is the process of becoming mindful of what is genuinely important and holding that feeling in your heart. What’s important to you, what you’re grateful for, can change each day depending upon what comes your way. For me, certain items are more constant, as in, “I am grateful for my family, my life partner, my ability to make a difference in the lives of others through my writing and work, my healthy body, my comfortable home, my mental clarity, my sense of humor,” and so on. Each day new items get added to the list.

Here’s an exercise that I practice regularly. I do this before getting out of bed, and it has the power to transform my days and impact everything I am doing and how I am being. Give this a shot and be sure to include everything that’s good and special about your life.

• Make a list of five or more items that make you feel grateful.

• Go over the list and get connected to how these make you feel:

  calm, peaceful, loving, fortunate, blessed...all feelings of

  gratefulness.

• Take in one deep, slow breath through your nose. And as you

  do, take in this feeling of gratefulness. Have the feeling surround your heart, hold your breath for four seconds, and then slowly release it.

• Repeat this deep breathing three times.

• Notice how relaxed and peaceful you feel. Now – go about the

  rest of the day and make everything a reflection of what you’ve been given. In other words, give back.

  Notice the difference in how you perform. The ordinary will become extraordinary. This alignment with your heart will give you a broader, richer, more meaningful perspective on all the mundane realities of sports as well as in life.

  Here is more wisdom from Brother David:

  Look closely and you will find that people are happy because they are grateful...Everything is a gift. The degree to which we are awake to this truth is a measure of our gratefulness, and gratefulness is a measure of our aliveness...We are never more than one grateful thought away from peace of heart.

  Having gratitude is an attitude...the “attitude of gratitude” contributes to your overall health and has a profound impact on masterful performance as you go from “grateful to great.”