RIGHT EFFORT

 Following in line with my last post on RIGHT SPEECH, here is yet a second excerpt from TCB and the Eightfold Noble traits of great leaders, called RIGHT EFFORT. 

Gandhi once said, “live as if you’ll die tomorrow.” When you do, you live, coach and lead with loving kindness, harmony, generosity and focus on only that which is important. When Steve Jobs was diagnosed with cancer, he alluded to the notion that all expectation, fears and loss fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering you are going to die is the best way to avoid thinking you have something to lose or something to gain. Buddhism supports this assessment in its teaching about impermanence. All things are fleeting including winning and losing games in sport and life. With that I will segue into the meaning of Right Effort as it relates to sports.

In athletics, I call it Effort Without Effort. Care about your effort and work ethic but not about outcomes and results. This makes it easier to compete because it frees you: less to worry about, less to be fearful of because you can control the little things and not be concerned about the uncontrollable results. Clinging to the outcomes, titles, minutes played, contracts negotiated are futile efforts that lead to suffering.

Try to stop caring about how you do and just think about how you can be. Be brave, courageous, patient, persistent, respectful, aware, positive and kind. I often tell myself when concerned with my outcome, “to hell with it” and this helps me be calm and relaxed. My advice is to follow the way of Effort Without Effort.

You see it constantly in sports and exercise, when you decide to cut back, let up and exert less effort, your performance begins to improve. This principle of effortless effort was successfully demonstrated years ago by Olympic runners Ray Norton, Tommie Smith, John Carlos and Lee Evans. Their coach, Bud Winter, developed the ninety percent law. When runners try to perform at one hundred percent, they get anxious and tense. Too much effort blocks their energy, their life force, and diminishes their power. Performing at nine-tenths effort is more relaxing and results in faster speed.

Let’s say you’re trying to run up a steep hill. The more effort you exert, the more difficult it seems to be. Rather than apply effort, enjoy the natural surroundings and try to glide rather than push yourself up. Rigidity sets in when anything reaches its full limit. When you do your weight training, for example, relax your muscles yet keep your arms firm as you lift. Notice how much stronger

you feel by not exerting as much. All of your physical activity will go up a notch as you begin to exert less. This is easily demonstrated by doing push-ups. Get in position, relax your arms and face, and effortlessly do five of them. Now, repeat the process using tensed arms. Notice how much easier it is when you apply less force, effort and push. Maybe we should call them “rise-ups.”

When you learn the advantage of paying attention to the energy flow and rhythms in your coaching, see how pushing or forcing is counterproductive, then you begin to apply this Buddha non-force way of effort to work and the rest of life. Oftentimes your inner turmoil, struggle and pain related to your leadership are the result of your continual effort to force what cannot be. You quickly enter a spiritual vacuum as frustration, anger, depression and fear begin to take over as a result of your futile attempts to control the uncontrollable.

When you find yourself forcing and exerting to finish a project, you increase the chance of getting stuck. Authors are famous for getting “writer’s block” when they try too hard to be creative. When blockage happens, focus on the inner spiritual elements of joy, beauty and the flow of your art. Notice how much better you feel about your work as it begins to go more smoothly. Tell yourself that you’re simply here to enjoy the task, and don’t perseverate on the outcome. Ask yourself, “How can I do it more effortlessly?” Then follow your advice. You practically have to “not care” yet not be totally “care-less” in this delicate balance of effort without effort.

Notice the peace you experience in coaching when you choose to step aside as tension mounts, rather than to force your opinion on others; when you choose to enter a relationship and not force the process; when you choose not to push for an unnaturally speedy recovery when sick or injured. Martial artists have understood for centuries that the less effort you exert, the more proficient and spiritually sane you will become in all that you do.

When we master this concept by simply coming back to it when off track, we begin to function more like the Buddha “Middle Way”, effort yet without effort.