chquestcenter - Tumblr blog

chquestcenter · 11 years ago

Text

Building Grit

In my last post, I talked about the importance of building perseverance, self-control, and “grit”, the ability to stick to your goals in the face of obstacles and frustration. In that post, I shared a couple of tips on how to improve your grit, but I left a lot unsaid. In this post, I attempt to remedy that. I share some secrets on motivation that can help you to persevere; I call these secrets because they go against many of the common beliefs in our culture. I hope you find them helpful.

The first secret about increasing your ability to persevere is to stop punishing yourself. Punishment is a poor motivator; it might bring about some immediate results, but it usually has negative effects in the long run. The reason for this is actually pretty straightforward: Punishment stops behavior. If you want to demotivate yourself, punishment works great! However, if you want to persevere, you need motivation, and motivation comes from reinforcement. When you’re learning new behavior or doing something that is challenging, you need even more reinforcement to stay motivated, so be sure to build in rewards that are meaningful to you.

The second secret is similar to the first: Self-compassion helps you to persevere far more effectively than self-criticism or self-judgment. Self-compassion, according to Kristin Neff, PhD, consists of three things: 1) the decision to be kind to yourself all of the time, whether you are succeeding or failing; 2) the recognition that every person becomes frustrated, experiences failures, and suffers in some form or another; and 3) the use of mindfulness to differentiate between your experience and who you are at your core. Some people hear about self-compassion and ask, “Isn’t that just excusing yourself from trying hard? What’s the difference between self-compassion and babying yourself?” When you are truly being kind to yourself, you are making decisions that will lead to happiness, satisfaction, and joy. This means that you avoid eating that extra piece of cake if you will feel bad about it later! Being kind to yourself also increases your mental resources so that you have more willpower to resist that cake.

Meggan Moorhead, PhD, and Norma Safransky, MD, have combined elements of self-compassion and reinforcement in a model for motivating yourself, and they offer the word “VITALS” to help you remember each step. So, when you’re low on motivation, check your VITALS!

V: Validate yourself. Acknowledge why you’re low on motivation. Is this challenging work? Is it new and unfamiliar? Are you worried about the outcome? Recognize that there are real reasons why this is hard.

I: Imagine yourself doing it peacefully and productively. Create a visual image of yourself engaging in the task in just the way you want to do it. The more thoroughly you imagine yourself doing it, the more you will believe you can get it done.

T: Take small steps. Don’t try to do everything at once. If you’re running, focus on putting one foot in front of the other. If you’re learning something new, break it down and learn it piece by piece. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, just think about taking one small step forward.

A: Applaud yourself. Be your own cheerleader. Cheerleaders stay positive and encouraging from the beginning of the game to the end, regardless of whether their team is winning or losing. Do the same for yourself! Remind yourself of your past victories to help you persevere now.

L: Lighten the load. Think about what weight you will take off your shoulders when you’re done with this task. How much better will you feel about yourself when you’re done working out? How relieved will you feel when you’re making progress in that book that you’ve been meaning to read? How much better will you feel when you’ve finished cleaning out your car and you can appreciate how great it looks?

S: Sweeten the pot. Build in rewards for making progress. Be sure to reward yourself in some way every time you work hard! Rewarding yourself for the small steps along the way will make every future step that much easier. When you’re done with the project, be sure to reward yourself again so that you will be more motivated to start your next project!

Again, the core lessons from these self-motivation skills are: 1) be kind to yourself as you motivate yourself, and 2) build in plenty of rewards for yourself to keep yourself motivated. So, the next time you’re taking on a challenging task, check to see how you’re treating yourself. Are you punishing yourself and criticizing yourself? Or are you giving yourself the support and encouragement that you need to succeed? I hope that you are able to use these secrets to experience more and more success in your life.

Eric N. Gadol, PhD

Licensed Psychologist

Nidan (Second-Degree Black Belt) and Instructor

Chapel Hill Quest Martial Arts

#ninja #ninjaeveryday #toshindo #grit #perseverance #martial arts #psychology

8 notes · View notes

chquestcenter · 11 years ago

Text

On the Mountain

From the moment you pass through the stone gates on Friday afternoon, life takes a different pace. The thick forest creates a sense of isolation and quiet, though at a deeper level the forest is vibrantly alive. On Friday evening the sounds of people setting up camp, greetings as old friends arrive and new friends meet each other set the tone for the weekend. Long before it's needed for cooking or warmth, someone starts the campfire. That becomes the focal point, and people drift to sit on the logs and stones that have accumulated around it over the years.

Soon enough, the first session of the seminar brings students down to the training ground. Anticipating that anything could happen, people bring wooden weapons of all kinds with them. The awning cannot contain everyone, but the mountain itself makes an amphitheater for students who then follow the instructor's cues. The energy on Friday night is high and the instructors bring their "A" game to make it an outstanding experience.

After an intense training time, people move to what brings them to the mountain. Some will take notes and bring all they can out of that training. Others will rejoin their families for a meal or to go off-site to a hotel in Blowing Rock. Others go to the fire to connect with their "family of the heart" and welcome those who have found Mountain Quest for the first time. Those embarking on the black-belt testing path will spend the evening showing their mettle. But as night settles on the Mountain, the feeling of being part of something vast and profound is pervasive. Stars that don't exist in an urban setting are clear and bright on the Mountain.

Through the night, some people choose to sit vigil at the fire, connecting in a deeper way with each other. Others prepare for a long, intense weekend by sleeping early and appreciating the quality of sleep that only a place like Shin Tokagure can give.

Early in the morning, earlier than anyone could need to be up, people will stir, will bring the fire up, and the sounds and smells of coffee and breakfast will make it easy to leave a sleeping bag behind and enjoy the cool daybreak.

Throughout the day Saturday, training with a true master brings everyone alive. From the newest and youngest student, to the most dedicated senior, something will make that training time speak to each person. Passing through those "ah-hah!" moments time and again through the weekend builds momentum and appreciation for the art we study. Being able to train with others who have seen and done so much, who can fine-tune a technique and bring out the richness of every part of it is invaluable.

A solid weekend of training concludes on Sunday with a magical hike down the Mountain. Students use a traditional Japanese waterfall ceremony as a kind of New Year. Washing away those internal obstacles and baggage that keep us from being bright, strong, boundless individuals. Facing that rushing cascade of clean water head-on is the chance to yell defiance at everything holding you back.

After a full weekend of training, late nights and early mornings, that last climb up the mountain should be onerous, but it never is. We leave with more energy, more determination, more surety about our path, and with more solidity. The Mountain lends us its strength and we take that solid, deep, immovability of spirit with us.

Please join us!

#mountain quest #martial arts #stephen k hayes #wilderness #waterfall #toshindo #shin tokagure #blowing rock

6 notes · View notes

chquestcenter · 11 years ago

Text

Nin: The Practice of Perseverance

Living as a ninja in feudal Japan was not the magical life often depicted in children's stories of modern times; the ninja developed their secret practices to survive against great odds as their way of life was often threatened by warlords intent on expanding their realms. While ninja are certainly known for their skills in stealth, martial arts, and misdirection, the quality that stood out most among the ninja was their perseverance. This was so true, in fact, that their very name means "those who endure." The ninja knew centuries ago that one of the vital ingredients for success is the ability to persevere even when faced with seemingly insurmountable obstacles.

What the ninja knew centuries ago modern psychologists are (re)learning through empirical research. Investigating concepts like self-control, willpower, persistence, perseverance, and "grit", psychologists have been uncovering the importance of these concepts and even how to build and cultivate them. Kelly McGonigal, PhD, author of The Willpower Instinct, and Roy Baumeister, PhD, and John Tierney, PhD, authors of Willpower, illustrate how self-control is not a fixed trait that we are born with. Instead, research has found that self-control is like a muscle. Recent use of our self-control can make us tired and less likely to control our behavior, but regular use of self-control helps to strengthen our ability to control ourselves. We learn discipline through practicing discipline. The research has also revealed that self-control is contagious; when we surround ourselves with people who do not exercise self-control we will find it difficult to control ourselves. By the same token, if we surround ourselves with a community of people who are cultivating their own self-control then we are more likely to develop our own self-control as well.

Why does this matter? It turns out that self-control and the ability to persevere are important elements of success, as Angela Duckworth, PhD, and her colleagues have found in their research. Duckworth defines grit as "perseverance and passion for long-term goals"; where self-control is the ability to regulate one's behavior in the moment, grit is the ability to pursue challenging goals over time. In research on grit, Duckworth has found that this character trait predicts success in a wide variety of settings, including surviving the first summer of training at West Point, retention among teachers, graduation from high school, and retention in the US Special Forces. She has even found that grit is more highly associated with report card grades than intelligence. That bears repeating: A student's academic success is more associated with his or her level of grit than it is with his or her IQ.

Given the importance of our self-control and our grit, it makes sense to ask how we can nurture these traits in ourselves and in those we love. As suggested above, it is clearly helpful to practice self-control. Commit yourself to monitoring your behavior and choosing discipline. Furthermore, surround yourself with people who are equally committed to developing discipline and self-control.

To develop grit, research suggests that the most effective changes you can make are learning to tolerate frustration, confusion, and failure. Where some individuals quit as soon as they experience failure, individuals who have developed grit are able to persevere and focus on their long-term goals. Like the ninja, these individuals do not give up. Like the ninja, these individuals decide that they will either win, or they will learn. And like the ninja, these individuals will be the ones who accomplish great things that will go on to impact the lives of many others.

This is one of the most important aspects of our training at Quest. Our training is not easy; in fact, it is designed to challenge us, to stretch our limits. At the same time, our training is designed to teach us the benefits of perseverance. As we stick with our training, we learn more and more, we discover that we are capable of more than we imagined, and we learn that our community is at our side, supporting us all along the way. This has certainly been one of the most meaningful aspects of my own training at Quest. What about you, have you ever felt like giving up? What keeps you going? How are you cultivating your ability to persevere? Who is supporting you as you strive toward your full potential?

Eric N. Gadol, PhD, Licensed Psychologist, Second Degree Black Belt and Instructor

#perseverance #toshindo #ninja #grit #black belt #challenge #willpower #stealth #martial arts #persistence #endurance

12 notes · View notes