The Granddaddy of All Skills

The Granddaddy of All Skills

You can’t be independent unless you are emotionally independent from life’s stressors.

The ability to be ok no matter what happens around you.

Everyone is successful, happy, pleasant and joyful when things are going well. When things are good, we perform at the highest range of our abilities. We don’t need to plan for ideal situations. At the same time, you never know when something will throw you off center. If you’re not ok when something goes wrong, then you’re never really ok.

It happens in sports, all of the time. A physically-gifted athlete with thousands of hours of training, fails to perform in a pivotal moment. The athlete “chokes.” Did they fail because they didn’t have the right skills, or did they fail because they weren’t able to manage their emotions at the right time?

If the athlete has been training all of their life in order to be able to perform in the championships, all of the training in the world is meaningless unless they can actually perform in the championships. That doesn’t require more repetitions of the skill. That requires an ability to self-regulate. That kind of choking isn’t physical. It is mental and emotional.

TRUTH: You could spend thousands of hours learning how to cook, manage your finances, travel and work but, if you lose your composure in the face of a challenge, you won’t be able to do any of those things when it matters. All other independence skills depend on the ability to stay calm when things don’t go your way.

Don’t waste time and money learning specific skills unless you are also learning how to manage your emotions and anxiety in tough situations. If you’re rattled, your performance will suffer, regardless of how many hours you’ve invested in learning the skill. Mindfulness training is like an insurance policy for all of your other lessons. A calm mind improves your skills by making those skills available in a greater variety of situations.

The only way to true, independent mastery is to learn how to manage yourself and stay calm regardless of what you encounter throughout the day.

If not, you will crumble at the first sight of stress, leaving you unable to do the thing you trained so hard to learn.

How long can you expect to live before something doesn’t workout the way you expected?

It WILL happen. How will you react when it does?

Will you stay calm, gather your thoughts and use logic?

Will you lose your cool, react impulsively and use emotion?

Nobody can succeed unless they are thinking clearly.

We don’t train to perform under ideal conditions alone. How can your loved ones be comfortable with you cooking on your own if you lose concentration when upset? Your family would never know exactly when you will be off your game. As a result, they might fear that your lack of focus could cause a fire in the kitchen. They might fear that, because you are upset, you could accidentally cut your finger. They could also worry that, if your diminished skills ruin the dish, it may not be edible enough to nourish you for the day.

Where does that leave all of those cooking lessons?

Unless you can manage your heart and mind, your training will be undependable.

Since skill acquisition implies the ability to perform the skill under stress, doesn’t it make sense to add stress-management training to any other training?

Let’s go to the core of training itself.

Whether we are talking about a baby or an adult, independence is a cornerstone of personal development. It’s not what you can do. It’s what you can do by yourself. I cannot say that my child can tie their own shoes if they require my assistance (or even my presence) in order to complete the task. This is simple enough.

By extension, I cannot say that my child can independently tie their own shoes if they can only tie them under certain conditions. Independence implies an ability to accomplish a task at any given moment. This means that we can do something, on our own, under good conditions and bad conditions.

So, what are the bad conditions? A subpar situation means that there are challenges either internally or externally.

Ideal conditions: Can you buy groceries independently?

External challenge: Can you buy groceries independently in a thunder storm?

Internal challenge: Can you buy groceries independently when you are angry, afraid, anxious, overstimulated or overwhelmed?

Since my classes don’t focus on natural disaster preparedness or choosing the right boots, I am going to talk about the internal challenges.

Nobody can succeed unless they are thinking clearly.

Should thinking clearly in all situations a prime goal?

It must be. As we agreed, without clear thinking, success is impossible.

How do we think clearly more often?

We develop the skill of being able to calm our minds at will, in order to think clearly.

Emotional challenges are common among the general population and are especially common amount my students on the autism spectrum. I use mindfulness training, group meditation, gratitude practices and affirmations to help teach my students how to manage their own emotions and, as a result, grow to become truly independent.

I am sensitive to the biological makeup of some people. I know that some people are developmentally predisposed to challenges with anxiety. I know that can make it almost  impossible for some people to calm themselves at times. I am also sensitive to the fact that many use medication to improve those situations.

My point is not to disregard these facts. Mindfulness training is pursued in addition to anything else happening in our lives. There is no reason to disregard an entire discipline because we are born with natural challenges related to that discipline. I can still enjoy swimming even though I will never swim like Michael Phelps.

Everyone can improve their ability to manage their thoughts and emotions, regardless of their starting point. In addition, when it comes to mindfulness training, this improvement can benefit every skill we’ve ever learned.

We are all working to improve in different areas of our lives. We are learning new skills. We have goals about our future abilities. My proposal is to add a layer of mindfulness training to your week. If you add mindfulness to all that you do, mindfulness will improve all that you do. Dinner will taste better, even if your favorite team just lost a big game.