درسنامه اصلی

Equanimity – Audio

Hi, I’m AJ, welcome to this month’s VIP lesson.

Back in 1996, Greg Norman was this close to winning the Masters Golf Tournament. Now the Masters Golf Tournament, in professional golf, is probably the number one golf tournament in the world, the most prestigious. And Greg Norman, for all his playing career wanted to win the Masters. He had won other major tournaments. He had made a lot of money. He was one of the very top golfers in the world, but he had never won the Masters. For some reason, he could never win the Masters.

Well finally, it was the last day of the Masters Tournament and he was winning by five strokes, I’m sorry no, six strokes, six strokes. He was winning by six. He was six strokes ahead, six points ahead.

Now, in professional golf six strokes ahead on the final day that is a huge lead, really, really, really big lead. So major tournaments they usually play, I think it’s four days, so this was the last day. He only had one more game to go, one last day. He was ahead by six, the number two guy was six behind him, a huge lead. So everybody thought finally, Greg Norman is going to win the Masters.

Well, he steps up to the first hole and swings, swoosh, and his shot, he hits a terrible shot. The shot goes off into the trees, into the woods, which is terrible for golf. It’s a very bad result. You could see on his face something, something happened and he’s like uh ugh, right. This sudden look of fear, terror. One bad shot in golf it’s really not a big deal, it always happens. Even the top guys hit bad shots sometimes, but something was happening with Greg Norman. What was happening mentally… he gave interviews later, many, many years later to talk about the experience… what happened was he started having these thoughts of, oh my God I might lose. I might lose. I’ve got to hold on. I’ve got to hold on and he became obsessed with the goal of winning. I must win. I must win. I must win.

And at the same time he was obsessed, obsessed means wanting something a lot, really too much. He was so obsessed with winning, but at the same time he also was getting the fear of losing. Oh my God what if I lose? What if I lose? These thoughts and feelings started popping up in his head. And as these thoughts and feelings came up, he began to get more tense, more tight and so, through the rest of the game that day, through the rest of that day he started hitting more bad shots, more bad shots, more bad shots. He got worse and worse and worse and each new bad shot, his emotions became even more negative. The fear got stronger and stronger. He got tighter and tighter. Then he hit the shots even worse and worse and worse. Down, down, down he went.

He finally lost the tournament by five strokes. So the number two guy passed him and then beat him by five, a huge amount. He lost a total of 11 strokes in that one round, that one day, which is awful at that level. At that professional level that is just terrible.

Now, we have a slang word for this in sports. If someone’s winning, if they’re going to win, they’re clearly winning and then they suddenly do something terrible to lose, we call it choking.

It’s this idea (hands around a neck) choking. In sports if someone chokes it means they’re in a high stress situation. They’re about to win something, but instead of giving a good performance they give a bad, a terrible performance and then they lose. That’s called choking.

Well, this in golf, in modern golf, this is probably the number one example of choking. You can even get online, look in Google or something… Greg Norman, 1996 Masters choke or choking, and you’ll find articles about this story. It’s very famous in golf.

So it’s very sad for Greg Norman. In fact, it was so bad that the number two guy, the guy that passed him and won, instead of celebrating at the end, I think it was Nick Faldo, instead of celebrating Nick Faldo actually walked over to Greg Norman and said, ‘Oh I’m so sorry.’ He had just won this great tournament but he didn’t celebrate, instead he felt so bad for Greg Norman because he choked.

So the story shows, to me, this story shows one of th

This can happen with all of us, the fear of not achieving it. It gets stronger as you get closer to doing it.

Burn out is another problem with goals. If you’re too focused on the goal, if you put too much energy into difficult goals all the time, you’re always trying to achieve difficult goals, you can use so much energy that you burn out. It means you use up your energy, your emotional energy or even your physical energy and suddenly you ehh, you become very, very tired. You have no motivation, no energy, nothing. You can’t do anything. That’s called burn out. That can happen if you get too focused on goals.

And then, of course, you know, disappointment if you don’t achieve the goal, because the truth is, we can’t always achieve goals. Sometimes people who talk about goal setting, um, sometimes they talk like you can achieve any goal. Like, if you just believe enough, if you just try hard enough, 100% you will achieve it. That’s just not true. I’ll give you an example. Right now, let’s imagine I decide I want to win a gold medal in the Olympics, in sprinting, the 100 meter run, 100 meter spring. So it’s a fast run. I’m very serious about it. I set that goal and I have total belief. I use all the ideas from like that book ‘The Secret’. You know, I imagine myself crossing the finish line, getting the gold medal. I train and train, I find the best sprinting coach in the whole world to train me.

I do everything possible. Probably still I will not get a gold medal in sprinting. It’s probably impossible for me. Why? Several reasons.

• Number one, I am 48 years old.

And for me to beat sprinters who are like 22, nearly impossible. Now, at my age I still feel strong and healthy and all that is possible, but to win a gold medal in the Olympics in sprinting, probably not.

• The second reason is, my genetics, just my body type is not really made for sprinting.

You know, I’m quite good at more endurance things like long distance running and other things, but I really don’t have a sprinters body. So the truth is, a sprinting gold medal now in my life is probably impossible, so I could set that goal and try and try and I might get stronger and I certainly would get faster, but in the end I would fail to achieve the goal. And if I was too focused on it, too obsessed, then afterwards I might feel sad and depressed, feel like my life had no meaning. We see this happen with many athletes, with many people in life who are so focused on a goal and if they don’t get it they become depressed and super unhappy. And sometimes they become depressed for very long periods of time.

These are the dark sides of goals that we must be careful of.

How do we avoid the dark side of goals, but still get the good side, the benefits? The key is equanimity, our topic this month, equanimity. Equanimity is the balance of passion, the balance of goal setting. Equanimity guarantees that you will be happy in your life, if you

achieve a goal or if you don’t achieve a goal it doesn’t matter. Any result you get in life you’ll still be happy, when you have the mindset of equanimity.

There are many different definitions for equanimity.

1. Number one, the simplest one is acceptance of life.

Equanimity means acceptance of life. You accept life as it is, now. Not how you want it to be, not how you wish it would be, not how it used to be. Right now you accept life as it is. The easy parts, the difficult parts, everything, you just accept life as it is in each moment in the present. That’s the mindset of equanimity.

1. Freedom, freedom from aversion, freedom from craving that’s another definition of equanimity.

Aversion and craving, craving and aversion, what do these words mean? Craving means, wanting something a lot, right. It means, I must have it. I must have it. It’s this action, mentally trying to grab something and hold it. I crave it. Greg Norman craved the Masters. He craved winning the Masters. He didn’t just want it a little, he needed it, he wanted it so much, I must win the Masters; craving. Aversions the opposite. Aversion is not wanting something. And again, a lot, not wanting it a lot, oh no, no, no. So, the idea of aversion is you’re pushing something away. Get it away I don’t want it. I don’t want it, eh. Greg Norman had an aversion for losing the Masters. He didn’t want it, he feared it.

So equanimity means you’re free from craving, free from desperately needing something or wanting it and you’re also free from aversion, not wanting something, being afraid of something. Freedom from craving and aversion, another definition of equanimity.

1. Equanimity feels calm.

The feeling of equanimity, when you have a mindset of equanimity you feel calm, because you’re accepting the situation as it is. You feel calm, it’s a calm clear-headed, relaxed feeling.

It’s the idea of going with the flow. I’ve mentioned this before, you imagine a river, the water moves; we call that flowing, the water flows. Well, if you swim in the opposite direction against the flow it’s really hard. You’re gonna fight against the flow, you’re swimming against the flow, it’s exhausting, but if you just turn around you can just lay on your back and you will move down, you’ll float down the river effortlessly. You’re going with the flow. This again is the idea of equanimity, not fighting against life, flowing, moving with it. Going with the flow.

So, equanimity is the balance of goal setting, the balance of passion.

Another way to think of this, the Indians, many of the ancient Indians wrote about this, talked about it, Indians from India that is, this idea of right action, right action. What it means is this, this is the secret. I’m gonna give you the little secret to getting both sides.

On one hand we want passion, we want goal setting but we don’t want the bad parts.

And on the other hand, we want equanimity, we want that calm, peaceful acceptance, but we need to achieve goals too; otherwise, we just sit there on the couch and do nothing.

So how do we get both of them at the same time, it seems quite difficult? The secret is right action. What it means is this. You let go of results. You let go of the need for the result, instead you focus on the actions, you focus on the effort, you find pleasure and enjoyment in the effort itself, not the final result. So yes you set a goal. Why? Because the goal gives you a direction, a direction to move, something you’re trying to achieve, a direction to go. I will run a marathon, for example.

Okay, good, you have your goal. What’s the next step? The next step is actually to then to just kind of put it to the side, instead of like, I must do it. I must run the marathon. I must get a good time, eh, getting all stressed and focusing on the goal too much. That’s actually not good, I don’t recommend it. It might help you achieve the goal better, that’s true. That’s true, I won’t deny that. But, it will make you much more stressed and it will not make you happier in life in general, quite the opposite. Instead, I suggest to then develop equanimity.

You have your goal, finish the marathon. It gives you a direction. You’re going to try to do it.

You’re going to create a plan to follow, to train for the marathon, but do it with a mindset, a feeling of calm and equanimity. It means you will accept the result no matter what happens.

Maybe you go to the race and in the middle of the race your leg starts hurting and you have to stop. You’ll accept that and you’ll still be happy about it. Or maybe you’ll go and you’ll run it very fast and get a great time and you’ll accept that too.

Instead of being so focused on the final result, finishing the marathon or getting a certain time, instead you’re gonna focus your mind on, enjoying every single day of your training. That means every run that you do, a short one, a long one, a slow one, a fast one, you’re gonna just focus on enjoying it. You’re outdoors, you’re feeling good, your body’s getting stronger, you’re gonna smile, you’re just going to enjoy the process, you’re going to enjoy the effort of training for this goal.

You’ll try to be ready. You’ll try to get the goal, but mostly you’re focused on the effort, not the end result, not what finally happens. You’ll still then go do the race, maybe you’ll do it maybe you won’t.

Now, another part of equanimity and this idea of right action. It means whatever happens you accept it as calmly as possible. It means, when you have a success, try to accept your accept fairly calmly. Of course, you’re going to feel good, it’s fine to celebrate a little bit; yeah I did it. I ran the marathon, I finished. That’s fine, but try not to go too high. I know this seems strange, but the problem if you go too high is that you probably later will crash lower. So you just kind of yeah that’s good, ah, I accept it, I’m happy about it.

But, if you fail. If for some reason something happens you must quit early, you fail. The same thing, try to accept your failures more calmly too. Of course, you’re gonna feel some disappointment, but try not to let yourself drop so low and oh, this is terrible. Say, well, I didn’t do it I feel a little disappointed, but I’m gonna keep going. If you do this you develop this equanimity, you’re going then in life, you’re gonna have a higher level of overall happiness.

Your life will look like this. If this is sort of happiness level, underneath is sadness and feeling

bad and above is feeling good, your life will look like this. You’ll still go up and down some, but not a lot. Overall you’re just going to be happy most of the time.

The problem when you focus too much on goals, when you’re obsessed with the outcome, is then your life looks like this. You achieve a goal you go really high, but then afterwards you crash low because it’s finished, now you’ve got nothing to do. Or, you try to hit a goal and then you fail and then you crash really low and you feel terrible, and your life is like this and sometimes you have some happiness but it’s short. Your happiness is very short. It might be quite high but it’s very short and a lot of the time you’re stressed and unhappy. And overall, that’s just not a great life.

Equanimity will give you a much happier life.

Okay, in the commentary I’m going to give you some more specific training details, how to develop this, because I know you’re probably saying, well, this sounds good AJ but how do I do it? How do I develop equanimity, it’s hard for me? I naturally feel terrible when I fail. I naturally get super excited when I succeed and then I crash, so how do I develop equanimity?

Well, I’m gonna teach you a few basic techniques you can use any time. And I might tell you a little bit more about the benefits of equanimity, why it’s so important and how it will help you have a much better life.

I’ll see you in the commentary. I’ll see you in the interactive lessons. Bye, for now.