Mastering Mental States

Below is an excerpt from a very good article that appeared at Zen Habits. While the author is writing of a life skill and it certainly is, I think it is relevant to our particular study of martial arts. The full post may be read here.

The Discipline of Mastering Mental States

By Leo Babauta

I’m far from mastering this skill, but one thing I’ve been playing around with is how important mental states are to our productivity, happiness, focus, health habits and more.
For example, if you’re tired or feeling down, there’s a good chance you’re not going to focus on your meaningful tasks, and instead will look for distractions and comfort.
If you’re feeling frenetic and in quick-task mode, you’re not likely to focus on deep work, but instead will look for easy busywork to do.
Mental states will usually affect whether we do our exercise, eat healthy, binge watch TV shows, drink alcohol, eat junk food, or are open-hearted (or rude) with the people we love.
So it’s really important to monitor mental states. It’s also an incredible skill to be able to move yourself into the proper mental state to do focused work, to create, to meditate, to exercise, or do whatever you find meaningful.
In this article, I’ll share some ways to get better at moving into the mental state you need to be in to do that meaningful work. But I’ll also share an advanced skill — being able to do what you need to do, no matter what your mental state. I think of this as an “antifragile” skill (in the terminology of Nassim Nicholas Taleb).

Getting Good at Moving Into a Mental State

Let’s say you want to do some writing (or other focused work) … and to do that, you want to be in a calm, focused, energetic, positive mental state.
But right now, you’re feeling frazzled and distracted. How do you move from one state to the other?
First, you have to recognize that you’re in the wrong mental state. It’s not likely to lead to calm focus. It will lead to you doing busywork or seeking distraction.
Second, you have to experiment to find a set of actions that can help you move into the right mental state. This is going to be different for each person, even for each different mental state that you’re in or that you want to get to. But with some experimentation, you can discover things that work for you.
For example, some common actions that often help move into a better mental state:

• Meditation
• Go for a walk
• Get up and move around
• Talk to someone (if you’re worried about something)
• Having a cup of tea
• Taking a power nap
• Having a cup of coffee (differs for each person)
• Getting into a quiet, uncluttered environment
• Turning off your wifi router
• Using full-screen writing apps
• Playing calming music
• Reading an inspirational quote or article
• Talking to someone (including a therapist, if needed)
• Bringing playfulness to the task

There are many other possibilities, of course, but you get the idea.
Another idea is to look at whether you’re feeling discouraged or encouraged. If life has conspired to discourage you from a project, a habit, doing a meaningful task … you’ll want to find ways to encourage yourself. The power of encouragement to change your mental state can’t be overstated.
This is a skill you can practice every single day. Throughout the day. Bring mindfulness to your current mental state, ask yourself what you’d like to be doing and what mental state would help you do that, and then experiment until you find a way to move into that mental state.
Practice and experiment until you get good at moving into the right mental state. Mastery will take daily practice, and constant play.