For those of you brought up in goal-oriented cultures, non-striving is one of the hardest attitudes of mindfulness to understand. It requires you develop the skill of practicing without being attached to a particular outcome.
Mahatma Gandhi once wrote: ‘Do your allotted work but renounce its fruit – be detached and work – have no desire for reward and work’.
Understanding non-striving – being with what is
Pretty much everyone coming to learn mindfulness has some goals in mind. You might want greater calm, less reactivity. Relief from pain or anxiety. A reduction in stress, better sleep, more resilience. Better communication, improved relationships. All of these are valid reasons to practise, however the goal of non-striving means learning to practise without goal setting and expectations.
If, for example, you are in pain. And you set an expectation around your practice that your pain must go, you are introducing a condition that stops you being fully present to what is. Because you are trying to change the present into something else. Mindfulness training is all about being with what is. Try this Awareness in Three Parts meditation to help you practice.
The present is already here
Whatever you experience, it is already here. If you are stressed, notice your mind’s commentary or where you feel the stress in your body. If you are in pain, observe the pain with gentleness, but without trying to change it.
Counter-intuitively, once you stop striving to change something, once you drop your resistance, whatever it is you are wanting to change has the chance so to do. In mindfulness, you reach your goals by learning to be present to whatever arises.
Mindfulness is an experiential practice – so if non-striving does not make sense to you right now, that is OK. Of all the attitudes it is the one that may not make sense until you experience it for yourself.
Five ways to practice non-striving
- Commit to a regular meditation practice and ‘just do it’. See if you can sit for 10 minutes, every day, for say 21 days. No excuses, and no goals. Do for the sake of doing.
- Choose something you like doing just because you like doing it. Could be reading, could be listening to music, taking a walk. Whatever it is, notice how your body and mind are when you do something purely for enjoyment in and of itself, without a goal. No need for perfection.
- Partner your intentions to goals you do set. Inevitably we all have goals we want to achieve, so try to wrap them in intentions that support you. For example, you could view your mindfulness practice as an act of nurturing yourself, so the very fact that you are doing it is enough, in and of itself.
- Take activities where you have been goal-driven and loosen your grip on the outcome. If, for example, you walk every day and want to lose weight, decide to continue walking but ensure you enjoy the scenery. Get some pleasure, express gratitude, for the act of walking.
- Choose non-doing. When confronted with a challenging situation or emotion, try silence, deep listening (to yourself and others) and non-doing. In this way you open towards yourself and others, and skillful responses and greater clarity and creativity will arise.
It takes time to understand non-striving. Be gentle with yourself, be patient. You do not have to have all the answers today. Use this meditation as part of your practice in developing non-striving.
