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All Black Success- The Art of Mindfulness

05/11/2015

As I watched the All Blacks completely dominate the Aussies on Sunday morning I wondered how on earth they stay so humble, grounded and in control of their nerves.

allblack focus - haka

We in HR can learn so much from this team – I’m sure you are thinking – Fantastic leadership, Beyond amazing teamwork, Mentors, Coaching, Resilience, Goal setting, Training both mentally and physically and much much more.

I thought of mindfulness, what exactly is this, how do we achieve it and how have our All Black brothers mastered it.

Mindfulness is a special mental state of awareness and openness. (As defined by Dr Russ Harris and Bev Aisbett in the book “The Happiness Trap”

They say that it involves 3 skills:

1 – Defusion –When you learn to defuse painful and unpleasant thoughts, self-limiting beliefs and self-criticism, they have less influence over you.

2 – Expansion – This means making room for painful thoughts and feelings and allowing them to flow through you, without getting swept away by them.

3 – Connection – This means living fully in the present instead of dwelling on the past or worrying about the future

The pace of life is so fast today that our brain is not always geared up to take in the huge amounts of information bombarding it. We choose to filter what we want and how we want to receive this information. We then choose how we let this information affect our emotions and consequently our reactions to events.

Mindfulness is being open and ready to receive anything that comes along as it happens, helping you stay in the now.

It takes practise – and I reckon our boys in black will have been practising it a lot over the last 6 weeks.

No limiting beliefs – take the knocks – be open to feedback – have the end goal in sight but take one game at a time. They have an amazing ability to stay grounded in the face of enormous pressure.

Even being able to stop and celebrate their enormous win without focussing on the future showed how adept they are at being mindful.

Inspirational in so many ways – hats off to you All Blacks….

allblack impossibleimages

 

by Emma Worseldine 

 

Whakatū | Nelson

Te Whanga-nui-a-Tara | Wellington

Ōtautahi | Christchurch

Waiharakeke | Blenheim

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