S3 Ep10 - Cultivating Gratitude, Wonder & Joy

Welcome to the Zen Habits podcast, where we dive into how to work with uncertainty, resistance, and fear around our meaningful work. This is for anyone who wants to create an impact in the world and cares deeply enough to do the work. I'm your host, Leo Babauta, creator of the Zen Habits blog.

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Okay, so in this episode, we're going to talk about cultivating gratitude, wonder, and joy. And if you give me a minute, I'll explain why this is so important in this season, where we talk about the Zen of Productivity.

When we talk about productivity in general, the common dialogue is, "How do I get more efficient? How do I get more stuff done? How do I tackle all the hard things? How do I be more disciplined? How do I increase my output?"

Now, I know people listening to this podcast don't necessarily have that kind of relationship with productivity, but that is the general idea. And in fact, a lot of us have that mindset: "I'm not doing enough, and I need to do better. I need to be more disciplined and less distracted."

There's some truth to that. But what you might notice is that it's really focused on output and getting stuff done, forcing yourself to do things that you don't love. The problem with that is there’s no fun in it. There’s no room for joy. It's just about cranking out a bunch of stuff. So the underlying experience we have from this kind of mindset is just getting through things, not really loving what we’re doing.

At the end of the day, it’s like, "I got a bunch of stuff done, but it wasn’t everything I really wanted to get done. I still feel like I'm failing, still overwhelmed, still underwater, barely trying to survive." That’s not a great way to live our lives. If we repeat that day after day, we end up feeling burned out. And we talked about burnout, I think, a few episodes ago. Yeah, a couple, maybe three episodes ago.

But what if we could create a whole different experience? What if it didn’t have to be that way? What if you could be productive, disciplined, and getting important stuff done, but have a completely different underlying experience while doing that? What if you could have any experience you wanted? The ones we're going to talk about here would be a sense of gratitude, appreciation for life and the moment, and what we’re doing—but also a sense of wonder and joy.

Now, you could put any words you wanted to describe the underlying experience you want to have—play, adventure, curiosity, magic, or even a sacred experience of divinity. You can have all of that. But for this episode, I’m going to talk about gratitude, wonder, and joy.

Okay, so let’s talk about that in terms of Zen practice. We’re also going to talk about how gratitude can boost productivity, which might seem counterintuitive to some people, and how to find joy in the process instead of just the results we’re trying to attain.

In Zen practice—now again, I’m not a Zen priest, teacher, or master, but I have been a Zen student and practitioner for the last 12, 14 years or so, maybe more like 20 depending on when you count when I started—so I know a little bit about Zen practice, but I wouldn’t say I’m an expert. Gratitude in Zen practice is about not taking each moment for granted.

For example, let’s say you’re sitting in meditation. It doesn’t have to be meditation, but let’s say you are. How can I, instead of taking this moment for granted, which might feel like the moment right before it, and the one before that—so it gets boring, and you're like, "Ah, I’m tired of this. Why don’t I go and check my emails or messages?"

If we start to take each moment for granted, that’s what Zen practice helps us wake up to—the fact that we are taking it for granted. We let ourselves get bored with each moment, just taking everything as the same, and we shut off our curiosity.

The idea of beginner's mind in Zen practice—Zen mind, beginner's mind—is really the same thing. The idea of beginner's mind is: What if this moment were the first moment you ever experienced? That’s the kind of freshness. So if you see an apple in front of you, you don’t think, "Oh, apple, I’ve seen thousands of apples before." What if it’s the first time you've ever seen an apple? In fact, what if you didn’t have the concept of apple? What if you could just see it with fresh eyes, and be like, "Whoa, look at this thing in front of me!"

That’s a sense of what beginner's mind is. Now, there’s a lot more to it, but we could say that’s beginner’s mind in a nutshell—or an apple core. What if we could see this apple with beginner's mind and start to really fully appreciate it? That’s a sense of gratitude. It’s like, "Whoa, look at what I get to experience." Not just an apple, but a breath. Not just a breath, but a moment where you are sitting in a quiet morning or in rush hour traffic. What if we could have gratitude and wonder for every single moment, just full appreciation of the present moment?

Now, this episode isn’t about Zen practice, but I wanted to touch on what that would be like in Zen practice so we can see that it could apply to anything we do. If I’m answering emails or writing something, or I’m washing dishes, I can fully awaken to each moment and fully appreciate the moment in front of me—thinking of it as fleeting and precious. That’s how we can really appreciate what we’re doing, and that’s the role of gratitude in Zen practice.

So how does this boost our productivity? Well, hopefully, you can see it gives us a sense of appreciation, gratitude, and maybe even wonder. It’s like, "Whoa, look at this thing I’m doing, this moment I get to experience." That’s wonder. And from wonder, we can have joy.

Cool, right? Hopefully, you can appreciate how it can change the underlying experience if we open our eyes to fully appreciating the present moment—including answering an email, responding to someone’s text messages, working on our to-do list, or doing our taxes. We can fully appreciate each moment with practice, opening up to it, and having a different underlying experience.

But how does that boost productivity? Well, if we appreciate the moment, first of all, we’re going to dread it less. Have you ever had the experience of thinking, "Oh my god, I have so much to do. I feel overwhelmed. I don’t want to do it. I’m going to go look at social media or watch YouTube"? There’s avoidance when we don’t look forward to something. And why would we look forward to it if it feels like the same thing we’ve done a thousand times before? Why would we want to do that? Well, we wouldn’t.

So dread, overwhelm, and avoidance all come with the territory of that other way of doing things. But if we’re like, "Oh my god, I get to answer this email to this person who cares about me and who I really want to connect with—amazing!" Or, "I get to move this project forward, and it’s going to serve people in a really awesome way, people I care about. I get to be of service and devote myself to making the world a better place."

That can light us up with gratitude, wonder, and joy, and make us want to do things. We start to move towards things with an attraction to them. It’s more magnetic in the sense of being drawn to things rather than the kind of magnetism that repels us. Usually, we’re in that kind of magnetism that repels—like, "Ah, I don’t want to do that again."

But with this kind of gratitude—full appreciation for each moment and every task we’re doing—we can actually start to want to do things. We can appreciate the deeper meaning behind it and feel lit up as we do it. Feel a sense of joy, and maybe play, maybe fun, maybe magic. All of this is available if we start to practice this way.

So it makes us move towards things, which is already a huge factor in how productive we are. But I think there’s more. When we fail to do something, let’s say I wanted to work on this project, but for some reason I got pulled away from it, and then I start to feel discouraged.

Discouragement is not a bad thing, but it might make me feel like, "I’ve lost motivation. I’m not working on something." So productivity drops when we get discouraged. Now, again, discouragement isn’t a bad thing. But what if we could sit for a moment and fully appreciate a moment of discouragement? It’s like this slumped-over, deflated feeling. Can we find appreciation and wonder in that moment of discouragement? I submit that it’s possible.

We can just be with that, and maybe we don’t get to gratitude, appreciation, wonder, or joy right away. Maybe we just have a sense of tenderness, compassion, and love for ourselves in that moment. But as we sit with that, we might start to notice there’s more to this moment than just the feeling of deflation and discouragement. I also have a breath.

But if I’m focused completely on the discouragement, I don’t notice the breath. Oh, and as I have a breath, I notice I have a body that’s breathing the breath. (A lot of B’s in that sentence!) I have a body that’s breathing the breath. And all of a sudden, I’m starting to appreciate the moment beyond just the feeling of discouragement. Now I might notice there’s sunlight in the room, air, or outside the window I can see blue sky and trees. And suddenly, I’m open to the wider moment rather than just the discouragement.

Now I can find a reason why this thing matters to me enough to actually start taking the next smallest step—and then fully appreciate that next smallest step. So coming back becomes possible when we start to practice this way.

Okay, so that’s how gratitude and appreciation can boost productivity.

Let’s talk about finding joy in the process, not just the results. To this audience, the people listening to or watching this episode, I imagine you understand that concept just as I say it—finding joy in the process, not just the results. That said, there might be one or two of you who are like, "Ah, I’ve never heard of this mind-blowing concept, Leo, give me the wisdom." So I’m going to do a little recap for those people, but then let’s talk about how to actually practice it.

A lot of times, when we take on a project, a task, or a goal, we’re looking at what gets done at the end. Like, "Oh my god, if I run the marathon, at the end I cross the finish line, and it's like, yes, that’s going to feel so good." That’s where we think the joy is.

And so we envision that. Then we start training for it, and we do the marathon, but the training and the marathon itself are just ways to get to that finish line. They're the stepping stones to get there, but they aren't that fun in and of themselves. What keeps us going is the idea of getting to that finish line and feeling that "hallelujah moment."

But that’s not enough to keep us going when things get difficult—when we have fears, get discouraged, or just want to stay in our cozy bed on a cold morning, or things are just feeling like a lot right now. The idea of that hallelujah moment at the finish line isn’t enough.

What we really need is to pull the hallelujah moment forward into right now. As I consider going outside, can I be like, "Oh my god, look at me—I’m a marathoner! I’m someone who knows how to put on his shoes because I learned it at five years old, thank you very much. I’m someone who likes to run, likes to go outside, likes to move his body. I’m someone who enjoys a challenge, enjoys facing discomfort, and expands himself."

And so, in this moment, as I start to put on my shoes and go outside, I can actually appreciate who I am. Even the act of putting on these shoes—which cost me $130 (actually, the ones I have are like $80, but still, they’re not cheap shoes). Look at the privilege of having these running shoes. Some people run barefoot—like idiots. No, I’m just kidding, I used to run barefoot. But I have shoes to put on, and look at these beautiful pieces of technology that I get to put on my feet to protect me and allow me to run comfortably.

And now, I get to go outside in my sexy running shorts and enjoy movement, find a new path, see what the birds are up to today. And so, on this run, I’m having hallelujah moments left and right. It doesn’t have to come only after crossing the finish line.

Now, I think that’s obvious with a marathon. But what are we doing on a daily basis? We’re getting through it instead of saying, "Oh my god, I have a freaking computer in front of me!" Remember the days when people didn’t have computers? I do. I remember when my uncle got the first computer I’d ever seen. I was like, "This is magic. When are we going to get one, Mom and Dad?"

It wouldn’t be for a few more years until we actually got one—we couldn’t afford it. But we got it. Nowadays, everyone has multiple computers—maybe a laptop, maybe a desktop at work, maybe a phone. Some people have computers on their wrists and rings, and in their cars.

We are gifted. So the idea here is to allow ourselves to really appreciate every moment, not just the outcome. Could you start to open yourself to that possibility? It’s a practice. We shut it down because that’s what we’ve learned to do over and over again. We’ve trained ourselves to shut down possibility, joy, and hallelujah.

What I’m encouraging you to do is find that in every step along the way—every step where you remember. And then, when you forget and you feel bad about it, find joy in that part. Make it hilarious how bad you’re trying to make yourself feel. Be like one of those drill sergeant tropes, yelling at yourself in a really ridiculous way, and find joy in that as well.

We can bring play, joy, gratitude, appreciation, curiosity, compassion, and love. All of these amazing things will transform the process of doing our meaningful work. They will transform who we are as we do our meaningful work, and I believe they’ll also make us a little more disciplined and productive, which is a nice thing.

Okay, my friends, I hope this was helpful to you. I will talk to you at a later date.

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