WARRIOR MINDSET

Confidence is a great thing to develop in all of us. It helps you take risks and push yourself to be where you’ve never been before. When we study and train hard to know our material as a Karate Student it helps us to build confidence when we test for our next rank or perform at a tournament.

Over-confidence can get you into trouble though. As a professional web designer, over-confidence in my skills and abilities has definitely lead me to take on more work than I could get done in the past, which resulted in me letting people down by not completing their projects on time when they needed it.

There is a huge difference between Confidence in your abilities and having an out of control ego. One area that this materializes in is how you give and take criticism.

Ego says “I can do no wrong”, where confidence says “I can get this right.”
Confidence says “i’m valuable”, where ego says “i’m invaluable.”

Have you ever been in a situation where someone else is chiming in on a conversation and it feels like they are encroaching on your area of expertise or influence? Do you ever feel like they are treading all-over your turf? Have you ever said things out of a need to protect your authority? Like being overly critical or cynical about someone’s work…

Try to be aware of yourself when you are contributing to something for real vs. when you are just feeding your own ego. Giving up some of your “turf” to either give or receive help from others may be painful at first, but this is how you truly stay ahead of the game.

In my experience, when i’ve been truly confident (and not over-confident) it’s because i’ve worked hard to prepare and through that preparation i’ve learned about what it means to fail and to try to do something right over and over again. It’s through this path that I really learn things about myself that I can apply to making me a better person and at the same time better at what it is that I do.

When I hear the word “Attentiveness” I immediately think about my training. What it means to “train”, what it means to focus.

I think about the difference between training and working out. Working out is just going through the motions, training is working towards a goal.

I want so badly to get better and make improvements every time I train and sometimes I’ve found that you can try too hard. So what’s the key, what’s the secret to good training?

What iv’e found lately, that for me, the key to making progress and getting better is to just pay attention to what you’re doing. It sounds more simple than it really is in practice though. Sensei will constantly ask us to “listen” to what he says and do what he’s asking for. Nothing more, nothing less. You just have to listen, interpret and do. Sometimes you just get keyed up or want to move fast or whatever and that’s a recipe for mistakes. Especially if you aren’t really paying attention and just going through the motions.

The author George Leonard wrote a great book called “Mastery”. He goes into a lot of detail about how important it is to be attentive and pay attention to the “now”; yes, keep your eyes on the prize, but don’t focus solely on it.

What if you’re practicing wrong?
Then you get very good at doing something wrong.
Slow down… pay attention… focus…

Practice thoughtfully in the now and you’ll reach your goals.

I had a quick conversation this morning after a 5:00am workout with a good friend of mine. We’re both training together and share a lot of the same unique year end goals, Blackbelt test. We talked about how other folks have seen our workouts and say that we push too hard, because what we show during training will only ratchet up the level of expectation during that test.

I’m not in the gym and the dojo day in and day out for the purpose of the test itself. Yes, it’s a goal, it’s a target that i’m reaching for, but that is only for motivation. There is plenty of work to be done to get to the point of being able to actually test in a year, but the work I put in during training is for me. That was my response; “I’m doing this for me, not for a test.” I mean this 100%.

If I’m only doing this to get ready for a test then I feel like i’ve already failed myself. By the time next January gets here, I don’t want to be in a position where I really care one way or the other that I pass. I want to KNOW that i’ve given everything I can in training for my own personal gain and growth and that the test is just that, a test, to see how I stack up. With the goal being to have already passed before I get to that point. To train just for the test itself feels conceited and beyond the point. Isn’t true humility the act of internalizing what you learn today and then using it to grow into a better version of yourself tomorrow?

So after meditating about this conversation and while writing out these ideas i’m having, I did what I always do and researched warriors who have gone before me. I found this Viking quote which I now love:

A warrior feeds his body well; he trains it; works on it. Where he lacks knowledge, he studies. But above all he must believe. He must believe in his strength of will, of purpose, of heart and soul.

My single purpose in training is to be a better me. The test is just that, a test to see if I’m better than I am now. If I allow more than that into my mind, then I will fail because I will have lost the reason for doing it in the first place.