Ah, the NEW YEAR is upon us! 2013! Wait, 2015? Dang it! I’m a mom. Hold on *looks at phone* There it is. 2016! *rewrites check* Dang it. Gracie Barra Mansfield, the premier learning center for Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in the Fort Worth, Arlington, Mansfield area hopes you enjoyed the holidays and we hope you will join us for the New Year.
Maybe try something cool! Different! Exciting! Get in shape AND learn to be a a bad@$$ at the same time!
Whether you’re a longtime BJJ student or a newbie. Never been to class or need an armed escort to drag your lazy tail TO class, there are some ways you can adjust your thinking and your approach to help ensure you reach your goals.
No I am not a black belt yet, but I am a master at laying waste to goals..
Thing is most people fail before they ever begin. Science has proven again and again that the mind is far more powerful than the body. Our minds actually give out long before our bodies do. If we’re having a tough time reaching those goals and getting in shape? Often it’s because we started out training the wrong muscle. We need to begin with the one between our EARS.
One of the reasons that I am a huge fan of Jiu Jitsu training as opposed to other forms of fitness is that Jiu Jitsu trains us to be strong, but also TOUGH.
There really IS a difference.
Toughness is a matter of the MIND. It is a domination of the WILL. It is subduing the ego and pressing on in spite of odds, in the face of discomfort. In our modern climate-controlled world, toughness is easy to get lost. We have AC when we are hot, heaters when cold. Cushions in our shoes. We work at desks and not with our hands. If it hurts, we stop. If we are hungry, we eat. Nothing exactly wrong with that, except that the most successful people in ANY area of life are TOUGH.
Becoming a S.E.A.L. is less about who is in the best shape or we’d just recruit from the Olympics. In business, the people who do the best are those who, when faced with crippling setbacks…stay cool. They remain positive. People who do the best in their marriages or with their children or with their finances have mastered the art of pressing through pain.
That is ALL in the mind. Today, we are going to go through some easy ways to get started because you can start this TODAY and it will help you with any kind of goal.
TIP #1—Self Talk
Did you know that the human mind cannot tell the difference between a truth and a lie? That is why it’s not only important what we say to others (family, spouse, kids) but to ourselves.
Additionally the brain has a really weird way of only beginning to LISTEN at the first ACTIVE verb. This is why all goals should be phrased in the positive.
If you SAY:
Don’t forget your keys.
Your brain will HEAR:
FORGET your keys.
Thus, if you make a goal of:
I don’t want to be fat.
Brain hears:
Want to be fat.
If you SAY:
I don’t want to be broke.
Brain HEARS:
Want to be broke.
Get in the habit of speaking in positive action. I don’t want to be fat becomes I want to be lean and fit. I don’t want to be fat and tired becomes I want to be trim and have plenty of energy.
Do this with regular stuff. Instead of, Don’t forget your phone say Remember your phone. Try this on your SPOUSE, YOUR KIDS, PETS AND COLLEAGUES!
See! At Gracie Barra Mansfield…we also offer MIND CONTROL!
TIP#2—Baby Steps are Steps
Another way we self-sabotage it we overwhelm ourselves instead of piecing out large goals into small manageable actions and then giving credit that we ARE moving forward. We feel that because we aren’t seeing HUGE changes, then what we do doesn’t matter.
But I am here to tell you that glaciers carved the Rocky Mountains and they move at an inch a year.
I am a three-time best-selling author. A blog post I wrote a couple days ago had 15,000 views in a matter of HOURS.
But guess what? I didn’t start that way. My first blog had 35 visits and 33 were me checking my own site (not knowing I was counting as a hit *head desk) and 2 were spam bots. But I kept showing up. Day after dat after day.
Last year in January I was a one-stripe white belt who’d just gone into remission from four months of Shingles. My resolution? Make blue belt by 2016. It was ugly. I got injured. I got sick. But it was just baby steps. Day after day. One grappling session at a time.
TIP#3—Set Up a System of Accountability
Our brains do better with accountability. Has to do with mirror neurons and getting dopamine rewards when you show up to class versus having to hide from your Jiu Jitsu pals blowing up your phone wanting to know WHERE YOU AT AND U BEST BE DEAD, PLAYAH (which is weird because that text is from a 41 year old soccer mom taking BJJ with you).
Stop listening to so much FloRida!
Anyway…
Time and again, research demonstrates that people who set goals and then who have people and a system of accountability are far more likely to succeed. Why I love BJJ is I love the people. If I don’t show? Trust me, they notice. It’s different than being a faceless person slinking unnoticed in and out of a gym.
In the end, these tips WILL help but we do have to fall in love with the process or nothing will work. It’s easy to fixate on a black belt or a fit body or a fat wallet or a bigger house and what happens is we lose steam in the inevitable Span of Suck.
Every goal worth going after WILL have what I call the Span of Suck. If you write a book? You get the bright idea and writing is SO FUN…until it isn’t. Then there is the long slogging to finish. Want to lose weight? First days in the gym are great. The Span of Suck is the next months or years of doing the same things day after day and being RELENTLESS.
Jiu Jitsu is awesome training for learning to BE RELENTLESS. Making RELENTLESS a HABIT. A STATE OF MIND. A RELIGION. Be relentless in BJJ, relentless in your career, relentless in love and LIFE. Sign up today and learn self defense, get fit, make friends, but the toughness training? The training to be an UNSTOPPABLE FORCE OF NATURE? THAT is the beauty of Jiu Jitsu.
At Gracie Barra Mansfield, you are part of a team. You are not alone.
We hope you will come join us for some free classes and fall in love!
Happy New Year!
~Dojo Diva
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