Purchase your future

If you are not where you ultimately want to be, it’s because you’re not good enough…yet. The key word is yet.

What is your barometer?

Last week I was teaching a Jiu Jitsu class and one of the students became frustrated because they weren’t progressing. I took the student aside and asked how long they’d been training. It had been less than a year. I then asked them how good they expected to be. They weren’t sure. At that point I explained the simple trick to progressing in Jiu Jitsu. You simply need to ask yourself if the “you” of today is better than the “you” of last week. That’s it. You can’t compare yourself to others and must use yourself as the barometer.

If you are not as good as you want to be in Jiu Jitsu, you don’t yet have the skillset that you need. To get the skillset, just keep showing up. After all, a black belt is simply a white belt that never stopped coming to class.

On becoming

Just like a weak person can gain strength through years of working out, so too can someone who is weak of mind gain mental strength. Only people who have a tremendous mental strength can persevere through life’s challenges to attain their ultimate vision of the future. Only people who are willing to sacrifice their present in order to attain their future can gain the mental strength they need to succeed.

Life is much like Jiu Jitsu, or really any physical endeavor, in that it takes years of sacrifice to become skillful. That sacrifice is the currency you use to purchase the future version of yourself. If you want to succeed in anything in life, keep showing up, keep working hard, and keep focusing on building yourself into who you need to be. There is no shortcut or hack that can substitute for years of focused and hard work.