People often question whether or not they are making progress because ‘progress’ is almost never the straight line trajectory that we have been conditioned to expect. Progress in anything challenging, progress in anything worthwhile is a roller coaster. Ups and downs are a NORMAL part of the process towards long term growth & development.
On our good days, we can say that to ourselves and say that we understand that we will all experience low points. BUT, when you’re in one of those valleys, it’s tough to remember that another peak is right in front of you.
But, If you have a terrible tournament or awful training sessions, you can’t turn your back on your training, or turn your back on yourself. Quitting on your ‘worst day,’ is giving in to your own roadblocks. There’s no growth there and quitting then is doing a disservice to yourself.
So, how do you cope when you’re in a valley & you can’t see the other side? What do you do when you feel like you’re not making any progress?
Here are three tips that I use to help move this from a ‘feeling,’ to a measurable metric that can guarantee growth & progress.
1) Do you have consistency in your training schedule?
As you’ll remember from last week, consistency doesn’t need to be 6 classes per week. Consistency means that every week, rain or shine, summer or winter, good days or bad, you come in to train in the same number of classes. For most of my students, 2 to 3 classes per week is the perfect, sustainable number of classes. If you want more growth, faster, take a look at your training schedule. How many times per week are you actually training? (Not just thinking about training..) This seems strange, but a lot of people think they train more than they do. I’ve heard it many times before. People say they train 5 times per week, but they usually train 3 at the most.
2) Are you training to learn or training to win?
When you roll, are you working on the technique that I showed in the class, or are you doing your own thing? Imagine doing that in a traditional classroom situation. If you’re paying and going to class to earn a degree. And when the professor gives you a syllabus, you take a look at it and say, “Yeah.. That’s probably good for a lot of people, but I’ll figure out my own path… I watch a lot of Youtube..”
I will never understand how people think that makes sense.. If you’ve never done something before, how can you be the person who directs your own course of study? When you choose an academy, that’s something you should be looking for.
Another side training to win is straight ego.
3) Put some numbers to your training…
To truly take “feel” out of the equation, we need to put some measurable numbers to you training. Don’t get me wrong, “feel” has its place. If you’re in a tournament and you lose a match, but we talk about the points where you did well and we feel that what you did was a ‘win’ & a learning experience for you, then you should feel good about that. But IN the academy, ‘feel’ can lie. You can feel bad when you tap, when you’re really learning. You can feel great when you win, but not growing. So, let’s put numbers to it.
. Assuming you are healthy, try to be the first AND last person rolling on the mat. If you find yourself taking unnecessary breaks, sitting out, walking in the lobby, grabbing drinks, or spending more of your time talking about rolling than actually rolling, than you are slowing your own development. If you increase the number of matches you roll per class, then per week, you will see your development follow the same path.
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