What do you do when you make a Mistake?
I think when I started martial arts my mind was filled with everything I was doing wrong. My poor grades, bad behavior, lack of social skills, even just remembering how I had dropped my books in the school hallway. It seemed like I couldn't do anything right.
My martial arts training started to change all of that for me. Instand of all my mistakes, my mind started to be filled with all the successes I was having in class. The board I broke, the friend I made during class, how I was getting strong and faster, or what my instructor said to me about how my focus was improving.
Soon my grades were getting better, my behavior changed at home and school, and I was make more and more friends. But what had really changed was me. What I was seeing in my mind and what I believed about myself. So here are some quick tips on improving how we handle mistakes and form our self-confidence.
1. Focus on what you want not what you don't want. - I can think of many times that I would walk up to someone and say to myself, "Don't be nervous." That never worked. Now I say, "How can I help this person?".
2. Realize mistakes are the normal. - I don't spend much time thinking about or paying attention to mistakes because I know that they are normal. Instead I practice looking for improvements and then remembering them as clearly as possible. You know you have this step down when others around you can't even tell you made a mistake because you have already moved on to the next moment.
3. Mistakes are always in the past. -Mistakes are always what happened in the past. Focus on the present moment and life is much easier. Learn from mistakes, but focus on what is happening right now. One of my instructors, Richard Kim, would say, "If you make a mistake, don't make it an encore."
3. Practice a lot. - Expect to practice hundreds or thousands of times to achieve a couple of perfect experiences. The general rule of thumb is: 8 times to memorize, 1000 times to develop some skill, and 10,000 hours to achieve mastery. When I get upset that I haven't had success in some area of life I know I have rarely put in 10,000 hours of practice in that area. This helps put things in perspective.
Once you begin the journey of practicing you are going to start to see results. This is where all the hard work pays off and life gets really fun. So start today and let all those mistakes go like water off a ducks back.
===========================================================
Not a Family Martial Arts Student Yet?
***************************************************************************
2 comments:
Sensei...I'm sure you already know this, but I decided to see how long 10,000 hrs was. If you did something for 1 hr every day of your life, it would take you 27.4 YEARS to reach 10,000 hours! Even doing something 3 hours per day EVERY day of your life would take you a little over 9 years to achieve mastery.
This is simply amazing.
I agree. Good thing that we can get pretty amazing even before we reach that 10,000 hour mark. By the way I have been training now for just over 27 years. Cool!
Post a Comment