Weather

The weather has been slightly troublesome this spring. At first it shows signs that things are finally warming up and we can look forward to steady warmer weather, great! The next minute it is a massive snowstorm and everything that just dried up is now soaked and snowy again, darn! All I have to say about this is, it happens! Whether you are right angry about it or not, it happens.

When I see the spring weather turn to winter conditions I just laugh. What else are you going to do about it? Just smile and go with the flow. The weather eventually straightens out and everyone is happy with how nice and warm it is. That is until it gets "too warm" and we start complaining about that. This is why I commit to enjoying whatever weather I am faced with. I am alive and healthy, if the worst part of my day is the fact that the weather sucks, I'm doing pretty darn good.

Take care everyone.

Timeline

Timelines are a very valuable method in remaining constant in achieving goals you set in your life. They put the pressure on and keep you accountable. I have two extremes when it comes to timelines. One is where I give myself so much time that I eventually lose focus. The end date is so far away that I don't feel like it needs my immediate attention. The other extreme is when I look intensely at what I need to do and stress about whether I will complete it or not.

I have set a general timeline for when I want to grade for my black belt. Looking at it now I am questioning the logic in that. It is still years away, why am I focusing on it? Why am allowing it to cause me unnecessary stress? Why am I stressing in the first place?? This is something I am passionate about! I embrace the challenges and time it takes to learn this ancient and incredible art! Stressing over when I achieve this crucial next step in my training is illogical. It makes more sense to have a good time progressing through, focus on where I am and the progress will take care of itself. This is a positive experience and should be seen as such. I am working on consistently staying in this mindset can use the timeline I set as a productive tool and recognizing when I start to waver.

To recap, timelines are useful. Worrying about timelines is not. This my thought of the week. Take care everyone.

Learning

I'm beginning to enjoy problem solving and troubleshooting more and more lately. I see a problem and I want to fix it. Maybe I have always been like this and just didn't exactly have the drive to follow through from beginning to end. Perhaps I am more confident now that I am forced to deal with situations where I am required to repair things at my job, whether or not I know how they are supposed to work or have any formal training regarding them whatsoever. Every time I dive into a situation like this, pass or fail, I am learning a little bit more. I am becoming more wise and I am able to apply skills learned from one situation into another one. You learn so much more when you let go of the fear of failure.

The more I am exposed, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more informed I am. The informed I am, the more competent I can become. The more competent I become, the more confident I feel. The more confident I feel, the more I will expose myself to. This is one of those perpetual cycles in life that could potentially be of great benefit to someone who can keep the momentum going.

This is all I have to say on this subject for now. Have a happy Easter! Take care everyone.

Lead By Example

I had a pretty interesting moment during the kids classes on Thursday. I thought a lot about one of my previous blogs and how I struggled to make time for my own training during the week. More importantly, I thought about some of the comments people sent me. I decided to implement some of the suggestions.

Between classes I figured I would get some situps and kicks done while we waited for the students to show up for their upcoming class. The kids were doing their normal routine of standing and waiting to be let in or waiting patiently in their spots in front of the mirrors. They started noticing my activity and began their own warm up activities. Some did situps, others did jumping jacks. 

Not only did I better myself and work towards my goal of mastery, but I inspired the kids to make the most of the time they had at the school. It is an amazing feeling  to be looked up to by the kids. To be a positive example for the younger generation and show what it means to make the most use of your time. I thoroughly enjoy teaching what I know and learn what I don't all at the same time. 

I learned a lesson that day, you never know who may be watching you or who could take something away from it. Much like ripples in water, your actions affect many more than just yourself. This is why it means so much to lead by example, even if you might not see yourself as a leader.

Take care everyone.

Complacency

We all have those day to day tasks, activities we do on a constant basis as part of our normal routine. When one performs them for the first time, driving a route from home to work for instance, people typically take certain care in what they are doing so they do not miss their destination and get to where they want to be on time. After time though, it becomes common place, you drive the same road everyday to and from work and the brain stops noticing certain things. Small details that at one point or another will be critical for you to pay attention to. You lose the focus you once had because it all happened before, it happened the same way hundreds of times with no change and will happen hundreds more with the same result. You don't expect something different to happen and so you become complacent and unprepared to respond to a change. This is when mistakes happen and accidents are a result.

This time of year is a great example of the importance to remaining ever vigilant, especially while driving. The roads are drying up and motorcyclists are now trickling back onto the roads. This is a variable that is unknown to our roads for several months. People need to remember that motorcycles exist and must be on the look out for them. However, this should be the norm ALL YEAR, we need to be paying attention all the time, to everything around us. Spatial awareness is a basic survival instinct, it should be a no brainer. So why do we need to be reminded time and time again?

The bottom line is complacency. Complacency is defined as: "a feeling of quiet pleasure or security, often while unaware of some potential danger, defect, or the like; self-satisfaction or smug satisfaction with an existing situation, condition, etc."  We don't realize it even happens because we feel everything is going well. We have "no room to improve". We are good enough. I feel there is never truly anything that should be "good enough". There is always the potential to be better. This is not to scoff at one's accomplishments, they are certainly worth noting, but you should use those accomplishments and also the mistakes in life as a motivational driving force to do more this time, next time and every time after that.

Take care everyone.