GoodFriday: On winning, the carryover & noblest victor
Happy GoodFriday!
Here's something I heard, thought, and did this week.
Something I Heard: Noblest Victor
"Though one may conquer a thousand times a thousand men in battle, he indeed is the noblest victor who conquers himself." — The Dhammapada, verse 103.
Something I Thought: Winning
My kids have been competing in Jiu Jitsu for a while now. At a recent tournament my daughter got the nerves before she was called out to compete.
That's a fairly common thing when your little one competes in martial arts. You're asking a tiny person to walk into the middle of an arena and fight another person until they submit or until she wins on points.
She's usually fine with competing. This time the nerves got the best of her and she started to cry. She told us she didn't want to go out there, that she was scared. Final call was approaching.
I pulled her off to the side, knelt down next to her, looked her in the eye and said:
"Baby, I know this seems scary. It's not easy going out there and fighting another girl. No matter what happens I'm proud of you, because you're doing something that very few girls do on their own. It doesn't matter what happens when you go out there. Just imagine that you and I are play wrestling. You know how much fun we have when we wrestle? That's what I want you to do. Get on the mat, shake your opponent's hand, and imagine you're rolling with me. No matter what happens, I'm so proud of you."
She wiped the tears from her eyes, took a breath, and fought with the heart of a lioness.
Something I'm Doing: Carryover
This year, instead of setting a New Year's resolution, I picked one word that would be the theme for the whole year. That word was DISCIPLINE. This was going to be the most disciplined year of my life.
It really started to take hold in February, when I decided I was going to cut until I got to 10% body fat. I started at 215 pounds. It didn't matter to me how long the journey was going to take. I was going to stay committed through the whole process.
Every day I measured my food, tracked my workouts, and rejected anything that wasn't in line with the goal.
I got to 11%. Not the 10% I set out for. That was five months straight of cutting, and closing the gap would have meant another five pounds off. I decided there wasn't enough benefit in chasing that number right now. Building muscle was the better move.
A year ago I would have finished the number just to say I hit it.
But the body fat isn't the part I keep thinking about.
Somewhere in those five months I got more precise in areas of my life I don't normally pay attention to. I started focusing on parts of my business I'd been neglecting. I saved more money and stopped buying things impulsively. I started looking at things on a much longer horizon than I'm used to. I saw the practice of discipline carry over into everything else.
Here's what I think was actually going on. When something matters to you, you do what's necessary to get it. You stop looking around for something to blame and you take ownership of your actions. That isn't a skill that stays in one place.
I didn't hit the number I set out for. I'm not sure I'd trade what I got instead.
Until next week!
-Cameron Harn
