Week 25: setbacks and acceptance

 So yeah sometimes shit doesn’t turn out the way you want. Last month I saw a decline in my body comp for the first negative month of this journey and that kinda sucks. On top of all of that as a person I’ve got an issue with setbacks, failures, upsets, and tragedy. The issue? I don’t fucking deal with them at all. Setting them aside because they are uncomfortable and they hurt is part of the reason I unraveled as a person in January (among a multitude of other things but let’s keep’r movin). Seeings how the accountability piece of this whole thing has kind of run its course as I’ve been pretty diligent with what i should be doing…i figured I’d take this week and walk the dog on how my midlife crisis is a great tool in reinforcing lessons from my counselor.

Right so currently up for debate is whether starting BJJ at 32 was a good idea or not. I’ve got a lot of things going against me here: this activity is oft started young so the people my age are leaps and bounds ahead of me and the people at my skill level are literal teenagers, I’m physically far less resilient than i was in my 20s, and I’ve got an ego on me that hates to lose, be bad, etc etc. it doesn’t help that i have the memory of a goldfish so it takes hours upon hours of repetition to beat tactics, techniques, and principles into my Neanderthal head. All in all it would be super easy to stop going, sit at home and do something easy like watch tv or play games. Here’s why I don’t do that. Enter the parallels

1. Losing is necessary to learn and grow. On the mats it would be an asinine assumption to think I’m gonna start off and be gods gift to the sport. I’ve got to roll with people who are better than me and lose to learn where to improve my game. In life, feeling negative emotions is necessary to properly process, grieve, and get over bad times.

2. It’s a slow burn, which makes the growth that much more sweet. Again, i am not and have never been a prodigy at anything. Average first belt promotion in BJJ is 2 years for someone with no fighting/grappling experience. It’s also not a straight linear path. There will be good rolls and bad rolls just like I’ll have good months and bad months. Consistency over time however is where you find results. Don’t be discouraged by a bad day.

3. Take care of your body. Dude I’m fuckin sore pretty much always, mainly because i don’t stretch or properly warm up and cool down. And i pay that price daily, fuckin back has been jacked up for a month straight. Similarly, your mind needs proper conditioning. Show yourself grace, program in some downtime, get enough sleep for proper mental (and physical) recovery.

4. Don’t be a sore loser, quitting only hurts you. Nobody cares if you’re all booboo faced. Life is tough, get a helmet.

The gym is the gym, diet is diet, life is life. Look out for yourself, it’s impossible to fill from an empty cup.

NFCWFH / IGY6 / 988 / SCW / 151

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