Take Consistent Action
This time of year is always the absolute busiest for a Kung fu school. There is no shortage of eager people who are motivated to use the new year as a launching pad for positive change in their lives. Adding fuel to the motivational fire that the solar new year initiates, is the lunar new year. It is impossible to ignore all the Kung fu demonstrations and lion dances that fill our community during this most important festival. Motivation and inspiration are in abundant supply.
Despite all this rampant motivation and inspiration, mediocrity finds a way to derail us. There is never a lack of excuses to justify ignoring opportunity. “I want to get into shape before I start Kung fu” is a classic. Followed by prospective I Ho Chuan students deciding to ignore the opportunity to join a mastery program until they achieve mastery. “Next year is a better year for me to tackle this because I just have too much to work on” is the equivalent of avoiding help from a math tutor until you get better at math. The thing about excuses is they are actually reasons. Ever wonder why you are not achieving more in your life? Review your excuses. When a student tells me that they couldn’t train this week because of one reason or another, I tell them to write down the date and their reason for not training today. When they come to me in another year and ask me why they did not earn their black belt, I can just tell them to review their notes. Your excuse for not training is also your reason for not improving.
We all want to get to a point in our training where all the effort we put into our Kung fu becomes effortless. Effortless Effort is all about a single thing - consistency. And consistency means 100%, not 80%. This is non-negotiable. Our days are not 100% within our control so consistency is always a challenge. Recognizing opportunity when you see it is important. Just as important as recognizing opportunity is TAKING ACTION. All the opportunity in the world will not make a difference in your life unless you actually take action.
For the master, a moment's reprieve from the day's chaos = a moment of training. For the novice, a moment's reprieve = an hour of internet surfing or any other activity that distracts us from our goals. We all understand that when we are focused, there is never enough time to complete all our goals. When we are distracted, there is even less time because for every 5 minute opportunity we get to work on improving our situation, we tend to waste an hour doing something useless and mindless to avoid thinking about what we should be doing. After all, we all deserve a break, don't we?
And that is what it comes down to in a nutshell. We all deserve a break. We all deserve a living wage. We all deserve clean water. We all deserve a safe home. We all deserve opportunity. The thing is, we all have opportunity. The problem is, we all do not exploit every opportunity that we get.
Recognize opportunity. Create opportunity. Exploit opportunity. TAKE CONSISTENT ACTION.
Jeff Brinker
