Welcome to Episode #103 of the Fight for a Happy Life podcast, “Tools Not Rules.”
Is there a difference between sticking to a routine and being stuck to one? YES, absolutely!
If you’ve ever felt like a failure for skipping a workout or been stressed out for missing a class, this episode is for you… because you shouldn’t feel that way!
When exactly did your martial arts training turn from being a joy to a job? The answer is simple—the moment you started to focus on rules instead of goals. Once that happens, you may quickly find yourself on a path towards self-destruction instead of self-improvement.
But don’t worry—I’ve got a solution!
Join me for a discussion all about control, responsibility, self-defense, and free will. Let’s make sure the tools you choose are working for you, not against you!
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Tools Not Rules
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TRANSCRIPT
Howdy, howdy. Ando here from Happy Life Martial Arts. Welcome to episode #103 of Fight for a Happy Life, the show that believes even a little martial arts makes life a whole lot better.
Today’s topic, Tools Not Rules. What the heck does that mean? All right, I’ll tell you. Let’s start off with a question.
Who, my friend, is in charge of your training routine?
If you’re listening to this, you’re probably a martial artist. But even if you’re not, your daily life is set by some type of routine. So I want to know who’s in charge of that routine. Who is making the rules? Who is telling you who is choosing what you do, when you do it, and how you do it?
Are you following tradition? Is your routine based on rules set down for hundreds of years, from word of mouth to scrolls?
Are you listening to a teacher? Someone you admire? Someone who can do things that you cannot? And they’ve told you, you’ve got to do this, you’ve got to do that. So that’s who set your routine.
Maybe you picked up some advice from a book or a video. Okay, fair enough.
But if you know me at all, and let’s say you do, you know that I believe you should be in charge of your routine. You’re the one who should be making the rules. Because after all, these are your goals that you’re pursuing. It’s your life.
However, no matter where the rules come from, let’s put that aside for a second, whether you’re following someone or you’re setting your own rules, it’s easy to get stuck in a rut. And you’ll know that when you lose the joy of what you’re doing and everything just becomes a job, your joy becomes a job. When that happens, particularly if it feels like a job– that you don’t want to go to anymore, that you’d like to change, like you want to just run away from it– when that happens, that indicates that you’ve given up your power.
How does that happen? Well, I’m glad you asked. Did you ask? Because I’m going to tell you. But here’s how you lose your joy and you end up showing up for a job you don’t really want.
In the beginning, you have a goal. Because you’re cool, you want to improve your life somehow. So you set a goal. And it might be to lose weight. It might be to have more clarity and concentration. So let’s call that fitness of your mind, fitness of your body, fitness of your spirit, a better connection to the universe. You might just want some self-defense skills.
Whatever it is, you have a goal to improve some part of your life, which is going to require some control of your life. You have to choose exercise or diet or influencers to figure out how to improve your life. But this is a very powerful stage.
That desire to improve your life is power.
You want something. That’s a great place to start. Your actions are now starting to be taken. Great.
So the next step is you need a tool or multiple tools to achieve that goal. Okay. So for me to achieve the goals of self-improvement, martial arts. Powerful tool, I believe the most powerful tool. But maybe for you, it’s not the most powerful, but it’s one of the tools. Great. Whatever.
You choose martial arts. Powerful. Now, that’s going to lead to choosing a school, choosing a style, choosing a teacher, but it doesn’t stop there. You want to be really good at this stuff. You want more improvement. So I might have to supplement more tools.
Join a gym. I think I should lift weights or do some extra cardio on the side. Diet. I better watch what I eat to make sure I’m recovering, getting the nutrition that I need so that I’m healthier all around.
Might need to read some books. What have other people who practice martial arts found out? What’s their wisdom?
Meditation. Should I meditate? That’s another powerful tool. I’ve seen other people do that. Maybe I’ll do that.
Again, this is a very powerful stage because you’re the one choosing tools. You wanted something and now you’re figuring out how to get it. All good.
Now here’s where the dangers come in…
Here’s where you start to lose your power because up till now, you’re in charge. Number one danger, hero worship. We’ve talked about this one before.
You look at tradition or your teacher, or some sports hero, or a movie star, as knowing more than you, as having more wisdom than you, and you immediately put yourself in a subservient position that they know better for you, even if they’ve never met you.
I want to be like GSP. He doesn’t know you. I want to be Bruce Lee. That’s not going to happen.
So this is natural. Don’t get me wrong. When you start off, you have to be a follower because you don’t know. You wouldn’t have to go out seeking tools if you already knew how to do it. So that’s natural to put yourself in a subservient position in the beginning, at the start. But for how long?
How long should you play this role of just following? It can be dangerous because some people get stuck here forever– that original mentality of being a student, the original mentality of an empty cup, I don’t know what to do, please guide me– they never lose it. They never lose it.
It could be insecurity that keeps them there. It could be humility or false humility that keeps them there, but they just stay there. They just stay there and they get stuck forever. In other words, you’ve lost your power.
We’ve talked about that one a bit before, so I don’t want to go into that one too much now. What I want to switch it up to is the second danger. Instead of hero worship, it’s routine worship.
You worship rules. Whether they came from someplace else or they came from you, you’ve set some rules into your life and now that’s it. They never change. You are stuck on them.
Again, it’s natural to start with rules. Okay, every day I’m going to sit in a horse stance for five minutes. Every day I’m going to go to the gym and work out for an hour. Every day I’m going to read a chapter of a book and I’m going to meditate for 20 minutes.
Great, you set some rules. You’ve begun this process of self-improvement. Good for you. But part of the process of self-improvement is reflection, measurement. You have to assess, am I getting what I wanted when I chose these tools? When I set these rules?
Very often, you get so focused on following the rules, you get so obsessed about following the routine, that you forgot why you started the routine. And once again, you’re losing power now because now the routine has power over you. The rules have power over you.
That’s not the way it’s supposed to work. Your experiences using the tools is supposed to lead you to reflection so that you can modify your choices. You might find out after a month or six months or a year that you need to choose a new tool because you’re not really getting what you wanted out of it. Or you might keep the same tool but set new rules for how you use the tool. That’s the wisdom of your self-discovery.
My friend Stephan Kesting, you know him over at grapplearts.com, he has a great podcast called The Strenuous Life. Definitely check that out. He talked about this recently in a video. The subject of overtraining. That might be what comes into your mind right away when I talk about this.
Overtraining– you’re following this routine and you’re not giving yourself chances to recover. You’re so obsessed with hitting the numbers every day, this many reps, this long, that you’re not paying attention, that your body’s breaking down. That you’re hurting yourself.
But I would like to propose to you that what I’m talking about isn’t just that physical danger. There’s a psychological danger. It’s not just that you’re doing the same thing over and over again. It’s you’re doing the wrong thing over and over again. That’s what I’m talking about today.
The psychological danger of rules.
So let me give you an example. In my 20s and 30s, I definitely supplemented my martial arts training with weightlifting. I definitely wanted to gain some muscle mass.
Now to do that, at the time, the science that I was aware of, the rule was if you wanted to gain muscle mass, you had to eat at least 2 grams of protein for every pound of bodyweight that you were carrying around. And you had to consume this protein– since that’s a lot of protein, if I was 170 pounds and I have to consume 2 grams of protein for every pound of bodyweight, okay, you do that math– you had to consume that every 4 hours. That was the second rule. Because if you didn’t, my understanding was that your body would start to cannibalize your muscle tissue for energy.
I think a lot of these rules have changed, these perceptions have changed, but at the time it had to be 2 grams of protein per pound of muscle mass and you had to eat every 4 hours or risk losing your gains.
So hey, I’m dedicated to self-improvement. I had a goal. I chose my tools. I set those rules. Now I’m following this routine for years.
One day, beautiful day, Southern California, sun’s outside, summer day, gorgeous. My wife innocently asks the crazy person, you want to go for a hike? And my reaction, I can only describe as panic. Inside, I could feel stressed out because I knew, well, that doesn’t fit my routine.
How long is that going to take? We got to drive there. We got to take the whole hike, get back to the car, get back. I don’t really want to carry a protein shake with me on the whole hike. I don’t want to leave it in the car. It’s going to get too hot. How can I possibly manage to get this protein shake into my– I can’t. It’s going to be four hours. I can’t.
And so I said that to my wife. I said, I can’t go hiking because I need my protein. I can’t go.
Now at that moment, I had already been in this routine for years. I heard how crazy that sounded, let alone her look of disappointment or frustration or contempt, whatever. I knew that that had gone too far. And that kind of broke the spell, that day.
I knew that the rule was causing me an unhealthy level of stress. I knew that if I was to go on that hike– which would have been a beautiful experience, right?– would have made me feel like a loser. How can that be?
How can taking a hike with your wife on a beautiful day, when you’re healthy enough to do that, you have the time to do that, you have all these blessings to do that, and all the benefits that come from taking a hike in the sun on a beautiful day, how can that possibly make me feel like a loser? Only because I was clinging to a routine and a rule that in that context made zero sense.
Of course, there’s lots of other examples of this that I hope that you’re now reflecting on in your life- rules that cause you stress.
I do a horse stance every day, five minutes, that’s the rule, been doing that for years. Try to do your forms every day, maybe you’ve set that rule for yourself. Meditate every day, read every day.
I’ve even preached this before. I love this old saying that, Hey, if whatever routine you’re on, whatever practice schedule you’re on, if you miss one day, you’ll know. If you miss two days, your teacher’s going to know. If you miss three days, everybody knows.
Man, I love that saying, I’ve shared that expression with people. However, it’s really just a formula for stress. It’s a formula for shame. Because if I go one day without training, immediately that’s what I feel. The whole day, I’m like, Oh, when am I going to train? Oh my God, I should be training.
And if I don’t meet that rule, then it’s shame. I feel like a loser when I go to bed. I feel like a loser the next day, even when I start training again, because I know I missed yesterday. Now, the quality of my life has dropped. Instead of being on a self-improvement path, I’m on a self-destruction path. That’s not acceptable. This is not how this routine stuff and rule stuff is supposed to work.
Failing the rule, failing your school, failing your teacher, failing your family, failing your friends, failing your style, however far you want to take it, this is not how you’re supposed to feel. You’re not supposed to feel weak and lazy because you’re following a routine or breaking a routine. None of that should be coming up.
When that happens, which is common, people quit their diets, making New Year’s resolutions, they can’t follow through after a couple of weeks, they quit, they give up, and that’s a mistake. When your rules become so important to you that breaking them means you feel like such a loser that you decide to give up on the whole project– I’m not even going to try to improve myself anymore, because I couldn’t stick to the routine, therefore, I’m a loser, forget it. Why even try?
What? Do you see how fast this gets crazy? You know what I’m talking about. This I think is just a universal human experience. So let’s get rid of it.
We’ve got to remember that we cannot turn tools into rules.
When you chose a tool, you had power. When you set the rules, originally you still had the power. When those rules started telling you how to live your life and started making you feel bad about yourself, now they’ve gotten into power. They are in power over you and that’s not okay.
So please remember, if you’re weightlifting, your goal is not actually to lift weights or to be good at lifting weights. Your goal is to get fit. That was the goal, right?
If you want to meditate, your goal is not to actually be good at meditating. That’s not what you sought when you started meditating. No, you were looking for self-knowledge or communion with the universe. You were looking for wisdom, enlightenment. You weren’t looking to be, oh, I’m really good at meditating, right?
If you’re practicing martial arts, your goal is not actually to be great at martial arts. That one might take a second to really think about, wrap your head around. If you’re taking any martial art, that’s not the goal to be great at it.
Oh, I want to master that art. That wasn’t really the goal, is it? You didn’t wake up one day and say, I want to improve my life. I want to be a master of martial arts.
No, you said, I want to improve my life. How can I do it? Maybe through martial arts. That’s my chosen tool. I just want to have a happier life, a healthier life. I want to have more peace in my life. I want to feel stronger, more confident. It’s not to be great at martial arts.
Right?
So, here’s the test. If you have a rule in your life, you’re following some routine today, if you feel stressed breaking that rule, then it has power over you, the scales have tipped in the wrong direction. If breaking your routine makes you feel like a failure, if it makes you feel like a loser, then you have to change that routine. That’s my advice for you.
Break the rule, change the routine when it has too much power over your self-worth and your self-esteem. That’s not the way it was supposed to work.
Here’s another way to think about it if it causes you stress, one, makes you feel like a failure, two. If you hear yourself saying something like, Well, if I don’t do it, if I don’t follow the rule, if I don’t meet up with my routine, I don’t even know who I would be. I would lose myself. That’s who I am. I am this routine.
That’s a problem. You’ve gone too far. It sounds cool, right? Like, I’m so committed and dedicated. That’s who I am. But no, actually, that’s crazy talk. I’ll tell you why.
I have this rule. I’m going to do my horse stance every day for five minutes. What if I was in a car accident today and I lost my legs and I wake up in the hospital? I have no legs. And I say, Well, I got to do my horse stance today. I got to do it for five minutes.
Now I can’t. Well, who am I? Is it really the case that I’m not still Ando? I’m not still me because I lost my legs? No. The routine may change, and if I don’t have legs, it will change. But I’m still the same person.
That was the point. I chose doing a horse stance every day to change myself for the better. And I don’t need the legs to keep changing myself for the better. I just need to find a different tool, a different set of rules. Right?
If you’ve chosen tools and you’re using them wisely, then you will be led to feeling more confident and more fit in your mind, in your body, in your spirit. But if your rules are abusing you, then you’re going the opposite direction. Now you’ve lost your power.
You’re becoming unfit. You’re getting unhealthier in your mind, body, and your spirit. You forgot why you started this whole project of self-improvement. That’s not cool. You will not only break yourself down physically, you will break yourself down psychologically, emotionally, spiritually, and then you’re in big trouble.
Now, let me be clear. I’m not saying any of this to be disrespectful to a tradition that you’re part of, or a teacher that you admire and that you follow. Not at all. They all serve a purpose to present you with choices. They are solution givers to problems that you have.
You’re coming in saying, I want to improve something. They offer some tools to you, whether it’s a tradition, or a teacher, or a friend, whomever, a book. They are offering you, Well, here’s some things you can do. And here’s when you should do it. And here’s how you should do it.
They are sharing this information with you. They are offering you these tools. But these tools are like drugs. Drugs can heal you or drugs can kill you. The difference is whether you’re using those drugs or you’re abusing those drugs.
You might get a prescription today and it helps heal something. But once you’re healed, if you keep taking that drug, now it’s going to harm you. We have to approach everything we do in life with that same test.
Is this still helping me or is this hurting me?
Okay, so now let’s talk about you. Let’s take a look at your routines and the rules that you’re following on the path towards self-improvement.
Do you feel stress when you break up your routine? I hope you don’t. Because I’m thinking, there’s only two reasons that you do break your routine. And by the way, we all do it.
Because life happens. And when life doesn’t happen, you happen. Here’s what I mean.
Number one, life happens. I would just call this, you break a rule because of responsibility. Your self-improvement goals, that’s not the only thing you live for. You also have family responsibilities, community responsibilities, work responsibilities, maybe religious responsibilities.
I don’t judge you. But you’re more than just your training. Right? Your training is supposed to enhance your ability to function in all those other contexts of your life.
So, for example, let’s say today is leg day. Whether that means kicking or I’m going to go to the gym and lift weights for my legs. It’s leg day. But, oh no, someone in your family got into a car accident. I’m big on these car accidents today. They lost their legs. They’re in the hospital.
Now, when you get that call– Oh my gosh, mom’s in the hospital. She lost her legs.– you’re on your way to the gym. Your responsibility, however, now is to your mother to get to the hospital and show her support, be there for her, provide for her needs, try to improve her life.
But it is very possible that you’re going to stand there in that hospital room, not just feeling sad for your mother, but feeling stressed out because you feel like a need to be at the gym.
Today’s leg day. If I don’t get to the gym later, I’m going to lose my gains. I’m off track. My routine’s been shattered. I’m a loser. I’m failing.
That’s crazy, right? When do you give yourself the credit for answering bigger responsibilities? Leg day? Forget it. Your mom lost her legs. It’s no leg day. Isn’t that more important? Yes is the answer. In case you’re confused, yes.
So when do you give yourself the pat on the back to say, good for me for being there for her? Because my family responsibilities, the routine, the rule of respecting my mother, is more important than my leg day rule at the gym.
Give yourself credit when you’ve broken a routine because of a larger responsibility, whatever that may be.
Two, I said either life happens or YOU happen. What I mean by that is, impulse, instinct, intuition, all the ins. You just want to do something else. You just don’t feel like it today. Is that so bad?
Now, be careful. I’m not saying, I don’t feel like working out because you’re lazy. I’m not saying you should go out and trash yourself. Go out and binge on a couple pounds of bacon or a handful of barbiturates. I’m talking about when you’re grinding, when you’re in that job mode, when you don’t really want to train today because you’re aching from yesterday. You’re just bummed out. You just don’t feel excited about what you’re doing anymore.
I’m not just talking about the discipline. Yeah, part of improvement is going to be you got to keep going. Of course. But some days, you are better off choosing a different tool. This is important.
Breaking a rule doesn’t mean that you’re giving up on your goal. Some days you just need to choose a different tool to get to the same goal. Simple as that.
Okay, so you set a rule for yourself. I’m going to practice my forms every day. Great. That’s a fine rule. But one day, you just say, I just can’t. I can’t. Not today. I would rather just turn on some music and dance.
No, you’re not going to catch me ever doing that. Windows will be closed. Turn off the lights. I don’t even want to see me dance. But what about dancing? Aren’t there benefits to dancing? Yeah.
Are you still going to connect with your body? Yes. Is it still a release of tension? Yes. Is it fun? Yes. Does it still develop coordination? Yes. Isn’t that what the forms are doing too? Yes. It’s just a different context.
So you’re still on a goal of moving your body to make yourself healthier– mind, body, and spirit– it’s just you’ve chosen to use a different tool. Dance instead of martial art forms today. So for me, I’d say good for you. For you, I hope you say good for me. Good for you. Same thing.
You gotta go to the gym. This is like my wife when she asked me to go on a hike. Okay, well, I could go to the gym and be on the treadmill, do my routine there, count some reps, clock my times. Or you could just go for a hike. Go for a walk in the park. Aren’t there benefits to that too?
Yeah, we know the benefits you’re gonna get if you go to the gym, except that spiritually you’re just not into it today. So really you’re just feeling beaten down. Well, that counts for something. If you go for the hike, you’re gonna work your heart and your lungs, you’re going to expand your vision, you’re gonna see some greenery– studies show, that’s good for you– you might have a nice conversation with a loved one. There’s tons of benefits there, relaxation and breathing.
So you’re gonna get benefits either way, but I would argue, on this day that you have the impulse to not go to the gym, but go take the hike, you’re gonna get more benefit, and more important benefits. Instead of just a little bit of cardio at the gym, but feeling beat down, you’re exercising your power of free will. You’re exercising your self-determination. That’s more important than anything you were gonna get at the gym that day.
Right? Yes.
It reminds me, it’s gotta be over ten years ago, a long time ago, you might be familiar with that satirical online news site called, The Onion. They’ve been around forever. I haven’t been there lately, but they had an article a long time ago, and this was the headline. The headline was–
Karate Lessons Give Child Self-Confidence to Quit Karate.
This is the perfect example of what I’m talking about. There was a quote in that article, and here’s how it goes. The kid was talking, and he said, If it wasn’t for the focus and determination I learned in Karate, I would still be doing Karate right now.
Come on, that’s so perfect. It’s perfect because Karate was never the goal. If their parents, and this is all hypothetical, the parents signed this imaginary kid up for Karate– why? To develop confidence, to make decisions, to trust their instincts, to follow through on decisions. And they succeeded.
The child gained the confidence to say, You know what? I don’t need the Karate anymore. Perfect.
So let’s remember this as our real goal. Here’s your goal. Y
You choose a tool. You use a tool. And then hopefully, you lose the tool.
That should be the goal for everything you’re doing. You’re trying to improve your life. You’ve chosen a way to do it. You work it. And then you succeed at it, so that you don’t have to work it that way anymore.
You have the freedom to take another look and say, well, what do I want now? How do I get to another level of self-improvement? Is this still serving me or am I serving it? That should be part of it. Now you’re back in control. Now you’re freeing yourself.
Ah, you’ve achieved something, so much so that you can change it. That’s where the insecurity can come in. Maybe you don’t know, well, who am I if I’m not doing that routine? We already talked about that. That just proves that you’re stuck. That’s not what you wanted.
So please remember that your training routine, your training in general, is not just for your muscles, it’s for your mindset. Your training is not just for your cardiovascular system, it’s for your character. Those are the bigger self-improvement goals. Not just a little pump here, a little better blood pressure there. That’s small, small thinking.
Alright, now again, I’m not saying you should not have any rules in your life and have no routine. Development demands dedication. No question about it. But when you feel that that demand is attacking your self-worth, you gotta stop. You gotta break the rules, break up that routine.
You’ve gotta stop to remember who is in charge, who set up that routine in the first place, who made you follow those rules. You did. Even if you got them from someone else originally, you’re the one who chose to follow them.
So it’s all on you. You are the one in power. This is especially true if you consider yourself a perfectionist.
I’m a hard worker. I’m a little compulsive. I’m dedicated. I’m disciplined. If those words sound like you, it’s all positive. You need those qualities to achieve things. No question. I would rather fall into that camp than lazy, weak, quitter. Of course.
Be compulsive. Be disciplined. Go for perfection knowing you can’t achieve it, but strive for it. Yes.
But the trick here is to stick to your routine and not be stuck to your routine. One little letter of difference.
Stick to your program, but don’t be stuck on it.
That’s the difference. When you get stuck, when you’re headed in the wrong direction, there’s no way out. It’s just going to lead to self-destruction. If you’re just sticking to a program, then you’re able to let it go sometimes. You’re following it, but you can also get back in the front and lead it. That’s what we want.
Of course, everything that I’m saying right now about taking a breaks and breaking rules, this is occasional. If you find yourself with an impulse to break up your routine every week, every couple of weeks even, that’s definitely a clue that you need to probably find a different tool. It’s not working for you. It shouldn’t be that hard to follow your routine.
So just keep that in mind. This should be occasional.
The basic way you measure that is you should be feeling better when you break a rule. It should be a little bit of a relief like, Oh, okay, I found something else today. I feel better that I’m taking a hike than going to the gym. I actually feel empowered doing that. That should feel great.
And the crazy thing here is, when you break the rule, particularly because it’s for a greater cause, you have another responsibility to serve, even if it’s just to yourself, to your own impulses, your own instinct that day, you will gain more power from that, not less. You will feel that you’re back in charge. You’re the leader. And then everything changes for the better.
The crazier thing is that when you go back to your routine again, the next day, it’ll work more. It’ll give you more benefits. Because it’s like training a dog. It’s like now you have the dog back on the leash. You’re the alpha. I’m the one who’s training you. You’re not training me.
I just can’t say enough about the psychological and emotional importance of taking back your power to choose your tools and set your own rules. It just has to be that way.
Alright, so the first question I asked, let me repeat it: Who is in charge of your training? Is it you? If you’re not sure, remember you can always measure it with the amount of stress that you feel. With the amount of shame that you feel. When you’re not able to follow the rules and follow your routine, either because of life or because of your own impulses. If that leads to stress and shame, you’re probably not in charge. Your routine is in charge of you.
If you feel like a failure, if you feel like a loser, your tools have become rules. Gotta break it. If you feel like a follower, if you feel like a slave to your routine, you gotta break it. If you’re feeling weaker, not stronger, as you’re doing the work, no good.
We can’t let rules become more powerful than our intuition and our instincts. I hope we can agree on that. Because ultimately, when it comes to martial arts, we’re talking about self-defense skills. Whether that’s all the time in your brain or not, it’s martial arts. Martial. It’s self-defense. We’re fighting for everything. Our lives. Someone else’s life.
But if rules are in power over you, I would bet you your self-defense skills are fragile. When the pressure is on, it won’t be your technical skills that save you. It’s gonna be your character skills. It’s gonna be who you are first. Because the odds of a self-defense situation fitting perfectly into some technical routine that you’ve been following, that’s probably not gonna happen. There’s just way too many variables when it comes to self-defense. Way too many.
What you’re gonna need to rely on is who you are, what kind of person you are. Are you able to think for yourself? That’s gotta be part of your training. I’m training to think for myself.
Do you trust your decisions? That has to be part of your training. I need to trust my decisions. Because when someone’s flashing a knife around, I need to think for myself and trust myself to do what’s right. I cannot be thinking, well, what would someone else think? What’s the advice I should follow now? Ah, it’s too late.
You should be training to think for yourself and trust yourself. You should be training to listen to yourself.
When do you feel endangered? What do you feel is going to be the right move to do? When should you do it? How hard should you do it? How long should you keep going until you can get out of there? Until this danger is over?
All that’s gotta come from you. You need to train to free yourself, to make decisions and take action, and feel good about it. I’m not saying you have to feel great about taking down a bad guy, but if you’re fighting for a good cause, if you’re fighting because you’re a good person, and you’re defending other good people, I don’t see why that shouldn’t feel good. I don’t see why.
Alright, so, fitness of mind, body, and spirit. That means you’re empowered. And that power comes from control. And the control means you choose the tools, you choose the routine, you set the rules. That’s the big message.
And when it comes to martial arts as one of your tools, never forget, my friend, you’re the one who chose to do martial arts. You’re the one who chose it. And your goal was not to be great at martial arts, was it? Your goal was to improve your life. That was the goal. And as long as martial arts is serving that goal, then continue the way you’re doing it.
If it is not, if it’s causing you stress and shame and feeling like a failure, either change the art, change the school, change the teacher, or change your routine. That’s my advice.
If this idea causes you any stress even thinking about it right now, hey– break a rule just to prove to yourself that you’re in charge. Take a day off from your routine just to prove to your routine who’s in charge, who’s calling the shots.
If that idea in your head causes you a little stress, feels uncomfortable, you gotta do it. You gotta do it. Believe me, the universe, such as it is, will still love you if you break your routine. Your teacher will still love you if you break your routine. Your friends and your family, if they are worth knowing as people at all, will still love you if you break a rule.
What I want more than anything though is I want you to still love you if you break a routine or break a rule that you have set for yourself.
If that is still just a little too difficult today, if you can’t give yourself the permission the next time you feel an impulse to break your routine or the next time a bigger responsibility needs you to be there and now you’re feeling stressed about it, if you need permission, then I’ll give it to you right now. Okay, does that help?
I hereby grant to you permission when you need to, either through responsibility or through impulse, to break a rule in your training routine. If that’s for a day, it’s a day. If you need a week, take a week.
Whatever you need to do, I just ask that you find a different way to serve your goal of self-improvement. Maybe that means skipping your training, but you go and visit an old friend that you haven’t seen in a long time. That’s beautiful. There’s benefits to that.
Maybe it means volunteering at a charity, at your church, whatever. Find someone else to help. You’re telling me that’s not worth doing? Of course it is.
Maybe you write a letter to someone, reach out, write an email. Maybe you just cook for yourself, cook for your family, bake some cookies and take them somewhere.
Did I say cookies? Bake a pie and send it to me. That’s what this whole podcast was about. Stop what you’re doing and make me a pie. If you get a chance.
How about a hobby? Any hobby that you love or you think you love, but you never have time for, I give you permission to go try it out. Give yourself a little time over there. Because I promise you that’s good for your soul. That’s good for the big you, not just the small you that’s trying to achieve one little thing.
That’s character. That’s big stuff. And again, I promise, if you do that and then you go back to your routine, it’ll be fresh because you broke the spell.
We all get into this grind. The joy becomes a job and you’re just hypnotized by your own routine and your own rules. But when you break it, just like that, you wake up. And now you are free again to do what you should have been doing all along, which is having experiences.
Let me measure the results. Let me modify the routine, modify these rules. Maybe I need to choose a new tool. Maybe I need to lose a tool. Maybe I just need to change a rule. How and when I do things, all good.
Just don’t forget, you, my friend, are in charge. You are the leader. And really, only you have the power to create a happy life.
You pumped up? You feel your power? Well, then let’s choose some tools, use our tools, and maybe someday lose those tools.
Until next time, smiles up, my friend. Let that smile be your shield and your sword. Keep fighting for a happy life.
