This is has been a struggle for as long as I can remember. What is a priority to me? This kind of comes and goes depending on where I am mentally. I tend way to often to lower my priorities too much. I know that I perform the best when I am under immense pressure. However I think I perform this way because I have left myself no other choice.
When it come to ranking priorities in my life I tend to rank those that have immediate gratification close to the top. Ones that take too much time to achieve get pushed lower down. For example, writing my blogs at times seem like a chore and there isn't anything that I can "touch" that will tell me there is gratification for doing this. It goes back to my current mental state. Right now, mentally I'm in a good place and I see value in pushing this blog toward the top of my list. Why is that? It's because I can "feel" the value of this mentally not only for my self but those of my teammates. It's kind of hard to explain but this is how I'm currently seeing it. Secondly, physically I'm getting back to a better place and that helps me mentally. Yesterday Sifu Lindstom instructed the fitness class and he did a great job pushing me very hard. I needed it and he didn't let me stop. I forgot how good it feels when it was all over and your body has that wonderful "tingly" feeling. I feel mentally better about myself because I'm pushing my body physically to get back to where I want to go.
So all of this is helping me re focus my priorities and I'm pushing my Kung Fu back closer to the top of my priority list. Now the challenge will be not to let my Kung Fu slide down the priority list, any suggestions?
Mr. Ian Repay
Student Of Silent River Kung Fu
My suggestion would be to try not to think of kung fu as a priority at all, but instead as a value. Priorities imply that you can move them up and down whereas values are something you just do. My company used this approach to instill a strong culture of safety. Safety is never a priority, it's a value. It permeates everything that we do. If it was a priority, workers could pick and choose when to follow safety rules. They might decide that there are times when safety wouldn't be the number one priority. Maybe there were deadlines to meet and taking the extra time to do a job safely would affect the deadline. Instead, safety is one of our company's values and everything is done with safety at the forefront. It's non-negotiable. That's how I try (not always successfully) to approach my training. This is the approach that helped me. I just view kung fu as something I do now, like sleeping or eating. Sometimes I skip meals and sometimes I don't get a good night's sleep but I just keep going. I don't beat myself up for missing class or practice anymore (even though I recognize that I can do better). Whatever success I've had with the I Ho Chuan has 95% been as a result of this change in approach for me. Just my two cents.
ReplyDeleteI think Mr. Smid has some good words of wisdom there for you. I like the way he put it. There is a lot of value in your kung fu training. If you keep that value in front of you, the priorities take care of themselves.
ReplyDeleteThanks for taking the time to comment on my blog. I need to change the way I look at my Kung Fu. I really like how Mr. Smid explained it. Thanks again!
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