They are like, little TonyRobbinsesque tidbits that are from my own experience designed to give ideas and motivation to Tae Kwon Do students. I figured I'd cut and past todays in here, and if people don't rip it to shreds maybe I'll put more up in here as I write them.

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Rest vs. Results

I was talking with a parent yesterday in the midst of the hustle and the bustle of changing classes. She was doing the right thing, and letting me know that her son, a four year old boy whose been attending class hear for about six months, was starting to become a struggle to get to class. This is not unusual, and it’s always one of the obstacles to the success of any person in our program.

It reminded me of me. It was not long ago that I was sitting with one of my mentors, Keith Hafner, and talking about how overwhelmed I felt. “I get to my school at 8am, and I’m there often until 10pm every day plus Saturday,” I was lamenting as we sat in the basement of his Ann Arbor home. “I never see my wife and friends, I’m tired all the time, and even the dog doesn’t recognize me when I come home. I need a break! How can I arrange things at my school so that I can take more time off, sir?”

Mr. Hafner looked down at that, and you could almost visibly see the gears in his head turning. I waited patiently, expecting to hear about staff training or volunteers or something… something that would free up more of my time and let me get the rest I needed. But Mr. Hafner’s response was not what I anticipated. “Dan,” he said “do you think it’s rest you need, or results?”

Well that stopped me in my tracks, and though my reflex response was that the results weren’t the problem (after all, our results were great) as I reflected on that over the course of the next few days, I began to realize he was right. Though the results of my work were good to outside eyes, within myself I felt like for all my hard work I should be accomplishing more. Mr. Hafner was right, had I been getting the results I felt were on par with my efforts, I’d be energized and motivated and ready to tenaciously pursue more results.

Can you think of a time when you just felt like you needed a break, but what you really needed was a healthy dose of success? Can you think of a time when you worked insanely hard, but were able to move mountains because your results were so great?

Taekwondo students function the same way. I know my little four year old friend hasn’t earned a stripe in about two months, and he’s been coming to class religiously. That’s a lot of work that he feels like he’s putting in, but where are his results? Of course he doesn’t want to come to class if he feels like he’s not accomplishing anything. But what do we do? Stop trying? That is not the Tae Kwon Do way. We keep pushing on in our efforts, and what happens? We DO get results, they are inevitable. Then when we get those results, it’s smooth sailing. We are motivated, excited, and anxious to get more results. It’s a terrific life lesson.

Now I don’t like to be negative, but what happens when we give up? We condition ourselves to believe that we lack energy, we lack motivation, that no matter how hard we try we’re doomed to our lot in life. Let’s not let this be us in 2007. Become a results oriented person, and you’ll be amazed at what you (or your child) can achieve!

- Mr. Vigil

P.S I wrote this when I got up this morning. Please forgive any sleepy grammatical error.

P.S.S My little four year old buddy got a green stripe yesterday, and left smiling and excited. Let’s see if that doesn’t do the trick for his motivation!