Commitment

This week I've been thinking a lot about commitment. Commitment to a goal means first setting that goal. Setting a big goal is easy -- achieving it is not. First you've got to break it down into more manageable goals that you tackle piece by piece. If my goal is for black belt excellence, I need to break that down.

What does black belt excellence entail? Being able to kick harder, or kick higher, punch accurately and strongly? Is it learning forms? Executing a perfect flying sidekick to break a board? Sparring? To me it is all that and much more. Should I be setting a target number of pushups I want to be able to do at a time? How about burpees? Perfecting a new form every month until I have them all ready to go? Starting to run so that I'm ready for 5K at the end of Power Weekend? What about that shelf of martial arts books sitting there waiting for me to read? There's so much to do it's hard to narrow it down.

Confucious said "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." So here's my plan. My first step on this journey is to make a vow to myself to not miss any classes unless I absolutely have to. No more of this "I'm really tired and my allergies (or whatever) are bothering me, so I'll just miss class this morning". I will not accept this as an excuse to myself over the next 52 weeks.

See you at the dojang!