Another Gen from Cael..”optimism”
via caelsanderson.com, Olympic gold medalist, my favorite person to listen when it comes to grapplingat the highest level.
Today I am going to talk about being optimistic. Nothing is more important than being optimistic and acting with a positive attitude.
If you struggle to be confident and positive, than simply act as if you are. The saying “fake it until you make it” seems like a cheesy idea but it will help here. Act as the person you want and hope to become. Do what you think that type of person would do. If you want to be a national champion, train like a national champion would train. Talk to yourself as you would imagine an optimistic person would. Eventually you will grow into the type of person you want to be.
The majority of great philosophers agree that ultimately you will get what you constantly think about.
That can be good or bad. It all depends on you and what thoughts you entertain in your mind. But if it is true, think positively!
“As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” – Proverbs 23:7
This doesn’t mean that we are doomed to every negative thought that enters our mind. We are human and naturally negative thoughts will enter our minds often. It’s what you do with those negative thoughts that is important. If you take a negative thought and put it on “repeat” mode in your mind-that’s a problem. If you take a negative thought, feed it and entertain it– that’s a problem. That gives the negative thought power. Instead, you should recognize a negative thought immediately and replace it with a prepared thought.
Have an answer ready to replace negative thoughts.
Feed your mind with positive thoughts.
To train yourself to be a positive thinker, you need to have purpose and goals. You need to be realistic in your goals. You need to set goals that you can control. To be confident you must be able to focus on what you can control. Ultimately you want to win, everyone does. Ultimately you want to be the state, national or world champion. So how do you do that? I should ask, how do you make your very best attempt at those goals?
You do by doing the most you can with what you have and what you can control. When you set your goals before competition they need to be effort based. It’s like wishing for a toilet seat made of gold. Nice goal but how are you going to make it happen. Focus on what is going to make it happen, not the end result.
It will be very difficult to be positive when you set your expectations and goals on things that you cannot control. You can’t control whether you are going to win or not. But you can control whether you are going to fight, hustle, be disciplined to wrestle the match in your strong positions, and simply never give up. Those are things you can control. Those are the things that you need to focus on if you want to be confident.
Focusing on effort is a sign of strength. Accepting your absolute best effort as success is strength. That idea is divine in nature. Few are willing to do this. You can.
Don’t expect to be confident if you are putting your focus into things that you cannot control.
“We must learn to become creators of circumstances and not creatures of them.” – M. Russell Ballard
The next important principle to be optimistic is to develop self-discipline. A lack of discipline is what keeps the majority of people from reaching their potential. Talent and hard work go out the window without discipline. You must have the discipline to follow through with the difficult things that stand between you and your goals. It’s hard to be optimistic if you haven’t paid the price.
“For my part, I have concluded that the quality which sets one man apart from another- the factor which lifts one man to every achievement to which he reasonably aspires while the other is caught in the slough of mediocrity for all the years of his life—is not talent, nor formal education, nor luck, nor intellectual brilliance, but is rather the successful man’s greater capacity for self-discipline.” — Benjamin N. Woodson
My final thought is to have faith in youself. Why would you not have faith in yourself? You are literally a son or daughter of God! If you remember that, you will surely know that you can do anything! Your goals should be simply to take what God has given you and do the very best that you can with it. It’s simple, if you allow it to be.
“Who you are is God’s gift to you, who you become, is your gift to God!” -unknown
The mere thought of knowing that you are in fact a son or daughter of God should have you bouncing off the walls with optimism. What can a son or daughter of God not accomplish?! Go for it!
My game for eating right and earning it
How are you sure that you deserve anything as far as competition is concerned? One way of thinking I totally agree with, is Tom Brands way of thinking, who is currently the head wrestling coach for Iowa Hawkeyes, one of the greatest teams ever, period. He goes to say, “You dont deserve anything, you only deserve what you earn!”
These words have had a profound effect in how I approach a lot of things, and truthfully I wish I had this kind of approach on my University studies, haha, but that is another post. So how do you know you deserve a victory or a gold medal at a tournament? Is there anyway to know? Of course, training hard, putting in effort, time, and energy. But every I feel as though everyone trains hard, rolls hard, does their sprints, so how do you know? More importantly how do I know? The honest answer is to live everyday like a champion. How do I know how a champion lives? I read, and read more, not about Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu fighters, because BJJ fighters just aren’t that chronicled, I have somewhat of an idea how my favorite fighters Terere, and Jacare have trained, but I don’t know their habits, what they do on a daily basis, and how they approach important things like drilling, strength and conditioning, mental preparation as it relates to getting ready for huge events. So I instead read about, NCAA wrestling champions, Olympic gold medalist in any sport such as Judo, and whomever else has to go through hell fire and brimstone to prepare for huge events, huge tournaments. And what I have found, and what I like best is Cael Sanderson’s suggestion of “living every single day like a champion”. When I read that, I knew at the time I was not doing the best I could and a lot of the details he was speaking about, which a lot was about my attitude towards preparing and just doing everything in our power to ensure we get the results we want. Since reading about Cael, I know that I have to prepare more, and do more, and after that do a little bit more. And what I have found is this game I made up out of no where for myself…
Everyday that I practice, I do a mini circuit after training, regardless of how I feel, and if I have done conditioning and strength that day. The circuits must include at least 3 of the following.If you want to play along, you can have your own exercises, these are some of Cael’s favorites and mine, and are the best for a grappler.
- Sprints
- Rope climbs
- Pull-ups
- Wall-sits
- Push-ups
- Planks or get on the roller thing
This part of the game is the MORE aspect of my training, just a little more of this, and I always feel like I could of done more, and when I do this after a training, I feel like I have done really well.
The other thing I am doing is 50 pullups after every practice, regardless of anything I have done previously, I will try and do the pullups in the circuit or if not (my gym does not have a pull-up station at the moment) I will do them at home on my doorway pull-up thingy.
The other game I am playing is that I DO NOT GET TO EAT UNTIL I HAVE COMPLETED THESE “MORE” CIRCUITS! This builds upon my discpline, to finish any and all tasks, and to make sure I am doing right by me, and not cheating myself, I am sooooo sure that Every champion I admire has not cut any corners, and neither will I. Dan Gable said it best, “if you don’t train, you don’t eat”. A little extreme for most people, but I have to maintain a certain weight, and Gable said this to his athletes on the off-season when they werent training and wrestling like they were during the on-season.
This is how I will earn GOLD at the 2011 BJJ World Championships, everyday I will earn gold, not 8 weeks out not 12 weeks out, but every second of everyday I will try my heart out to get .01 percent better.I am not in a big BJJ scene in Rhode Island, but who cares, I am going to work…
In closing, it is my belief that if you aren’t doing it everyday and your opponent has done more days more hours, minutes seconds then you, then you do not deserve that victory. This is about accountability and discipline Do you think you deserve and why?
I will continue to try and pay the price everyday…The idea is to never get tired.
**In other news**
Today I weighed 200lbs, already on weight for my division lol, and my roommate told me my abs are beginning to show after I did my pullups, this made me glimmer. Looking at this weight makes me think about fighting at 194lbs for CBJJ events. Hard work is visibly paying off, now its time to make my technique show when it counts. Also this game helps to improve your work ethic.
CUDDLE FUDDLE customized by Paulo Canabarro
