Able Up

Nine years of continual Taekwondo practice has done wonders for my health, mindset, and well-being. It’s a martial art that I’ve found sustained value and enjoyment in, and a pursuit I enthusiastically recommend to others seeking a committed path to building resilience and continual self-improvement.

What the journey of training with amazing peers and masters, competing in regional tournaments, and achieving three Taekwondo black belts has taught me:

1. Every ounce of effort I can summon is worth it.

The opportunity to regularly push myself to new limits has been invaluable and truly transformative for me. This lesson in continual growth has permeated all areas of my life and helped me build a relentless, driven, undaunted mindset.

2. I have potentials I’m unaware of.

The purpose of training is to show us how to reach deeper and access previously unknown capabilities within ourselves. The demands of Taekwondo training have helped me rein in and focus a restless and too often reflexive and reactive mind, brought me more deliberate control of my movements and intentions, and has shown me an enduring love of running and challenging cardio training that I never imagined I’d find.

3. The training is the test, and the journey is the reward.

Particularly during the intensive weeks of elevated preparation that lead up to each black belt test: Every day and training session is a chance to grapple with current limitations and push beyond them, and the repetition inevitably brings tangible advances in capability. Each inner battle you fight and win brings you one step closer to readiness.

There is nothing like the satisfaction of seeing measurable progress in oneself firsthand: feeling the exercises getting easier and being able to endure longer sessions and higher reps. It is rare and wonderful to experience such profound enjoyment from working so hard.

To train relentlessly, consistently, and with dedication is to become, at the end, fully prepared. Follow the path, and you will come to testing in top physical condition and ready to perform better than ever, supported by all the gains achieved and lessons learned along the way.

4. Injuries are temporary and can be overcome.

All my setbacks in training have thankfully turned out to be surmountable: I just needed to learn new techniques to fix them. Bouts of tendonitis and plantar fasciitis seemed like obstacles at the time, but with patient persistence and the proper attention to healing, I was able to push through each and return to training with no limitations, 100% injury-free.

5. There is always more to learn.

The moment I achieved 3rd Dan last weekend, my gradual journey to 4th Dan began. Taekwondo is a lifetime calling with endless potential for growth — one that I am grateful to have found and intend to continue indefinitely for the abundance it has given me in return.

6. Treasure the guidance and mentorship that are available to you.

I’m profoundly grateful for and indebted to the rare and wonderful school I’ve found in Elite Martial Arts of Franklin Lakes, and all that headmaster James Lee, our expert poomse coach Master Ji Hun Sim, and all my past instructors have worked patiently to teach me – for their devoted mentorship through class after class, for their unwavering support in the ring and on the poomse mat at tournaments, and for their caring and generous spirit in showing me the path to growth and success. Find a school that suits and support you, and give it the commitment it deserves. You’re likely to find rewards beyond your current capacity to imagine.

Posted with deep thanks to my masters, instructors, peers, and family for their unyielding support in this amazing, profoundly rewarding, and ongoing journey that I’m excited to continue!

Vital perspective on the importance of resilience, determination, mindset, morale, and more — with broad applicability to both military contexts and fields of endeavor far and wide.

Also available as audio on Apple Podcasts.

Did you tackle that trouble that came your way
With a resolute heart and cheerful?
Or hide your face from the light of day
With a craven soul and fearful?

Oh, a trouble’s a ton, or a trouble’s an ounce,
Or a trouble is what you make it,
And it isn’t the fact that you’re hurt that counts,
But only how did you take it?

You are beaten to earth? Well, well, what’s that!
Come up with a smiling face.
It’s nothing against you to fall down flat,
But to lie there – that’s disgrace.

The harder you’re thrown, why the higher you bounce
Be proud of your blackened eye!
It isn’t the fact that you’re licked that counts;
It’s how did you fight – and why?

And though you be done to the death, what then?
If you battled the best you could,
If you played your part in the world of men,
Why, the Critic will call it good.

Death comes with a crawl, or comes with a pounce,
And whether he’s slow or spry,
It isn’t the fact that you’re dead that counts,
But only how did you die?

Edmund Vance Cooke

World-upending events sure have a way of scuttling our best-laid plans. They can disrupt, test, and potentially demolish the systems we’ve labored to put in place, leaving us reeling and unsure of both our former goals and the tools and processes that we’ve long relied on to achieve them. In the strange and unfamiliar new world we find ourselves in, a way forward that may once have been at least somewhat clear can be suddenly hard to see.

Yet while 2020 has been extraordinary in the cascade of hurdles it has sent our way, on reflection I think it’s the concentration and intensity of the challenges that’s been unique, more so than their intrinsic nature. Old problems can easily reassert themselves in new ways that require us to adapt our tactics, without necessarily changing their fundamentals. All of this has brought to mind one of the most important lessons I’ve learned — one that I’ve come to appreciate now more than ever: the profound value of maintaining an active rather than reactive stance, of taking the reins of life rather than falling into the default habit of merely responding to outside forces.

Even before this year threw its worst at us, keeping one’s bearings and navigating life actively was a challenge. The never-ending stream of emails, texts, and social media posts that inundate us, the mobile devices that keep us connected and receiving them at all times, and the expectation that we keep up with all of it, have made it easier than ever to fall into reflexive reactivity. Life will hand you an unrelenting “To Do” list if you let it, cobbled together from others’ priorities, and it’s perilously easy to fall into the trap of continually responding to those external demands without giving due thought and precedence to your own most important values and goals. Even in normal circumstances, your carefully and intentionally curated “To Do” list can become cluttered with minutiae that make it hard to see through to your main objectives and keep them in the forefront of your thinking and daily actions.

Enter a world where existing plans are out the window, new plans have become extraordinarily hard to make with any degree of confidence, and we look to daily briefings and decrees to tell us what’s next, and you have a situation where seemingly every process you’ve put in place, no matter how carefully focused or finely tuned, starts to break down. In an environment of fearful uncertainty that’s cultivated by a relentless, 24/7 news cycle and the social media streams that amplify it, it’s far too easy to become overwhelmed and immersed in a toxic, bogged-down morass of uncontrolled reactivity. You may well sense that the intensity of the howling wind you walk into, and the drag that you must overcome to move forward, has increased.

Amid this intensified sound and fury, it’s become more vitally important than ever to live with intention — to remind yourself of your purpose, to maintain and trust in your bearings, and advance toward your objectives in whatever ways you can manage to, with steady, unrelenting determination. In the face of a louder-than-ever storm of demands that you respond, react, panic, submit, and divert from your chosen course, you will need to resolve, with some serious commitment, that you are going to keep going.

To be sure, these are not “normal” times. They require us to flex, adapt, and re-assess processes and short-term plans that, for the moment at least, may no longer apply or seem relevant. But in so doing, we’re also challenged to take stock of what is most important to us in the long run, and work to actively maintain our focus on it — to tune out the world’s relentless, panic-inducing sound and fury when necessary, and find and cultivate the resilient and immutable within ourselves.

I’ve written this as a reminder to myself as much as to others. Now is the time to find and tend to that indomitable spark within yourself, to keep your inner fire lit and press on toward your most important goals with calm, steady determination. When life knocks you down, it’s time to stand up and get moving again.

My goals for this site remain very much the same — to share useful knowledge. And while these challenging times may warrant re-examining tools, ideas, and practices to adapt or discard what is not currently practicable, the vast majority of what I’ve had in mind to write about here (38 more post ideas in the queue and counting) remains as relevant as ever. I very much look forward to developing and sharing that material here, and I hope you’ll enjoy the journey with me.

Two enduring takeaways from the #MindsetReset program I completed earlier this year:

1. The practice of sitting somewhere away from a computer to fill out a “5-Second Journal” page has earned a lasting place at the top of my morning routine. The high bar the 5-Second Journal template sets of having to choose just one top project for the day has been particularly helpful in forcing me to focus judiciously. I’ve found that I need that, as I otherwise tend to get bogged down in the details of my beautifully organized but often overly abundant “To Do” list — which, while indispensable, is in some part just an overwhelming inventory of “I should”s that can make me miss the big picture of my most important goals if I let it.

As time goes on, I’ve started to experiment with small additions to the template Mel provided and my routine of using it. For example, I’ve found value in the 3-item “mental inventory” practice I saw recommended somewhere (unfortunately, I’ve lost track of the source), which consists of writing down:

• what I’m working on
• what I need to be working on
• what I want to be working on

This bit of reflection seems very effective at helping me get perspective and orient my priorities, both for the immediate moment and with my long-term goals in mind.

2. I’ve developed much stronger discipline with my phone at night, and constant awareness of it as a tempting potential detriment to getting the good night’s sleep that I need to be able to be my best. I don’t go so far as to keep it out of reach, but I restrict my use of it to listening to relaxing music, a meditation app, or a podcast (usually self-improvement stuff, such as the last #MindsetReset video, keeping the screen face down), to help me either get back to sleep or make productive use of the time. I’ve found I need to be open to flexible approaches in my lifelong battle with insomnia. Good sleep is always my first goal, but if I’m too alert for that, I try to at least make good use of the hour or two until I can get there. Overall, I am sleeping better thanks to the improvement in my phone discipline; it’s been an observable win.