For the first six months I practiced Brazilian jiu-jitsu, I got absolutely dominated.
I didn’t have the technical skill yet to go on the offensive, so I was constantly playing defense. My defense lacked technical proficiency, too, though, so I got submitted over and over and over again. Chokes. Armbars. Shoulder locks. I experienced it all, often coming home battered, bruised, and sore.
There was only one way to get past the misery. I had to keep coming back, no matter how discouraging it might be. I had to get a little better each time. So that’s what I did.
Today, I’m convinced that jiu-jitsu is a years-long journey of slowly shrinking the number of people who can effortlessly kick your butt. As a blue belt, I’m still relatively new. There are people I can beat easily now, but just as often I find myself in the same vulnerable position of being totally outmatched by a more experienced competitor.
On the nights I’m given more than I can handle, I still go home bruised and battered. All of the progress I’ve made wasn’t much help, but it is still progress. Someday, the tricks that worked on me then won’t be so effective. I’ll have the experience I need to overcome and succeed.
It’s not easy to be an entrepreneur. There are obstacles that kick your butt and leave you discouraged. There are mistakes that you make that can cost you big, the same way failing to defend your arm during a jiu-jitsu spar results in a painful armbar.
That armbar is a learning opportunity, though, and so are the low points of an entrepreneur’s journey. It’s all in how you assess your mistakes. Do they get you tilted — so frustrated that your performance suffers?
The Inner Game of Tennis by W. Timothy Gallwey is considered one of the most important books on success ever written. It’s been used in every kind of competition and at every level. The author introduces us to a mindset that allows us to analyze mistakes and learn from them without letting them define us.
The gist of the method is this: Simply see the moves within the game as points in time. They are neither good or bad. They are merely things that have happened, and there is no need to give them control over future events. Stay in the moment and focus on the game. Let yourself perform. Don’t get swept away by distractions. “Forget shoulds and experience is.”
We mess up. We don’t have the requisite experience to avoid it yet, but if we stay on the journey, we will.
Rather than comparing ourselves to some fictional future version of ourselves who doesn’t make mistakes (you still will), or allowing ourselves to be defined by our failures (“I am bad at jiu-jitsu” or “I always give up the armbar”), we take action. We continue showing up, taking our lumps, damaging our ego, and learning.
It’s really all we can do.
Let me leave you with one final excerpt from The Inner Game of Tennis:
“When we plant a rose seed in the earth, we notice that it is small, but we do not criticize it as ‘rootless and stemless.’ We treat it as a seed, giving it the water and nourishment required of a seed. When it first shoots up out of the earth, we don’t condemn it as immature and underdeveloped; nor do we criticize the buds for not being open when they appear. We stand in wonder at the process taking place and give the plant the care it needs at each stage of its development. The rose is a rose from the time it is a seed to the time it dies. Within it, at all times, it contains its whole potential. It seems to be constantly in the process of change; yet at each state, at each moment, it is perfectly all right as it is.”
Don’t be discouraged. Keep showing up, keep doing your best, no matter what your journey throw at you. Because that’s what a professional does.
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Acknowledgements go to The Inner Game of Tennis by W. Timothy Gallwey. It’s a quick read and the paradigm shift it brings is well worth the time it takes to uncover.
