Each and every day of our life we are all going to face challenges and life hurdles. They can range from your car not starting to great illness or anything in between. How you classify them will determine how your mind is going to go about tackling these challenges. Your level of success and happiness will be affected by your mindset.
They are just challenges and hurdles: things to get through. Life isn’t fair and if you see these things as a problem, then you have already sacrificed much of your power to overcome them. They are a part of life, and the sooner you realize that the sooner you can get to dealing with them and overcoming them.
When I was learning CQB (Close Quarter Battle) from a Navy SEAL, I was taught to “stay in your three-foot world.” What did that mean? That means control the space around you in a three-foot direction. Don’t worry what could or could not be in the rest of the building we are clearing. Take care of the room you are clearing at the time.
Sailors that go to BUDs (Basic Underwater Demolition School) are taught to think about the evolution they are currently in and getting to the end of that. Hell Week is the most physically challenging week in BUDs. This is when the students train for five days and five nights straight with a maximum of four hours sleep total. If a student thinks about all the pain they will have to endure over the entire week, it overloads their mind and many of them will ring the bell and quit.
How can you use this “three-foot world” concept? Whenever you are faced with a challenge, frustrated or worried about something, or afraid of something, you focus solely on this three-foot world and nothing else. That means ignoring anything and everything that you can’t change or influence.
When testing is coming up, some of my students have a tendency to worry about it. I ask them, what is all the worrying getting you? You are feeling miserable and that is not helping to achieve the goal of passing testing. Sometimes they will even make the situation worse, which results in not passing. It wasn’t because they were not physically capable, but the mind is a powerful thing, and they looked at the overall testing process instead of just looking at getting through one evolution at a time. The focus should be getting through the forms section of testing, then moving to the sparring section and lastly the board-breaking portion.
The only way in which you can overcome an obstacle, regardless of its size, is to focus on what you can do, not what you can’t do. This will empower you by dispelling most, if not all, of your fear, anxiety and frustration, while steering you toward a solution as quickly and effectively as possible.
Martial arts training is a great way to practice overcoming fears and challenges. If you are interested in joining a class, give us a call at 757-558-9869 or contact us today!