"How to keep from getting mentally week to keep driving on"

“How do you all keep from getting weak mentally to keep driving on?”

That was a question posed in one of my Facebook groups and it couldn’t have been more timely.

As I’m writing this, my whole body is aching from getting back into the Tae Kwon Do studio for the first time in more than two weeks. I’m celebrating the pain though and the reason why is because…

… my son and I just earned our purple belts. That puts us officially half-way to the goal of making become a black belt.

To give a little more perspective, I joined my son in these classes right around this time last year and was heaving and wanting to tap out within the first five minutes of the class.

I’m telling you this because I did something with my Tae Kwon Do journey that you can do to keep from getting mentally weak and that thing is…

… establish mini milestones.

For me, you could say that looked something like this:

Step 1: get through the first class (It wasn’t pretty but I did it)

Step 2: recover from first class (I wasn’t even sure I would)

Step 3: show up for second class

Step 4: learn the novice curriculum for the quarter

Step 5: learn the intermediate curriculum for the quarter

Step 6: learn the advanced curriculum for the quarter

Step 7: take the first test

Step 8: get first belt promotion

I repeated that process for steps four through eight every 12 weeks to go from white to yellow to orange to green, and now purple.

Each little milestone gives you a little boost to keep going to the next, and before you know it you have a handful of major milestones behind you on your overall journey with real momentum in the right direction.

There’s one other important piece to this. There’s value in having a certain level of resilience but you need to listen to your body because…

… working past the point of fatigue is usually counterproductive. Aside from producing low-quality output, you can do harm to your body. So rest when you need to, and you’ll return even stronger and more productive. Just make sure you have a milestone (and hit it) to pick things back up and keep going.

Making this shift if you’re not always doing it can be tricky, which is why I always work with a coach. If that’s a type of accountability you think might be helpful for you, click this link and let’s talk: https://ericpbutts.com/success-factory/.