The Holidays are approaching and another year is coming to an end. Every year we make and discard plans and ideas and dreams. Most everyone makes resolutions every New Years Eve and by February we’ve long forgotten them. So you give up huh? What?
If something is really important to you then make a plan and keep at it. Planning is the most important part of any goal. Yep! If you don’t know where you are going, how do you know when you arrived? Go up to a ticket desk at the airport and ask for a ticket. No destination, just a ticket? That’s what it’s like to do something without planning on the end result.
When I started Karate I didn’t really make a plan per se, but my objective was in the thought. I wanted to learn Karate. I didn’t mean quit. I meant train, learn, continue, and so on and so on! I wanted to train, do and be Karate and all that entailed. I’ve done all sorts of training in many places with multiple instructors, masters, seminar presenters and still consider myself a student. I’ve attained Black Belts in 3 styles and still I want to learn more. I just love to learn about karate and martial arts in general. I’ve competed, won, lost and judged many competitions. I’ve had many champions and love it when I see a hard working student win a much worked for match. I was so excited when many of my students won at a local tournament and especially my granddaughter who has shown some slowing down in the enthusiasm department lately. I told her if she lost she’d be doing push ups in the middle of the floor. ( By the way that’s not mean because so far (fingers crossed) she’s undefeated in competition. I also told her that if she won that we would go to Texas Roadhouse which she loves. Anyway she drew a first round bye and the second round she drew a team fighter wearing a team uniform from a traveling team. She beat the girl 5 – 0. Second fight she drew another and taller fighter from the same team and dispatched her with the same results. I was amazed! 10 – 0 in 2 fights and boy did she earn that steak! I guess the philosophy at work here was that people move away from pain and towards pleasure. There was no way she was going to push ups in the middle of the floor, that just was not going to happen. She instantly had the desire, the attitude and the drive to win. Those team uniforms just made pretty targets for her fearsome punches and kicks.
When you have a dream don’t let it slip away but give yourself a reason to stick to it. When my wife and I bought our current house, it was a mess. The former owner was going through a divorce and he had let everything go. It was listed in the paper as a 4 bedroom brick house with a pool on 3 lots. The price sounded awesome. People came from everywhere to look at it! However the paper forgot to mention that everything, including the pool was in disrepair. My wife looked at it and told me no way. I looked at it with different eyes. I saw the wooden double doors in the big living room, the wood, floors in the dinning room and living rooms, the tile floors in the kitchen and bathroom and the new kitchen cabinets and imagined what it would be like to have an in-ground pool. I told her what I saw and she hadn’t seen any of the things I did because she was fixated on the dirt and disrepair and was not interested. We owned and lived in a duplex at the time and had no room for grand kids or for entertainment. I told her we had just enough savings, I am somewhat handy and had lots of vacation time. I told her that we can do this! I also was anxious to have a house like this. We bought it and did what many others had walked away from. I took a month off and set my alarm every night and got up early and got going. It happened. I saw a vision, my wife thought I was nutts but she began to believe. First came the vision, then came the planning.
When you want something you must envision the end results. I thought how our house could look with a little TLC.
Then you must make a plan and set a Major goal and a set of Mini goals that will move you towards your Major goal.
You must have a time frame. When we bought our house, I set one month as our move in date. Guess when we moved in? ONE MONTH TO THE DAY!
To make something happen you must first realize what it is you want, make a decision, set a goal and a time frame and then and take action and get started! Without action, you obviously won’t attain anything.
Get Started!!!
Written by: Shihan Perry Culver of Culver Karate Club in Connellsville PA, 6th dan Shotokan, 7th dan Mushindo Ryu Goshin Jitsu Ju Jitsu, 2nd dan Syu Sin Do.
