I missed BJJ training on wednesday morning.

I told Brian, my training partner, I was going. He was going too.

I woke up and felt tired. I’ve been training a lot.

Past me said I was going. Present me didn’t want to.

I made a commitment and now I want out.

So this was my escape plan:

I took my time packing my bag until it was clear I’d be very late:

“I guess it’s too late to go now!”

And that’s how I got out of that commitment.

Humans are funny, aren’t they?

I could have decided not to go and been happy with that decision. Instead, I wasted 30 minutes pretending I’d be late. To who…?

To God, I guess. The silly games we play.

That was one thing. The other thing is why was it so hard to decide not to go? Let’s try to fix my limiting / self-sabotaging beliefs ie. myths.

MYTH 1: Discipline = Freedom, and if I don’t go, I’m weak.

Well, yeah… you’re not Jocko. You’re you. And it’s okay. But when is it okay to listen to your body, and when is it being lazy?

Imagine if I was talking to a child. Am I gonna say “you suck”?

No, I’d say, “Chill out. It’s only one day. It’s about consistency.” This decision is reversible. Your fear that this one decision will make you a lazy sloth forever is irrational.

“We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality.”

Seneca

What you fear hasn’t happened yet. It may never happen. So stop living in your imagination and live in reality.

MYTH 2: I’ll let Brian down (and ruin his life)

As a people pleaser, this is a horrible feeling.

I asked him later how my actions affected him. He said a 7/10 but it was gone once he knew I wasn’t coming.

News flash to me again: I’m not that important. No one’s gonna hate me and replay the moment I let them down over and over again in their minds.

If they do, they got issues.

People care about themselves, they’re not thinking about you.

Here’s what I’ll tell myself next time I find myself in a similar situation.

• It doesn’t matter – just make the decision. I get to work my decision-making muscle in a low-stakes situation. Remember, most things don’t make a difference.
• It’s okay as long as I don’t miss two days in a row. This rule eases my irrational fear of creating a bad habit.

As silly as this story sounds, we often create unnecessary pressure and fear of failure.

And it’s okay; it’s part of being human.

But we also need to accept our flaws and be kind to ourselves… so we can move forward without guilt!

ps. it can be hard to be kind to yourselves. So a good trick I use is pretend I’m talking to a child.