I love this quote from Henry Ford, “Whether you think you can or think you can't — you are right.”
There is so much power in that statement. We are the authors of our success more than anyone else around us. It’s our job to envision our future, take the steps toward working on it, and then to believe in ourselves as we work towards our goals.
In past Mat Chats we have talked about vision and, recently, we talked about hard work. I think that we can all agree that vision and hard work is important for success, but what about believing in yourself? I think it’s probably just as important. In fact, maybe even more important because your belief about your ability to succeed can cause you to work harder to earn that success! You might have heard the saying, “trust in yourself”, that goes for your training, your material, your instructor, your team, etc. That trust can lift you when you are down and can send you over the top when you are falling short on strength and energy.
I love this story that Kyoshi Dave Kovar tells about an elementary school teacher and her class:
At the beginning of a school year, Mrs. Seiglets, the third grade teacher at Brown Elementary was brought into the principals’ office for a meeting.
The principal told her that a special study had been done and they had found that she was the best teacher in the entire school. The principal then told her that as a result she was going to be rewarded. She would be given the very best students in the third grade! The principal explained to Mrs. Seiglets that even though their past scores don’t show it and they might not act like it, they were given special tests and they are in fact the most gifted students in the school.
Nine months later at the end of the school year, Mrs. Seiglets class did in fact end up with the best grades in the school. Her student’s test scores were off the charts. Everyone in the community was amazed with what she had done with these children. When Mrs. Seiglets was brought in and congratulated by the principal, she responded by saying “Thank you! But remember, I am the best teacher and they are the best students.” The principal then said, “Well actually, the truth is that this was just a test – we don’t know if you really are the best teacher in the school or not. We just pulled your name out of a hat and wanted you to believe you were the best teacher in the whole school for the sake of this study. And one other thing, the students were also selected at random.”
It took a moment for Mrs. Seiglets to recover as this really took her off guard. After a moment she asked the principal how they could all do so well if they were not the best students? The principal told her that it was because she in fact believed they were the best students.
What power we have, if we would just believe in ourselves.
The opposite is true as well. Lack of trust in yourself can have a negative impact in your training and in your success in life. William Shakespeare wrote, “Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.” Faith in ourselves keeps the negative thoughts at bay that might steal from us the successes we deserve.
Everyone has the ability to succeed; everyone just needs to believe it! If belief in yourself is important, imagine the power when you believe in yourself and the people around you believe in you as well! That’s what a strong team or a strong Ohana feels like: Everyone pushing for the success of everyone else on the team. It’s an amazing feeling to know that with such a powerful force behind you, success is inevitable. But remember it all starts with you!
Note: Kyoshi Dave Kovar is a long-time martial arts instructor, business coach, and motivational speaker. Many of the of STORM teaching techniques we use come from Kyoshi Dave Kovar.
Train Strong to Remain Strong
Sigung Kelly Corder
It really is hard to put into words what my journey has been like to this point in my martial arts life. I know I started relatively young at the age of 16; however I had always loved the martial arts. I would watch the old Kung-fu movies, the action movies with Chuck Norris, Steven Siegel, all of it. I was really enthralled by it. Then when I had barely learned to drive I had my chance to go start down a path that has led me to so many great experiences, people, and places. It's funny really that to walk this path, to work towards your black belt it really only requires one thing...consistency. All you need to do is keep going; the repetition is 90% of the work. My journey has been wonderful, every day I wake up and I am so thankful to have found such a wonderful ohana, people who are just as eager as I am to learn and exchange ideas. The martial arts have given me the ability to handle any situation with confidence. To anyone who is starting out on this journey I say to just keep going, no one was fast out of the gate, no one is an expert, and we are all just at different stages of our journey. Train Hard...then train harder.
