Mistakes do not feel good, but they are necessary for progress.
Learning is messy.
The path to mastery is not a straight line.
New skills and new knowledge are not easy to acquire.
Their acquisition requires effort, struggle, and the constant overcoming of obstacles both extrinsic and intrinsic.
This means you will make mistakes along the way.
You will have missteps, make poor decisions, and sometimes you will even feel like you are going backwards.
This is all part of the learning process.
It is not always easy, nor is it always enjoyable, but it is always necessary.
When you are attempting to learn something new, expect it to be difficult, messy, and even painful.
The mistakes you make on the path of progress may not feel good, but the lessons you learn and the results you experience over time will be worth the discomfort.
When we are tasked with explaining, showing, or teaching something to someone else, it improves our understanding as well.
We learn from the process as much, or perhaps more than the person or persons we are helping.
This is especially true if we take the time to really think about what we are trying to teach, if we formulate a plan, and if we focus our efforts on simplicity and clarity.
The goal, after all, is to convey information in a way that is understandable and usable.
This process helps us to gather and clarify our own thoughts.
Teaching helps us to grow in both understanding and effectiveness with regards to not only the subject we are teaching, but also with regards to teaching itself.
The more we teach, the better we become at teaching.
And, the ability to convey information in a practical, useable way is always a skill worth having, developing, and refining.
By learning to share what we know, especially if it is something we are passionate and excited about, we are also learning to connect with others in a way that improves the lives of everyone involved.
This connection with others around a subject of common interest is one of life’s great experiences.
If possible, it is an experience we will not want to miss.
There comes a point in our lives wherein we must take responsibility for our own learning.
Learning is different from education.
Education is often given to us or even imposed upon us.
Learning, on the other hand, requires our participation.
No matter what types of lessons are being offered to us, we cannot and we will not learn from them unless we actively participate in the process.
No one can make us do this.
It has to be our decision and it will require our effort.
We have to set the intention to learn.
Even with this, however, there is no guarantee that the knowledge we wish to acquire will actually take, at least not at first.
Like anything worth doing, learning is a process and, if what we are attempting to learn has actual life-changing value, it will not come to us easily.
It will be a slow process with many starts, stops, obstacles, and detours along the way.
Our dedication to this process is what proves our sincerity.
Or, our lack of dedication to this process will prove the opposite.
Either way, we are responsible for our choices, for our actions, or lack thereof.
As parents, teachers, leaders, or mentors, one of our most important and powerful tools we have at our disposal is the object lesson.
If we are able to point to and extract from a specific incident, a lesson or principle that applies to a variety of situations or circumstances, and if we are able to communicate that lesson or principle to the person or persons we are attempting to help in a way that is heard, understood, and, most importantly, felt, we empower them to make better decisions in the future.
It is difficult to do this if we are caught up in the immediacy of the moment, however. In order to find the greater lesson or principle in a specific incident, we must be able to step back, to distance ourselves psychologically and emotionally from what is happening, to look at the situation objectively, and to consider what single shift in mentality or behavior would either prevent or replicate this occurrence en masse in the future relative to our desired outcome.
Object lessons are a means of pointing out and communicating repeatable patterns, whether good, bad, or neutral, in a way that these patterns become predictable and controllable. In other words, object lessons are a way to teach causality so that it can be used to one’s advantage, ideally in an ethical, productive, and socially contributive way. Simply put, object lessons empower us to see beyond the specifics to the fundamental.
Holistic Budo: As it is in budo, so too it is in life. As it is in life, so too it is in budo.
Robert Van Valkenburgh is co-founder of Taikyoku Mind & Bodyand Kogen Dojo where he teaches Taikyoku Budo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
All photos by Robert Van Valkenburgh unless otherwise noted.
It is okay to fail. Not all things will work out the way we want or hope. As much as our efforts and our intentions matter, they play only a small part in determining the final outcome of our circumstances and our relationships.
In spite of our perceptions or desires, we actually have influence over a finite number of variables in our lives. In fact, the variables over which we have some semblance of control are quite often outnumbered and outweighed by those things over which we have no control or influence whatsoever.
Regardless of how well prepared we are, regardless of how we show up, behave, or perform, life happens, circumstances change, our environment changes, and people change or are not who we imagined them to be.
All we can do is to do our best with what resources we have available to us. Sometimes, maybe most of the time, our best is not good enough to make things work out the way we desire or imagine they should.
But, it is in doing our best through perceived failure that we learn who we are and who we are not. It is in coming up short with our best effort that we discover where we are strong, where we are weak, and where we must improve.
More importantly, however, it is by showing up, by committing, and by giving our all that we give ourselves the means by which to heal from our past mistakes or misperceptions, especially once we realize that not every failure in our life was or is our fault.
Some things simply can not and perhaps should not work out the way we want. The burden we bear is the responsibility to try, but we must free ourselves from and forgive ourselves for that which does not work out beyond our control.
Holistic Budo: As it is in budo, so too it is in life. As it is in life, so too it is in budo.
Robert Van Valkenburgh is co-founder of Taikyoku Mind & Bodyand Kogen Dojo where he teaches Taikyoku Budo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
All photos by Robert Van Valkenburgh unless otherwise noted.
Meditations on God 