The First Step

Want to stay motivated and dedicated to your Kung Fu Training? Or any goal for that
matter?
Setting a goal is more than just saying, “I want to achieve ________,” and then waiting
and hoping that it comes true. And achieving a goal is more than just guessing and
hoping that you might be taking the right steps toward success. One must carefully
plan out the tasks that they must take in order to achieve the success that they are
aiming for. If the tasks are already set, then one must develop a time table to achieve
these tasks.
Once the tasks are set and the timetable established, how do you keep yourself on
track? There are many different philosophies behind this however one way that has
achieved much success is called “Chunking”. Chunking allows you to break your big
yearly objectives into progressively smaller chunks, with each smaller chunk or goal
requiring less and less to think about. When a goal is too large it is easy to become
overwhelmed, which in turn can lead to giving up the goal altogether. Chunking helps
you to cut the clutter out of the massive to-do-list that comprises the tasks in your head
that are required to get you to your goal and allows you to see small successes.
Confucius once said,
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
The problem that many people face is that the whole thousand miles is daunting and
unmanageable, but the first small step just doesn’t seem satisfying enough. So they
never even get started. The whole thousand miles seems intimidating but the first step
can also seem unsatisfying. The secret of taking action is making the steps small
enough to be manageable and large enough to be satisfying.
This is why in Authentic White Tiger Kung Fu, we have everyone promote often. This
provides manageable bits of information to help all of our students achieve their goals
and be able to see their success on a regular basis. Before we started this program, I
heard the same story countless times, how do students know that they have all the
material they need to promote? And even after we started the regular promotions,
students still attempt to avoid promotion anyway, hiding from their own success. For
those students and even more importantly the students that are motivated now, we will
use a countdown clock. This clock will be a physical constant reminder of the chunk of
time that you have set aside to promote to the next rank. Are you ready? Do you need
to brush up on a form?
Motivation can be easy to maintain for a little while, some stay motivated longer than
others, however it is important to start good habits early. Make your chunking clear and
unquestionable so when the time reaches zero your mind has no alternative but to
move forward!!