"The 7 Rules of Life" mini-series: Learn to celebrate the little victories

About a month or so ago, I was walking home from my BJJ class, thinking about my day and how far I had come ever since I started the little journey I have been on to find myself (this also will be the story of another post later sometime)

You know how people walk into gyms and have a list of goals and you're just ready to crush every single one of those things you have your mind set on? well I didn’t have that the first time I walked into Mass BJJ and met Mike and Nate. To be honest I didn’t have much left at this time: I was going through a rough patch in life, I was lost and it was just a never ending fall to the abyss that felt like an eternity. Everything was falling apart and I needed something to hold on to. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was on my way back from meeting with a friend for a late afternoon coffee and I passed by the gym that had just relocated to a new place literally 5 minutes away from my house. I stood outside,  in front of the door and took a peek inside: the light was dim, it was as if the gym was about to close but there were still some people inside. So I walked in and greeted the people I found inside. After a few words with Mike, co-owner of Mass BJJ, I signed up for a trial because I thought “Why not? That might be fun and at this point I literally have nothing to lose". It was all I needed for my life to take a new turn, this time for the best. After a few months of training, sweating, drilling, frustrations from being choked and submitted but also of learning and taming the storm that was raging inside of me, I finally got promoted. I was getting my first stripe and boy did it feel good!

On my way home that day, I tried to think about what I would say if somebody asked me what that stripe meant to me. Of course I would say it’s an acknowledgement of the hard work and the hours I put in on the mat. But in all honesty, it was much more than that. That stripe to me was and still is a symbol of Hope as well as a little victory in my fight to stay alive.

Why? You might ask... Well simply because honestly I don’t think I would have made it otherwise. When I started BJJ I was looking for something to hold onto to when everything was falling apart. I was desperately in need of something I could invest myself in, pour my heart into; something that would help me get my head out of the water. I was in need of something and/or someone to rescue me because I was dying inside and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu saved my life. Mass BJJ gave me my life back.

That stripe is also a symbol of strength and endurance. I am not the broken girl who walked in Mass BJJ for her first class and was on the edge of fainting 2 min into the drill. Walking home after that first class, lightheaded, my legs barely holding me, I understood the meaning of the saying “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”. Training BJJ made me stronger and it is not just my body. Physical strength is nothing when it comes to being on the mat. Because you can be 300lbs and be taken down by somebody weighting half your weight. The strength I am talking about is the mental one. The first thing that I wrote on the goal board when I started training was “challenge my limits” and I am happy to say I did. My mind is much stronger and as a results I have grown comfortable getting out of my safe and comfort zone. I have grown in strength and I am still getting comfortable being uncomfortable and accepting challenges I wouldn’t have accepted years ago. One of them was the challenge of evolving and going from thinking “I can’t” or “I will never be able to do that” to “If I put in hard work, I will” or “One day I will be able to do that. I just have work on this”.

Reflecting on how I things have turned out for me lately and how far from my expectations I am standing at the moment, I thought it was a much needed thing to take a break and celebrate that little victory. Little but not so much because of the significance it carries. As we just celebrated thanksgiving, I thought it was the right time for me to stop and be grateful for that victory right here. It is so easy to get discouraged and disappointed because we don’t see the big things happen but what we forget is that the accumulation of the small victories create a ripple effect leading to the big victory. Raising today my bottle of water (while having some chocolates... of course...) to celebrate a small victory that is nothing but the sign that greater things are laying ahead of me; but at the same time a victory not so little because of how meaningful it is. Indeed a huge victory on the old me, a huge milestone in the transformation process that is happening in my life at the moment, a huge step forward in my journey to find myself in the midst of the chaos surrounding me. To our “littles” victories and to the biggest moment of joy they have brought to us, celebrating and being grateful/hopeful as sometimes it is important to be gentle with yourself and appreciate the results of your hard work because you are doing the best you can with just what you have and sometimes it's not much. So...

Cheers

"The 7 Rules of Life" mini-series: How to overcome challenges in life and find motivation to move forward

It is so funny how most of my articles come up at a time where I am hitting rock bottom and right after I am done writing them, I feel a boost of energy and go tackle whatever I had neither the strength nor the energy to do. It’s probably the reason why most artists and bloggers can easily reach a bigger audience:  they share their personal experience and give their audience something to relate to. Today is the perfect day for another inspirational (hopefully) article as I’m back into “The 7 Rules of Life” mini-series, after a short break which, indeed, did well to my thinking process and my creativity. In this article, I will be sharing with you some of the tips I personally find helpful when it comes to overcoming challenges in Life and finding motivation to move forward in life. They are not ranked in a particular order but rather listed in the order in which they come  up to my mind. So with no further delay, let’s get right into the heart of the subject.

#1-      Find and Understand your purpose

Moving forward in life with no purpose is the perfect way set yourself up for giving up as soon as a challenge arises. When you know your purpose in life you are unstoppable. Challenges may come your way and slow you down but never stop you. It is important for you to find your purpose in life, to find who and where you are meant to be. Why is it important? Because it times were you will be tempted to give up, you will remember it and find the strength to overcome challenges and move forward.

 

#2-      Don’ let your situation define you

Whenever I am having not such a great day and/or a great week or when things get really hard in life, I try to stay motivated by reminding myself that it is only temporary. A bad day, week, month or year (yes sometimes it can be a long time) doesn’t mean that you have a bad life. A bad chapter in a book doesn’t make the book a bad one. It is just a sucky chapter in the midst of a great book. As a matter of fact it might be the suckiest chapter ever seen in the history of the sucky chapters in a great book. Nonetheless, it remains nothing else but a bad, sucky chapter in what might be the greatest book that ever existed: your life. So keep that in mind and keep moving forward because things will get better.

#3-      Every challenge is meant to bring out the best in you

Let’s be honest challenges, especially the hardest ones suck… but think about it that way: consider the number of students entering med school and the number of them who actually make it to the end. It is ridiculous the amount of people that give up after a few years in the system. Those who stay in are the ones who have understood the first two concepts listed above as well as the fact that the challenges they face on their journey to become a doctor is meant to bring out the best in them. Those challenges are meant to turn them into the best, top quality doctors their program has ever formed. It is the same things in life: challenges are meant to bring you best out of you. A wise man a.k.a Mike Pellegrino (who happens to be my Brazilian Jiu Jitsu instructor by the way) once told me: “Don’t give up when life throws challenges at you. Don’t say it’s too hard or you can’t make it. When life throws challenges at you, you adapt, you change, you evolve”. And that’s what we have to do, keeping in mind that it’s for the sole purpose of turning us into a better version of ourselves, ready to handle the greatness laying ahead of us. Challenges are about pushing you do be so good that people can’t ignore you. That’s what challenges are all about.

#4-      Believe in yourself and in your dreams

To be able to overcome challenging situations in life, you must have faith in yourself. Familiar with the saying “fake it until you make it”? yeah well there is a better one which goes by “fake it until you become it”. Believe in yourself and in your dreams, believe that you are capable of becoming whoever you want to be and of making your dreams come through. I like that quote saying “the only limits we have are the one we impose to ourselves in our mind”. The minute you believe you are capable of doing anything and being whoever you decided you wanted to be, amazing start happening. Believe in yourself, invest in yourself when no one else will and amazing things will happen.

#5-      Believe that eventually something will work out

I think out of everything I have talked about, this one is the most difficult I have ever had to practice on a daily basis. It’s hard because sometimes you can’t seem to see the light at the end of the tunnel. It is hard because the more you try to hold onto things, the more they start falling apart. It is hard because sometimes you are just too exhausted to inject some optimism and positivity in the midst of chaos. But believe me, in the few times that I have tried doing it, it made a HUGE difference in the way I handle challenges and in the way I perceived them. Staying positive and believing that things will work out can turn situations around for the best and I know because I have experienced it. So no matter how hard it can be, keep repeating yourself that someway, somehow, something will eventually work out for you. And it will J

Briefly, these are the tips I wanted to share with you about overcoming challenges in life and finding motivation to keep moving. I hope you will try some of them and if you know some more that can be added to the list feel free to share them J