I didn’t want to go to Jiu-jitsu last night.

I was on little sleep, was in the middle of an important project for a client, and with some personal and medical stuff going on, the stress made me feel like a cord with the most of it frayed and coming apart. The last thing I wanted was to put myself in a position where I had to perform on demand in front of people who would see me fail and perform poorly. Most of all, I did not dig the thought of not living up to my own expectations. The easiest thing would have been to get my Professor to run the fundamentals class, and go home, go to bed, and pull the covers over my head while waiting for a new day.

But I went. And guess what? Teaching-wise I was solid, because somehow I can always pull up the needed drive to do that, but when it comes to my personal training, that is not the case. My performance rolling was not awesome. I did not do as poorly as I feared (that is actually almost impossible to do since I always fear the worst), but I still was not particularly good. And so what? Do I do this to make everyone think I am awesome? Do I do this so I get rich and famous? Nope. I do it for myself, and for what it does for me.

And that benefit – what I get out of it – is as much in the doing, and the choice and effort of doing, as it is any particular level of performance. Sure, I want to get better, and I am hoping to see improvement at least in some incremental way, but the real advancement is in the discipline to just do it when you don’t have to. The easy thing is to not do it, so when we make the choice to take a step forward; it is truly and in every way a step forward.

Character has been defined (quite rightly in my opinion) as what you do when no one is looking. Well, discipline can be defined as doing what you know you should when there is no immediate consequence to not doing it. If I am fasting, could I go ahead and have a donut? Sure, who would know, and one donut is not going to destroy the diet, but it is in those little choices to not do so that we grow.  My buddy Larry Lindenman did the carnivore diet for a month not that long ago. When he explained it to me, I asked him if it would have been a big deal if he had eaten a salad. His answer summed it up – “no, but that was not the diet”. He made a choice to follow a program for a month, and cheating even once was a violation, so he did not do it. It is that simple.

Now, just because it is simple in no way means it is easy. In fact, it is probably one of the hardest things to do as a human being. But here is the secret. YOU CAN DO IT. I know this because I am nothing special, and I can do it, so you can too. Give it a shot and keep fighting that good fight with the inner voice that tells you to stop. It is worth it. Win baby, win.