Finding more times of feeling proud

Hey fam,

I hope everyone is enjoying the time preparing for the holiday season.

Today, I wanted to write about feeling proud.

This is definitely something I have struggled with my whole life, except, I didn't really notice until the past few years. I have constantly been involved in many things at the same time so I've always kept it moving. Finish one thing, still have two or three other things that need to get finished and the cycle goes on.

A few years ago, I started practicing celebrating the wins. And making that more of a habit. (Alot in thanks to Artist Accountability with Noisy Nest and Chelsea Kwoka<3) Celebrating the wins is a way to spend time feeling proud of the work you just accomplished, no matter how large or small the win is. But perhaps the celebrating should be proportional. This celebration allowed time to put a period on the goal/task/project, be happy and feel proud of what I did, and even think about what I learned from the experience. This reflection often brought a lot of light to some things I could do better in a more tangible way, like how prepared I was or was not for the goal.

Then more recently, I started practicing prioritizing my preparation. I always go into a training session wanting to do my best, but appropriating intensity levels per discipline/goal.. And dividing scare time... for me, I am still facing a lot of mental blocks with fear in certain tricks, be it from ability, age, difficulty. So I do need to be mindful of the fear factor and how much I'm seeing that each week. Some days, it's important to go all out in bjj and then chill on the skates and the bars. Other times, its important to chill on everything for work in the next couple days.

The more I prioritize preparation, the more I learn about it. In fitness, we do our workouts in cycles, based on the season we're in, i.e off season, pre season, competition, or post season. And so as I have been better about designing my intensity levels per disciple each day based on the season, I have also blocked off time to mentally prepare myself for my training, and in my competition. This has been an actual game changer for me. Spending this time visualizing my goals, talking out with myself possible roadblocks and challenges, guessing fun surprise obstacles or worst case scenarios, understanding and hoping for best case scenarios has helped me understand more of my craft and myself. And it has certainly helped me feel proud of myself.

I have met almost all of my goals for the year and the ones I have not yet met, I am on track to meet.

And I feel so proud of myself for this entire year.

I spent so much more time preparing for each big thing and each of my goals that I felt more calm and more present at big moments, hard times, fun events, stressful challenges, and moments with loved ones.

For the two biggest jobs of my career, one of which I had auditioned last year to get, I trusted my preparation and coordinators, and did my best. For my family reunion, I loved every second of it and had so much fun. For my finances, I really got to understand my money and budget. And for my first competition in BJJ, I got second place.

And throughout the year, I definitely strengthened my preparation and mental health. This competition has been the ultimate test for me. The reason I did the competition was to see how well I could prepare for it. I did not want to get submited. I did not want to freak out. I really didn't even want to be nervous for it. I wanted to spend time visualizing what I wanted to do and see how close I could get to that in real life. And those were pretty much my terms.

I have been doing jiu jitsu for about a year and a half and am a white belt. When I signed up and started preparing for competition, I didn't care about winning, I only wanted to care about how I was feeling within the five minutes before the fight. I wanted to feel calm, and excited, and prepared. And that I certainly did. I had been visualizing a triangle and sure enough, I submitted my first oponent with a triangle.

The funny part was how NOT prepared I was for the second match! I spent all that time visualizing the first one that I was so not ready for the second one! However, I didn't freak out and I didn't get submitted so although I wanted gold, silver was good for me this time. And all in all, I had a great experience and I'm so glad I did it.

After that, I was in fact promoted to blue belt, which I could not be happier about. I have been working so hard and I feel very proud that I earned my next belt. I'm so thankful to my coach who is so patient with me and my teammates that push me very hard. I love my BJJ community because it really does feel like a family, and I'm so grateful to be apart of it. And I'm already excited for the next competition;)

I've been thrilled to spend more of my time in a state of being proud of myself for my efforts and accomplishments and I am excited to see what next year brings. Definitely another competition but who knows what else? Maybe gold...

Anyways, I hope you're having a great week and heading into the holiday season being mindful and present. And I hope you find more times by the end of the year to feel proud of yourself or reflect on this past year and celebrate your own wins, no matter how big or small.

Look for another post soon, as I'm sure I will want to write a bit more to tie up this year! And have a great day!

<3 Coach Kwo