I wrote a Monday Mindset article a in February of 2020 with the same title, basically, while overseas in Paris. I really had no idea how different my life trajectory would go in only a month with the onset of the COVID pandemic and all associated shutdowns, restrictions, anxiety, and general instability of the next two years.
Well, regardless of what happens, time marches on, and for those of us who stuck to our guns and applied our fighter’s work ethic to whatever the problem of the day was, we came out OK in the end. Scarred and irrevocably changed, but OK.
As cheesy as it sounds, my training as a fighter was the reason I was able to get through all of it. I’ve learned so many things in fighting, but the most valuable lesson I’ve learned is that big problems can be broken down, over and over again, into tiny problems that can be solved one small step at a time, for a long time.
It’s not about being the smartest, or the strongest, or the luckiest. It’s about putting one foot in front of the other.
Wherever you go, there you are. Some things in life you can’t escape. Rather than running from them, run towards them with your hands up, chin down, and start swinging away.
If you have the patience to do the work, and enough self confidence to sustain you on a regular basis when the improvements are so small that sometimes they can’t even be seen, you can get it done. Anyone can.