There’s a saying you might have heard- “Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good”. I’m as guilty as the next man for waiting for the perfect time to start things, or worrying if my diet was spot on, or stressing about if I was drilling enough, or sparring enough.. It might sound obvious, but the perfect set of circumstances just doesn’t exist. You can waste a lot of time like that.
While I’ve never been one for perfection in a lot of ways, I’ve obsessed over training to the point of not enjoying it sometimes. Worrying about if I was doing the right things, at the right times, or whether I should be doing this or that, or what my opponents might be doing, took up my waking hours. It took away enjoyment, and stopped me from competing or doing events because things weren’t just right. And I’ve seen it in coaching as well, to the point that people don’t show up to training at all if the conditions aren’t just right for them.
Think of all the reasons not to train. Work is busy, didn’t sleep well, raining outside, football is on, feeling tired, didn’t eat well or at all, forgot something, nervous about going for the first time, I don’t think I’ll be any good… It’s an endless list. With a list like that in more or less everyone’s life, plus maybe a bit more besides, there’s never going to be a perfect time to get up and train.
And it gets worse for people starting training for the very first time. It takes guts to walk into a room with new people to start something new. You have to navigate all of the above as well as that first-timer feeling. There’s definitely never going to be a perfect time to do that.
I’ll tell you a quick one- Someone told me recently that they were so nervous about coming to training for the first time that they had to tell all of their friends and family they were going, just so they couldn’t not go. They weaponised their own shame against themselves! They don’t regret it. But I often think of how funny it must be to be so nervous only to walk in and see a bunch of friendly people chatting and enjoying themselves before the session.
Don’t wait for perfection. Good enough is good enough.
See you on the mat,
Barry
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