How To Unlock ALL Your Skills

I’ve been training martial arts for over 42 years and grappling for 25 of them. As you can imagine, I’ve seen a lot of things and trained with a lot of people. In all that time, I’ve found that there’s really just one skill that is absolutely necessary for you to master…

…because all the rest of your skills fall in place once you have this one. Before I tell you what it is, let’s find out if you have it.

Answer these 3 questions honestly…

1.) Do you ever skip training because there’s something else you’d rather do?

2.) Do you ever quit earlier during training because you’re “sort of tired…” when you could have continued if you absolutely had to?

3.) Do you ever give less than 100% of your “best effort” (different than going “all out”) when you train?

If you answered NO to all, congratulations… you’re destined for greatness! However, if you answered YES to any… you don’t have this one, imprortant skill (yet).

Obviously, I’m talking about SELF-DISCIPLINE. You might have it in some areas of your life, but if you don’t have it in your training, you’ll never even begin to approach your potential.

Listen to the words of these champions:

“Champions… have to have the skill and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill”

– Muhammed Ali

“A champion is someone who gets back up – even if they can`t.”

– Jack Dempsey

“Without discipline, no matter how good you are, you are nothing!”

– Mike Tyson

“Discipline is doing what you don’t like to do as if you LOVE to do it.”

– Also Mike Tyson

(BTW, Tyson said the the most important thing his trainer EVER taught him was discipline.)

Self-discipline is the one driving factor that allow you to accomplish your grappling goals. It must be there before you’ll make much progress with anything else.

And if you’ve got it, you’ll find a way to accomplish not only your grappling goals, but pretty much any goals in life. But if you don’t have it, you’re destined to fall short of your potential in everything you do. So that begs the question…

…how do you get self discipline?

Basically, I just told you in those 3 questions I asked you above…

it’s a skill (or more precisely, a “habit”) that you develop by training.

Since self-discipline is about having the ability to do things you don’t necessarily want to do, doesn’t it make sense that if you…

1.) Go to training EVEN when you’d rather not…

2.) Don’t GIVE UP during training simply because you’re tired…

3.) Always give 100% of your best effort during training…

…for a long enough period of time, that you’ll eventually develop the habit of self-discipline?

Developing self-discipline is a matter of “fake it ’till you make it.” And, you’re not born with it, you develop it. And as you develop it, it will then take on a life of its own, enabling you to continue doing those things above with much less effort on your part.

And when you can consistently do those same 3 things (go to training, not give up during training and give 100% of your best effort) to the point they become natural and easy, it’s only a matter of time until you achieve your grappling goals. It’s pretty much a forgone conclusion.

And if you don’t do those 3 things… you won’t develop self-discipline… and you almost certainly won’t reach your grappling goals. The point is…

…developing self-discipline is built into the training if you do it right. It’s built into the pursuit of any skill… hell, you can learn it playing a ukulele! Initially, you’ve just got to:

1- Show up…

2- Do it while you’re there…

3- Give it your best effort while your doing it…

…for a period of time.

Once you’ve done that for whatever period of time it takes for those things become easy, they take on a life of their own, much like building a habit. You can really call it the “habit of self-discipline.”

The bottom line is, learning self-discipline is built into the training when you do it right… you just have to do it.

Keep training!
Bob