So what did work?
That freshly steamrolled feeling after class leaving us wondering how we might’ve gotten dumber by even trying…asking “why did we even show up today?” All of us have these unavoidable but cyclical days of frustration, only compounding with commonly unhelpful strategies for processing them.
Our subpar training session post mortem strategy should be simple, assuming we ARE reflecting for improvement over sulking for sympathy.
In our reflection of these days, we should ask ourselves what DID work and celebrate that win. As well, we should see what didn’t work. We know we should be able to learn from all that didn’t work as well as what did work, but some days it’s just tough to do.
On the toughest of days, just fall back on showing up. We can give ourselves an A- if we want, figuratively or literally, and use that as proof of progress. An A- is good enough, and looks way better on paper than the blank space. A- over and F all day. We can’t let the wish for A+ days get in the way of racking up all the other days. Stacking grades of all kinds says more about our discipline than a couple motivated “perfect” days.
Motivation pushes us to the A+s, but discipline stacks the A’s of all kinds. We’ll take frequent A-s over rare A+s. And the more days we have the discipline to earn an A-, the more it sets the environment for A+s. Running late? Just get there, score something and get a grade. Wounded or anxious? Same.
*Habit tracking bonus: Getting these down on paper offers another collateral bonus. We can look for patterns to recognize best practices. Maybe we’ll discover that our A+ days usually follow days of decent food and sleep? And A- days follow the days we weren’t so self loving. Tracking may not change habits, but it can lessen the surprise of a bad day. A bad day at work or an argument might set us up for a shit training day, or the opposite.
Either way, earn the grades and stack e’m.
