10 Life Lessons From Completely Restructuring My Life
This time last year...
This time last year, I was about to head home from a trip to Europe where I had lost a Jiu-Jitsu match that I really didn’t want to lose.
I had also just moved back in with my mom and dad, quit my job teaching at a Jiu-Jitsu gym, and was trying to figure out “what was next”.
I wasn’t at “rock bottom”, but I felt like I was trending downward and I needed to figure something out. To get started, I invested $1000 in a writing course, booked an Airbnb, packed up my car, and drove 16 hours to Austin, Texas, where I was going to spend a month doing nothing but writing and training every day.
And that’s what I did.
But that was just the beginning.
My day-to-day life nowadays is completely different from the way it was a year ago. I’ve completely restructured my life.
I now:
have a new job
live in a city
am in a good relationship
am better at Jiu-Jitsu than I’ve ever been
am stronger, healthier, and less injured than I’ve been in years
But it hasn’t been easy and I’m not done yet.
Here are the 10 most important lessons I’ve learned in the last year about life, myself, and restructuring your life.
When it rains it pours (good at bad). Make your mind an umbrella.
Good opportunities come in bunches.
Bad things also seem to come in bunches.
The reason? Momentum.
Either way, all it takes is one good or bad thing to set you off in some type of direction. These positive ebbs and flows are just part of life and they will never go away.
The best thing that you can do is build a mind that is strong enough to withstand the negative and also to not get too caught up in your own success. Practice being level-headed in both good and bad times.
Don’t be afraid to seek help.
Last February, I DMed one of my online writers (nearly 200k followers on X) and asked for advice. That led me to the $1000 course I took in April, which led me to the $6000 coaching program that has given me the job I have now.
This time last April, I showed up at B-Team to train randomly, and now I have improved my skills (and placed in 2 more ADCC Trials) thanks to the bevy of world-class grapplers that I’m on the mat with every day.
Perhaps the unsung hero of the last year for me has been my girlfriend, who’s been there with me through losing $20k+ during my move/employment switch, losing matches, injuries, and working on my book that’s coming soon.
The self-made man doesn’t exist. All the best achievements come from teamwork.
You just need to find a winning team.
In my experience, a silver-medal team will suffice.
Failure isn’t personal and no one in your life will see you differently after 99% of failures.
I’ve had some good wins in the last year and some bad losses.
In general, I feel like you when you fail no one who is worth keeping in your life is going to see you differently. They’re probably just going to tell you to keep going. To keep working.
Failure isn’t final and the dire consequences that we have of failure are largely imagined.
Putting yourself out there is all up-side most of the time as long as your ego can handle getting the results you deserve, not the ones you want.
You must be building your own thing in addition to whatever else you are doing.
I’ve never liked the idea of having my entire network coming from one place.
For writing, I have my clientwork, but I also have Medium, Substack, Twitter, Instagram, and Quora as places that I publish. In training, I ask questions but I also do my own research to learn.
You can learn a lot from the people in front of you, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do extra work on your own. Extra work is how you get ahead and eventually develop the ability to stand on your own.
Always be building on the side.
The goal is not to have nothing to do, the goal is to have nothing to do that you hate.
This time last year when I embarked on my new adventure in my new city, I was a bit lost.
I was kind of burned out of Jiu-Jitsu, sick of teaching, uninspired, and I was getting bored of writing and was worried that I had hit my ceiling as a writer.
I quit so many things last year that I made myself bored. I had nothing to do because I was getting rid of all the things that I didn’t want to do.
This made me realize that really, your goal shouldn’t be a clear schedule. Your goal should be a schedule that is full of things that you have personally selected.
That is the ideal I am chasing.
We’re getting close.
Climbing the professional ladder is a pay-to-play game.
In Jiu-Jitsu, if you want to do the ADCC Trials, you have to pay a registration fee, book a trip, pay for coaching and training, and that is all just to take part in the game.
I’ve paid a lot of money this year to compete in Jiu-Jitsu. Thousands. Tens of thousands over the years.
In writing, I’ve invested nearly $10,000 in coaching, courses, books, and more in just the last year.
All that sounds ridiculous to some people, but I’m the one doing this for a living, and paying to learn is an important part of leveling up in the game. If you’re scared to pay, you will never play well enough to get paid.
Hard truth.
All self-improvement content becomes mental masturbation if you consume too much of it.
I’ll be honest, I like a self-help book now and then.
However, I think that over time, self-help becomes a giant circle jerk that doesn’t really help anyone accomplish anything. It’s just motivation porn.
“I did it, and so can you!”
Hell, this article might even be an example of that. I wrote about a bunch of stuff that I did in the last year, and I’m hoping someone else might find it encouraging.
This is why it’s important to mostly be focused on learning practical lessons and practical skills.
The most important wisdom is written down in books, but you won’t understand it until you experience it through application.
Take everything you read everywhere with a grain of salt. I am a subjective individual — just like everyone else.
All unhappiness comes from 2 places:
Letting yourself down.
Trying to control things that you can’t control.
When I lose a match or fail at something, I am upset for 2 reasons.
I’m either upset because I didn’t work hard enough/give my all — meaning I let myself down — or I am upset because some bad stuff happened and I’m feeling sorry for myself.
If you’re feeling sorry for yourself, give yourself some grace and rebuild. Bad stuff happens to everyone — it’s best not to internalize it.
If you didn’t work hard enough, don’t beat yourself up. Simply restructure your behavior so that you are giving your all with no regrets.
In my experience, this fixes most general unhappiness.
You have more time than you realize.
I sometimes get the sense that I am running out of time at the age of 26.
It’s this unsettling, cringey feeling that I’m nearing the end of my chance to do something remarkable with my life. That I’m at the edge of the abyss of mediocrity and I’m going to fall unless I win ADCC or write a bestseller by next week.
If you struggle with this too, all I can say is that you are running out of time (we all are, and that’s life) but not as fast as you think. Give yourself a break because no one else will.
Everything worth doing takes longer than you want it to.
This time last year, I packed my car and drove to Texas for a month to chase a dream.
I also wrote a book (we’re almost done, I promise), competed all over the world, moved, met an incredible woman, and built a new career for myself via the internet.
None of it happened in a day, but it all happened over the year. Everything worth doing takes longer than you think.
Most people overestimate how much they can accomplish in a day, but underestimate how much they can accomplish in a year.
Next time you’re thinking about giving up because you aren’t making enough progress, remember that.
Today’s issue of The Grappler’s Diary is sponsored by BJJ Mental Models!
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