8 Simple Mantras That Help Me Build Skills Faster
You are what you tell yourself.
The messages that you tell yourself are very important.
Good messages can help you to live a good life. Bad messages will likely lead you to a chaotic and messy life. Your “mantras” — the things that you tell yourself when you’re thinking — must be constructive toward being (not becoming) the kind of person you want to be.
I’m a person who’s very interested in skill development, learning, and trying to be better than I was yesterday.
These 8 mantras help me do that.
Hard work allows for smart work.
I think the idea of “work smart, not hard” is a good thing to think about, but if you spend all your time working smart and never work hard, you’ll struggle when the going gets tough.
For my Jiu-Jitsu training to reach a point where I could focus on specific skill building above pure grit, for example, I had to work extremely hard on Jiu-Jitsu for a very long time. I had to reach a base level. You can’t get strong without going through a few tough workouts. You can’t be a good fighter without going through some wars.
Hard work provides a foundation so that you can maximize skills through smart work. These 2 types of work work together.
Today is not Judgment Day.
I tell myself something like this pretty much every day, except for of course on the day of major competitions or when my writing load expects a lot out of me.
I try to avoid emptying my gas tank without careful consideration. Constantly unloading your gas tank every single day so that you can “win the day” is a great way to make short-term progress at the expense of long-term burnout.
7 days of practice for one hour per day is better than one 7 hour sprint.
Occasionally, however, you will need to give it your all. See point #1.
The last thing you’re going to want is to be tired and burnt out when that day comes. Today is not the day you’re training for — unless it is.
My only enemy is the person I used to be.
I generally don’t believe that having “enemies” is very helpful.
However, the person that I used to be is always out there trying to f*ck up my progress.
He had bad habits. He was bad at managing his anxiety. He wasn’t always the best person to be around. He didn’t have the best mindset for improvement and he didn’t progress as fast as he wanted.
Bless his heart, but the man I used to be several years ago got in his own way a lot.
I don’t want to be like that person anymore, and this idea of constant evolution has sent me spiraling in a positive direction.
I believe am working toward something bigger than myself.
This is one of the most important mantras to tell yourself if you struggle with burnout, anxiety, and self-doubt.
If you believe the thing that you’re working for is purely a selfish tool to help you advance toward some hedonistic lifestyle you’ve dreamed up for yourself or seen on Instagram, you’re going to struggle when you encounter adversity. You might just give up.
Your self-improvement should be aimed at improving your ability to be a strong member of a family or a community. Otherwise, you’re always going to feel like something’s “off”. Like you’re being selfish (because you are).
Live for something bigger than your own personal glory.
Life’s just more pleasant that way.
Calculated reduction leads to effective addition.
My girlfriend is really helpful to me on this one. I used to just add new projects like they were hats I was trying on at a store.
Any time I try to add something new to my plate, it means I have to take something else off.
When I was writing my book, I stopped doing my Jiu-Jitsu Patreon site. When I started The Grappler’s Diary on Instagram, I stopped writing several Medium articles per week. When I finish my book (it’s almost done!), I have a new project that I’m excited to build and announce soon.
If you’re going to remove something from your life, be calculated about it. This is the best way to add new things to your life effectively.
I am allowed to fail but I am not allowed to give up due to failure.
The fear of failure was a real problem for me when I was younger.
It’s a big problem to have because, in the world of digital writing, online business, and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, failure is not just common, it’s part of the game.
I always used to fear that in my pursuit of being the best version of myself, putting myself out there, and testing myself constantly, I’d eventually reach some failure that would stop me in my tracks and make me give up.
The reality is that this type of career-ending failure does exist, but only when you admit it does. If you choose to never allow failure to end your journey, your journey will never end due to failure.
Being free to fail, it’s probably going to feel like you have no better option than to courageously continue on your journey to wherever you’d like to go. I think that’s a good thing.
There is something important that I don’t know… yet.
When you fail, you will inevitably look to figure out why you did not get your desired outcome.
You might blame your diet, your preparation, the weather, your mom, your partner, or maybe the lack of sleep that you got the night before. People will always say “no excuses”, but we still look for something to help us understand why we didn’t get the results that we want. It’s only human.
It’s important to approach everything (even failure) with a growth mindset. A mindset says that although you didn’t get what you wanted today, there’s a way to get what you want in the future through learning.
Avoid limiting beliefs (“I can’t do X because of Y”) and approach everything with an open mind. You might not always get the result you want, but if you have a true growth mindset, that will never slow you down too much.
I respect the game.
“The growth mindset” comes from a deep respect for the game that you’re playing.
Whether it’s making money, getting better at Jiu-Jitsu, writing, building a relationship, or anything else that’s worth doing, I’ve never been able to progress in anything without respecting what I’m doing.
Respecting the difficulty required to improve. Respecting that it’s not going to be a smooth, linear progression. Respecting that sometimes I’m going to fail. Respecting that sometimes, progress is not going to feel good.
Best of all, when you respect the game, winning it feels that much better.
Closing Thoughts
Mantras or internal messages are an important way to make progress toward whatever you want to do.
Likewise, skills are another essential aspect of quality lifestyle design.
The skills you choose to pursue and the things you tell yourself are typically what will shape your life.
Choosing the right skills leads to a good life, and choosing the wrong skills will lead to a hard life. It’s important to choose and build the right skills, and it’s equally important to have internal monologues to help you build those skills.
These are 8 things that I tell myself daily that have helped me over the years.
Also published this week:
Like reading The Grappler’s Diary? Support me by buying our merch!
If you enjoyed reading this post, share it with friends! Or, click on the ❤️ button on this post so more people can discover it on Substack!