Process over Outcome
Accountability for building self-improvement practices
As I mentioned a month or so ago, after a gap of about 13 years, I finally rejoined a Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ) school. I had trained for about five years in my mid- to late-30’s, but then stopped when we moved to Texas because there were no schools within reasonable commuting distance of where we lived. When we got to New Hampshire, there were several schools, but I was starting a new career and there just wasn’t enough headspace. And when I finally felt like maybe I could balance it, COVID hit, and one does not start training in a physically intimate martial art during a pandemic. So another delay of a few years. But I am back and committed.
It’s hard coming back to something you remember you were pretty good at (I was never great - I am a very slow learner when it comes to physical skills), and finding yourself performing well below where you think you should be. It makes me question even the moderate amount of confidence I had in my own skills once upon a time. From a non-practitioner perspective, grappling looks really simple, but there is a lifetime of learning, much of it becomes intuitive in the way a player moves and holds her/himself. It is truly incredible to roll with someone who has a high level of mastery and feel how little effort they have to put forth to control you, while you strain and waste your energy. While skill is 75% of the game, strength and speed matter a lot. This is where being in my fifties this time, instead of in my thirties, makes me realize that is probably a factor, too. Plus I have put on a bunch of weight (mostly fat) since the last time I trained, and that doesn’t help for endurance - though it does help if you want to squish someone! It’s like my one secret weapon.
So I went back with a huge amount of excitement and energy for the first couple of weeks. And mostly I get tapped out quickly by pretty much everyone - choked, arm-barred, knee-barred, shoulder-locked - you name it, someone has inflicted that pain on me. Plus I have not moved like this in years, and so most days after training I feel like I was hit by a small truck - like a Ford Ranger, not an F-350 - but still, being hit by a truck multiple times each week is tough. Now, about a month in, the excitement of returning has mostly worn off. I’ve actually had doubts about if this was a good idea, especially when I couldn’t sleep on my side at night because my shoulders were in so much pain from being twisted repeatedly during one practice. I am not the oldest practitioner in the school, but I am definitely in the top end of the distribution. What is it that I want from starting over this thing that is really a young person’s sport?
What I really want is to be better than I am.
I had the chance to work out with one of the members who is a senior belt who told me while we were working together that he is 60. He told me his goals were to not get hurt and keep coming for as long as he can. Which is basically what I want. If you can avoid major injury and keep coming, you will get better. The loss of speed and strength with age can at least be partially overcome by increases in skill. I will tell you that even though he had seven more years on him, he was tying me up like I was a toddler. Nevertheless, I enjoyed working with him because he would stop and explain what he was doing and tell me how to counter it, instead of just knocking me around. I appreciate the senior people who take that approach - it is one of the great things about the martial arts - everyone eventually becomes a teacher. I guess that is a long term goal - I would like to get to be good enough to teach. To get there, I have to keep showing up.
My question to you is, what is important to you to be better at? And are you investing in getting there? Are you showing up?
Most of the things that build positive elements of our identity (outside of immutable characteristics we are born with) require time and effort. My return to BJJ has emphasized that again to me. I want to have “martial arts practitioner” as part of my identity. I’m intentionally using that phrasing to emphasize the practitioner part of the identity - as in practice, as in repeated effort over a sustained period. In Atomic Habits, James Clear suggests if you want to adopt a new habit, you have to make it part of your identity. If you want to be a runner, you start to tell yourself, “I am a person who runs”, as in I have a practice of running. To adopt the identity of runner, you just have to do one thing: run regularly. To be a runner, you have to run. You don’t have to be fast, or look the best in your cute running outfit. You just have to do it. Adopting the identity encourages that activity. One becomes a martial arts practitioner by practicing the martial arts, not by getting a black belt. A white belt who shows up regularly for practice is practicing the martial arts - s/he’s a martial arts practitioner. A person who puts on her/his shoes and goes out for a run, even if it is short and slow, is a runner. If you adopt the identity according to Clear, you are more likely to stick with the practice. It becomes self-fulfilling.
By choosing our practices, and therefore our identities, we can become better versions of ourselves. You might not have the bandwidth to add something other than work and family where you are in your life. But even in those categories, you can think about what you want to work on. Is there something at work you want to improve on that regular practice could help? Is there something in your family life you would like to improve on that regular practice could help? Like I said, I didn’t have space for BJJ for a long time. But have you thought about what you do want to work on within the scope you have? And also what you might want to add, once you can make time?
You might think about buckets (not in any particular order):
Career/Work
Family
Spiritual/Religious/Mental health
Physical health
Friendships
Hobbies and other interests
Others
You could pick from these categories or come up with your own, and then set some sort of recurring goal to “show up”. For example, I have set a goal of going to at least two BJJ classes each week. Two is a floor - I would like to do three - but I recognize that I will be back in the classroom in a couple of weeks and life will get busier for me. I don’t think my body can take more than three - at least not yet. So two is doable - I can usually get two in during the week, and I might be able to get a bonus on Saturday for three. If I only get one in during a week, I won’t freak out and say that the whole enterprise has failed. I might pause and think about why I missed the goal - was it due to unforeseen circumstances, or was it because I was lazy? The former happens, the latter requires having words with yourself.
Right now I have three categories I am actively tracking:
Physical
Career
Artistic
That doesn’t mean I don’t care about other things, like family or spiritual, I’m just focused on using my goal effort on these right now. Within these categories, I have the following weekly goals:
Physical
Cardio 4x - at least 20 minutes of exercise
Weight lifting 3x - I have a rotating work out routine that take about an hour, but 20 minutes is the minimum to count
BJJ 2x
Stretching 5x - 3 minutes of various stretching
Career
Reading 6x - 20 pages from a professionally developmental text of some sort
Research 5x - ass in chair and open a project
Artistic
Poetry (writing) 5x - 10 minutes sitting with my journal uninterrupted
Photo 7x - my wife and I are doing a “Project 365” - to take a photo each day. Doesn’t have to be good, just has to be done.
As I have mentioned before, I am a big fan of the book Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg. It was reading Fogg a couple of years ago that motivated me to focus on tracking my practice efforts. Fogg argues, as I said above, that most of the things we want to become are best reached by engaging in routine practice, i.e., habits. Getting better an BJJ requires going to practice routinely. It’s literally the only way. And that is the same with many other aspects of our lives. You can’t get fit by working out really hard one day each month. You have to do something most days, or your body just hurts, then goes back to flab; it doesn’t get better. Better to engage in small doses frequently than big doses once in a while.
Fogg also makes a big point about setting the bar for success really low. Want to get in better shape? Start by setting a goal of putting on your exercise clothes. If you put on your exercise clothes, you get credit for your goal for the day. Why? Because getting started on something is often the hardest part. If you set a goal of running five miles, you might just give up before you get started. But if you set a goal of putting on your exercise clothes - well how hard is that? And once you have put on your exercise clothes, are you really not going to walk out the door?
Another point Fogg makes is to celebrate whenever you successfully complete one of your goals. It doesn’t have to be a big celebration, but he asserts it is part of the conditioning. I usually just say a mental “Yes!” and then I check off the fact that I completed it in my tracking sheet.
I track my habit performance using a simple Google Sheets spreadsheet because I can access the spreadsheet on my phone (Google Sheets app) or on my computer (and Google Sheets is free - all you need is a Google account). This is what last week’s outcomes looked like:
So when I go out for a run, when I come back and do the mental celebration (“Yes!”) and then I enter a “1” in the column for the day. This both keeps me accountable and helps me celebrate. I feel really good when I punch that “1” into a cell. To help emphasize the accomplishment, I have conditional formatting programmed into the “Overall” column that automatically changes colors when I hit my goals. This also helps with the celebrations, and also helps with the accountability. As you can see, I didn’t have a perfect week, even with these super easy to reach goals. So that leads to some self-reflection. Am I asking too much of myself? (Probably not.) Or did I not put in the effort to advance my agenda (probably yes).
It’s really easy to lie to yourself that you are working hard toward a goal. How many people do you know who have said to you, I’m working really hard at X, but I just don’t make much progress? And you think, I haven’t seen you do anything to move forward with X, other than talk about it? Probably a lot. Probably that person is looking back at you in the mirror if you are a normal human.
Having an accountability system like this, which takes almost no effort, is a good way to keep yourself honest. Have too many red weeks and you have to ask yourself, especially if the goal is reasonable, do I really care about this goal? What is holding me back, if the answer is yes? And how can I set up a daily structure so that I am putting in the minimum effort to keep getting better?
I find I get really excited at the beginning of a new effort - like BJJ. The excitement comes from imagining the outcome. But like BJJ, most things worth doing require extended, repeated effort, especially if they are going to have lasting impacts on our lives. So I often hit something hard for a few days, and then when the energy and excitement of the newness wears off, I quit, because it becomes apparent how long it is going to take to get to the outcome. I think the important thing here is instead to focus on the process rather than the outcome. My journey to achieving a level of competence that will allow me to teach BJJ is going to be 7-10 years. At the age I’m at, that might not even be a realistic goal. But the journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step, as the saying goes. And the second step. And the third… So the process is more important than the outcome. The outcome is a direction to head for, but the process is the journey. This applies to any worthwhile self-improvement project. It is the process that transforms us.
One final thought: I think it’s important to have these self-improvement projects, but also important to be selective about them. Each one occupies a certain amount of bandwidth in terms of time and mental capacity, and both time and mental capacity are limited resources. However, self-improvement is part of living a worthy life. As I have said before, we all have gifts (talents, resources), and it is part of the obligation of a worthy life to use those talents. Our lives are projects - our talents are the raw materials with which we work. Fate contributes opportunities and challenges, and the end product (outcome) isn’t what matters so much as the effort (process).