One of our regional masters has a saying for training, and everyday life: habits you train are habits you gain.
When you run into something you find boring, too repetitive, or seemingly unimportant, don’t be so quick to dismiss it. More than likely it has great benefits if you give full effort, instead of just going through the motions. For example, a lot of people find meditation boring and therefore don’t do it very often, despite hearing all the improvements it has on our health. Or, when they do meditate, their mind isn’t quiet and it’s just focused on wanting to be done with the meditation. This doesn’t even give yourself the opportunity to see if you can feel any of the benefits, since you already decided it won’t. Repetition builds strength, skill, and habit. This goes for excuses too; repetitive avoidance, procrastination, and half-effort will only lead to a lifestyle that contains and craves that.
A lot of the time, you get what you put into something; success doesn’t just come overnight. That’s why in martial arts, or really any skill, we practice for years and years before we can truly say we are proficient in it. It might be tedious having to practice the same techniques everyday, or practice the same exercises to build your muscle memory, but they almost always have great benefits that lead to higher skill, if you just give them your all.
