For most people, the toughest opponent is not your boss or your spouse but it is your inner-self. For example, self doubt, self imposed limitations, habits and many more. If you are fighting someone else, you either win/lose quickly and so the end is within reach. When you are fighting yourself, it can haunt you a lifetime if you cannot come to terms with yourself.
If you extend the definition of ‘self’ beyond your physical-self but to include people closest to you like your parents, spouse, brothers and sisters, your children or sometimes your best friends, their harsh words lingers / haunts you for a VERY long time. You cannot change what others say to you but you can change how you interpret or react to it. Furthermore, if you understand what it means to be on the receiving end, maybe you will think twice before saying something mean out of frustration.
Complex systems often fail because of a single weak link. Planes crashed because of screws that are not up-to-par. Trains went off the rail because of messaging while driving. Battles are lost becauses of a seamingly insignificant link – for example, the supply line. The champion of Formula race is the driver, the car (including engine, design, tires, material), the support team, the financial backers and much more. Refinement of each component take effort and experience.
How often do we want something and yet we don’t put in the effort to make it happen? We know we are procastrinating and yet we are still not moving. We know what food is good for us and yet junk food feel so comfy. If you look at the decisions or indecisions that we (or our friends) make everyday, you can see how we work against ourselves.
In “internal style” martial arts, we train to have the body and mind to act in unison. For the body, we know that it involve muscles, sequencing of muscles, shape of body and spine, your support structure and much more. Physical things are easy to see and understand – they even have diagrams for your body. Even kids understand how the bicep and tricep work as opposites – one have to extend while the other contract – contracting both sides will make your arms look bigger but not to move productively. For the mind, most people look at that as a single thing and fail to drill down the layers or identify its components. Without that deeper level of understanding, you cannot ‘train and strengthen’ each component and therefore, your ‘mind’ can become the weak link.
Exercise
Make your best attempt in identifying what is meant by the ‘mind’. Identify its components and how to train/improve it.