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Miyamoto Musashi Quote on Making The Warrior Walk Your Everyday Walk and Living With Balance

    “One must make the warrior walk his everyday walk.”

    Miyamoto Musashi

    Beyond the Quote (126/365)

    One concept that gets focused on intensely in Martial Arts training is balance. Having good physical balance is important, of course, as you need to be able to kick, punch, and block without falling down or getting tripped up in poor technique. But, balance runs much deeper than just the obvious ability to execute moves without falling. In order to perform optimally in self-defense situations and, more importantly, in life situations as a Martial Artist, we need to be balanced physically, mentally, and emotionally.

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    Tony Robbins Quote on Seeing Frustration As A Positive Sign—Not The Opposite

      “Frustration is a very positive sign. It means that the solution to your problem is within range, but what you’re currently doing isn’t working, and you need to change your approach in order to achieve your goal.”

      Tony Robbins, Awaken the Giant Within

      Beyond the Quote (125/365)

      Frustration is the feeling you get when you try, try again; yet fail, fail again. And what do most people do when faced with ‘fail, fail again?‘ Quit. They stop trying to do whatever it was that they were failing at and move on to something else—something that they can succeed at again. Something that is most likely back inside of their comfort zone and well within their range of already proven skills, knowledge, and understanding. Why? Because succeeding feels good and failing feels bad. But, the price of giving in to frustration is steep.

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      Paulo Coelho Quote on How People Only Hear What They Want To Hear (and Why I Disagree)

        “Don’t waste your time with explanations: people only hear what they want to hear.”

        Paulo Coelho

        Beyond the Quote (124/365)

        I disagree. I stumbled upon this quote on Instagram and I can see why people would share it and agree with it from a superficial standpoint, but I feel that there’s something deeply wrong about it that needs to be discussed. If you never took the time to explain, how would anybody ever be influenced to change their mind? Certainly people change their minds. And in my estimation, it’s ONLY through conversation and explanation that it ever happens: conversations you have with other people, conversations you listen to between other people, and conversations that you read from other people. It’s through this constant exchange of ideas—these explanations—that we only ever advance our thoughts forward. How else could we possibly do that?

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        Yoda Quote on Facing Your Fears

          Yoda Quote on Facing Your Fears

          “Named must your fear be before banish it you can.”

          Yoda

          Beyond the Quote (123/365)

          Many times we don’t even realize that we’re living in fear. When we find our comforts, we get comfortable living with them. It’s instinctual. It’s natural. It’s how we’re wired and what we’re drawn to. We’re living in a sort-of primal state of constant pleasure seeking and pain avoidance. Why wouldn’t that be the case? Who actually would want to seek out fear? Confront fear? Work to overcome fear? It’s scary! It’s uncomfortable! There’s so much resistance! You’d have to have a really good reason to do any of that.

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          Seth Godin Quote on Facing Failure So That You Can Keep Playing (and Win)

            “If I fail more than you do, I win.  Built into this notion is the ability to keep playing.  If you get to keep playing, sooner or later you’re gonna make it succeed.  The people who lose are the ones who don’t fail at all, or the ones who fail so big they don’t get to play again.”

            Seth Godin

            Beyond the Quote (121/365)

            If you try and you fail—and you quit—you lose. If you try and you fail—and you adjust and try again—you win. The ultimate failure in life isn’t the failures we inevitably stumble upon from our trials, it’s the failure to not try (or to stop trying) at all. Without trial in life, you defer to passivity. You choose to watch rather than play. And while it’s fun to watch sometimes, playing is where all of the magic happens. Playing is the active process of interacting with your surroundings in a way that allows you to learn. When you try, your whole being makes an incalculable number of adjustments and improvements so that you can better play moving forward. You just can’t do that from the sideline.

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            Ryan Holiday Quote on Leisure and Recharging Constructively

              “[Leisure] is a physical state—a physical action—that somehow replenishes and strengthens the soul. Leisure is not the absence of activity, it is activity. What is absent is any external justification—you can’t do leisure for pay, you can’t do it to impress people. You have to do it for you.“

              Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 237)

              Beyond the Quote (120/365)

              Too often we associate “replenishing” and “recharging” with shutting down and binging. We finish a long stretch of work and we immediately resort to plopping down in front of the TV and mindlessly zoning out for a few hours to “recover.” And while it is okay to do that every now and again, what might be worth exploring is the idea of recharging, not by checking out, but by checking in to activities that engage you.

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              Epicurus Quote on What The Wise Will Accomplish in Their Life

                “Epicurus once said that the wise will accomplish three things in their life: leave written works behind them, be financially prudent and provide for the future, and cherish country living. That is to say, we will be reflective, we will be responsible and moderate, and we will find time to relax in nature.”

                Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 183)

                Beyond the Quote (119/365)

                If there was ever a time to prioritize reflection, responsibility/ moderation, and nature, this would be the time. COVID-19 has had a drastic impact on the world—our world. It took almost everything that we grew to rely on as part of our daily lives and flipped it all upside down. Family dynamics aren’t the same. Work isn’t the same. Education isn’t the same. Extracurricular activities aren’t the same. Food isn’t the same. Friends aren’t the same. Shopping isn’t the same. Exercise isn’t the same. Entertainment isn’t the same. Everything has been affected. And when the landscape all around us is shifting as rapidly as it is under these circumstances, what we need now more than ever is stability and stillness within.

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                Kahlil Gibran Quote on Giving To Others That Which You Most Hope To Receive (and Knowing What to Give)

                  “You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.”

                  Kahlil Gibran

                  Beyond the Quote (118/365)

                  Once a group of 500 people were attending a seminar. Suddenly the speaker stopped and decided to do a group activity. He started giving each person a balloon. Each person was then asked to write their name on it using a marker. Then all of the balloons were collected and put in another room.

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                  A Heart Warming Quote About Eeyore and The Amazing Efforts of His Friends

                    A Heart Warming Quote About Eeyore and The Amazing Efforts of His Friends

                    “One awesome thing about Eeyore is that even though he is basically clinically depressed, he still gets invited to participate in adventures and shenanigans with all of his friends. What is amazing is that they never expect him to pretend to feel happy, they never leave him behind or ask him to change, they just show him love.”

                    Unknown

                    Beyond the Quote (116/365)

                    One of the more common thoughts being passed around in the self-improvement world is the idea that you are who you surround yourself with. If you surround yourself with people who gossip—you’ll become a person who gossips. If you surround yourself with people who workout all of the time—you’ll start to workout all of the time. If you surround yourself with “losers”—you’ll become a “loser.” You get the idea—birds of a feather flock together.

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                    Ashleigh Brilliant Quote on the Vital Importance of Rest

                      “Sometimes the most urgent and vital thing you can possibly do is take a complete rest.”

                      Ashleigh Brilliant

                      Beyond the Quote (115/365)

                      If you’re at the point of burnout, that doesn’t mean that you’re just physically tired or that you’re mentally fatigued… being burned out means that your body has shut down because all of your domains of energy have been depleted—physical, mental, and emotional. And when your body shuts down, you have no choice but to listen.

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                      Anne Lamott Quote on Unplugging and the Reality of Burnout

                        “Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes… Including you.”

                        Anne Lamott

                        Beyond the Quote (114/365)

                        Following through on a commitment is something that you can choose to do or choose not to do. Burning out is something that happens—it’s not something that you can choose against. When there’s no more gas in the car, you can’t choose to magically have more gas with the snap of your fingers—you need a gas station for that. When there’s no more battery juice left in your phone, you can’t choose to boost your battery life with positive thinking—you need a charging cable for that. When there’s no more energy left inside you—mental, physical, or emotional—you can’t demand more energy to appear through even the most disciplined thinking—you need rest, recover, and self-care for that.

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                        Richard Carlson Quote on Blowing Things Out of Proportion

                          “We forget that life isn’t as bad as we’re making it out to be. We also forget that when we’re blowing things out of proportion, we are the ones doing the blowing.”

                          Richard Carlson, Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff

                          Beyond the Quote (108/365)

                          The powerful thing about perspective is that it has the ability to change how we see.  And if how we see changes, well, everything in the world will look different.  In life, many of us disproportionately view our world as larger than it is—we blow it out of proportion.  Why?  Because from our perspective, our world is the world.  The size of our perception of life is the size of our understanding of the world.  And when we hyper focus on the trivialities of our life in comparison to all that’s happening in life throughout the world?  Those trivialities can start to look much bigger than they really are.

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                          Charles Colton Quote on Uprooting Vices and Planting Virtues

                            “He that has energy enough to root out a vice should go further, and try to plant a virtue in its place.”

                            Charles Caleb Colton

                            Beyond the Quote (107/365)

                            How hard is it to dig up the roots of an old tree?  Even trying to dig up the roots of a small tree or a bush can be incredibly hard.  This is why, after a tree gets cut down, the stump is either left behind or it’s sawed down and the roots are simply left underground.  Trying to take all of the roots up from a cut down tree simply isn’t worth the time and effort it requires in most cases.

                            Now, how hard is it to plant a seed for a new tree?  Even planting a seed for the mightiest of trees is a breeze.  There might be some variance in the specifics, but for the most part, you prep the land/ soil, dig a hole to the proper depth, place the seed in the hole, put the soil back on top of it, and make sure it gets enough water and sun and voila!  You’re done.

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