The Strangest Secret

If you've never seen The Karate Kid, go rent it tonight! Here's one of my favorite scenes:

(Classic, Mr. Miyagi V4)

What do you take from this scene? What does it mean? Are we all good at kung fu?

What I see is: painting the fence isn't a chore. Neither is sanding the floor. It's all kung fu. Everything is kung fu.

Everything is also basketball or painting or singing. For me, everything is climbing. It all depends on what you're into.

I don't want you to get confused. I'm not saying that climbing is everything (although, some might say otherwise). I'm saying that everything is climbing. Everything you do is related to climbing. How you sit or how you help someone move a heavy table (should you open crimp or close crimp? Lift with your legs? Straight arms or lock it off?).

Earl Nightingale may have said it best in his book, The Strangest Secret, where he says, "We become what we think about most." In other words, if you think about being a writer, seriously, and honestly, then you will probably become a better writer. If you think about food all the time, well... you'll probably get fat. And if you think about climbing while you're deciding what to eat, you might eat a little healthier. 

(Good thing I wrestled for 12 years... otherwise I might not have climbed this thing!)

Basically what it comes down to is building habits. And habits come in all different forms: muscle memory, attitude, strength, creativity, psych, bravery, quickness, accuracy, determination, just to name a few. It doesn't matter where you learned to have a positive attitude, if that is a habit that you have developed, it applies to climbing as well as anything else, for good or bad. Sometimes habits are good and sometimes they are bad. 

A friend mine likes to say, "how you do something is how you do everything." When I tell this to people, they tend to get defensive. I'm not really sure why. My best guess is that people like to think they have more control than living a life controlled by subconscious habits. However, I think this statement is extremely true and completely relevant to everybody, especially people that are passionate about something. How you brush your teeth (not the physical act of brushing them, but the thoroughness, the care, or the frequency) is how you take care of your car. Is your car vacuumed? Do you floss? How often do you wash your car? How often do you go to the dentist?

So what's the point? Yeah... we develop habits, big deal.

If you don't notice your habits... you can't really change them. Even good habits need to be noticed. Noticing good habits will allow you to understand why something is working so you can make more improvements or even apply that habit to another aspect of life. 

(Nice habits Jen!)

The crazy part is, we are all developing habits for everything. It doesn't mean they are good habits though. I am developing terrible habits to be a hockey player! No biggy... I don't think about hockey. I think about climbing.

Gaston. Gastoff. Gaston. Gastoff.

Just some food for thought. Keep on thinkin about what makes you happy!