Welcome to 2019! It's a new year and resolutions are always part of that. New goals always come with the New Year and I thought that would be a perfect inaugural subject for this blog.

One of the life skills we work on at Karate USA is goal setting, not just in martial arts, but in life as a whole. How does that work? Well, goal setting is like any other skill; you need a plan. It starts by writing that goal down but be careful, don't bite off more than you can chew. Many people choose a huge goal with little chance of success. Don't get me wrong, having a big goal is fine. It just needs to be broken down into more manageable, smaller goals that are achievable and build to a bigger goal. It's one of the reasons we start out with tricycles, move to training wheels, and then finally, a bicycle. Imagine putting a child on the bicycle right from the start. I imagine a lot of scraped knees, bandages, and tears.

The belt system is one way we teach about goal setting. A new student can't walk in and expect to be a black belt in a month or two, which would be ridiculous. Waiting an inordinate amount of time for a promotion is frustrating. That is why we have the different colored belts. The long term goal is Black Belt, which is really only another beginning. The other colors are shorter term goals all leading to that main goal. Further still, we break down each belt into stripes, each stripe an even shorter term goal. With practice and practice testing so students know exactly what to expect, and thereby have an excellent chance of passing their tests on the first attempt.

How can you apply this in your life? I am sure you can think of many ways, but why don't we start with one, like saving money. Many times a goal will be set and not realized because too large a sum of money was chosen for the goal. How about I show you how to save over $1000 in just one year and it won't be painful? All you have to do is put away one dollar for every week of the year, but not just $52. One dollar for week one, two dollars for week two, three dollars for week three, and so on. At the end of fifty-two weeks you will have saved $1378! Not as hard as you would have thought, was it?

I have several goals myself for this year. The first being getting this new website up and running, and subsequently, this blog.

Good luck with your goal setting!

Our theme this month is confidence.  What is confidence? The feeling of self-assuredness that comes from knowing you can accomplish something. This does not have to be a big thing, just something you want to achieve.  It could be as simple as getting an 'A' on a school assignment, or even a straight 'A' report card. It could be learning a new song or writing a story. If you know it is something you can achieve that gives you confidence!

Confidence is not something you are born with. It is a skill that can be developed. It is one of the most important life skills we teach at Karate USA. Last month we talked about goal-setting. When you achieve those goals it builds your confidence to go for larger goals. That is one of the beauties of our belt and stripe system; we achieve small goals on our way to accomplishing a big goal.

Imagine how having more confidence will help you in school or in a job when you get older. One thing to be wary of is false confidence. This is confidence you may have been convinced you have, but really don’t. If someone was building you up by telling you how strong you are and then talked you into trying to lift a 500 pound weight and you are only 10 years old well, you are probably not going to be able to lift it. Confidence is a great thing to have. Over-confidence and false confidence will do you more harm than good. Use your common sense and the skills you learn at Karate USA and things will work out well!