Ambition and patience: There are two great mental attributes that I see in most great jiu jitsu students, and indeed, in almost every enterprise that humans engage in (obviously there are many others, but I want to focus on these two today as they form a relation that is critical to our long term success or failure). These are AMBITION and PATIENCE. In order to achieve anything of consequence in the world, a person must have ambition, for it is ambition that provides the inner drive that initiates our physical actions over time. Seen in this light, ambition appears to be a fine thing – there is however, a problem. In our attempts to fulfill our ambition we constantly run into road blocks. Competition with other people who have similar ambitions, the sheer difficulty of the tasks we need to complete to realize those ambitions – factors like these lead to frustration as we so often fail in our ambitions. It is exactly then that we must make use of a second, complimentary mental attribute – patience. Patience is the recognition that achievement and the skills that bring achievement take time to develop. AMBITION STARTS EVERY ENTERPRISE – BUT ONLY ITS INTERACTION WITH PATIENCE SUSTAINS EVERY ENTERPRISE AND TAKES IT THROUGH TO COMPLETION. It is critical to understand that one without the other is of little value. Powerful ambition quickly leads to frustration and disappointment when it runs into the reality of competition. We see this all the time with the high attrition rate in jiu jitsu. Too much patience creates overly contented people with little drive who are happy enough with what they already and who don't push hard enough to create the changes need to improve in the time available. We see this all the time in jiu jitsu with people who train for long stretches of time but who make little technical progress. Somewhere in the middle is the solution. Where that point in the middle is, will depend upon your goals, your life situation, what you believe personal happiness to consist of etc. but find it you must if you are to gain the longevity and drive in a sport that requires both for excellence.
