Being Excellent to Ourselves

Being Excellent to Ourselves

Here at True Balance Karate in Downers Grove, Illinois, we have a social emotional learning program called True Character. I’m Master H, owner and chief instructor here at the studio. I have two master’s degrees in education, and we’ve developed this curriculum to meet the needs of our youngest students who are three or four, and our oldest student who is 85.

And this month we are talking about excellence. We started off defining excellence as working hard to reach our goals and being the best that we can be. It’s literally making ourselves one little bit better every single day, every single moment. It’s finding ways to just level up, if you will.

And then we talked about how to be excellent, we want to make ourselves smarter. We want to make sure we’re asking good questions. We want to make sure that we’re seeking out the right people to find information. And then last week we talked about making connections. Showing that we’re listening, showing that we care. How does that look in terms of demonstrating our excellence? Because we really want to make sure that we’re taking care of the world around us. As we are making ourselves better, we want to make sure we’re helping others be better too.

Taking Care of Us

This week we’re talking about taking care of ourselves, right? What does excellence look like when we’re taking care of ourselves? And that falls under, sorry, my sleeve is a little messy right there. That falls under getting good sleep. That falls under eating good foods. That falls under getting good exercise for my high school students and older, that falls under managing our stress.

But even for our fourth and fifth graders, I’ve watched them as they get more workload at school, trying to navigate how to manage the pressure that comes along with it. I don’t know if it’s stress for their age or not, but there’s definitely a little bit of pressure there. And how do they manage that? So it’s a matter of making sure that we’re giving ourselves everything that we need so that our brains can stay healthy and our bodies can stay healthy. And that’s part of our excellence. That’s part of making ourselves one little bit better every single day.

Improving Ourselves

So, the challenge could be, we set a goal. Maybe it’s to not drink soda anymore, but you have a lot of it. Well, don’t switch out all of it. Switch out one, one can of soda, switch to a thing of water. Take it in small incremental bites until you’re able to take the next step. That’s how you can make yourself one little bit better. That’s how you can strive for some excellence. What if your goal was to get more vegetables into your diet? That was mine. Growing up, the idea of vegetables would actually trigger more of a gag for myself. And I had trouble actually trying to eat them. And over the last two years or so, it had been my goal to start to introduce more into my diet, into my daily habits. And it simply started with lunch. I would throw a couple of vegetables in my lunch. It wasn’t huge. It wasn’t big, but one or two is more than none. And then it grew from there to the point where I found that I actually liked rice cauliflower, and I introduced other vegetables into my diet that I found that I enjoyed.

And so eating good foods, getting good sleep, making sure that we’re managing emotions and feelings and stresses and pressures that we have, and making sure that we’re getting good exercise. All of those things play a role in making sure that we feel as excellent as we are working towards.

Taking Steps

And so I ask you, what goal have you set? What thing are you working on making yourself a little bit better for? Is it to be more positive? Maybe that looks like you taking a moment at the end of the day and writing three accomplishments or three wins that you had that day so that you have a positive ending to your day. Is it to have more water? Does that look like a timer being set? Is it getting better sleep? Does that look like I’m turning off screens at a certain time, or just deciding this is the time that I will be going to sleep no matter what? You answer that question for yourself.

But when we’re talking about excellence, we’re talking about making sure that we’re looking at those goals and setting ourselves up to be successful and to be one little bit better every single day.

Thanks, and I’ll see you on the mat!

True Balance Karate was founded in 2012 by Master Sue and Paul Helsdon.

We offer kids karate lessons for pre-school children ages 3-6 and elementary age kids ages 7 and up. These lessons are designed to develop the critical building blocks kids need — specialized for their age group — for school excellence and later success in life.

Our adult martial arts training is a complete adult fitness and conditioning program for adults who want to lose weight, get (and stay) in shape, or learn self-defense in a supportive environment.

Instructors can answer questions or be contacted 24 hours of the day, 7 days a week at 630-663-2000. You can also contact us here. True Balance Karate is at 406 Ogden Ave Downers Grove Illinois, 60515 (next to CVS) Check out our Facebook!