Goals and the Tang Soo Do Belt System 

The belt system itself is an organized goal achievement system. It takes a large, long-term goal and breaks it down into smaller, more easily achievable steps. This form of long-term goal setting is an important lesson for life.

Imagine taking the goal of losing weight. Losing 30 lbs. seems like an insurmountable goal that’s completely unachievable. After a couple of weeks of effort in January, most American adults just wind up back at McDonald’s with a milkshake and despair. However, losing 1 lb. this month is a goal just about anyone can achieve. After working, seeing progress, and succeeding, the confidence is built to set larger and ever-evolving goals.

This is the lesson that a student learns from the belt system. The goals are easy at first and come quickly. But as time goes on, each new belt becomes a little bit harder and takes a little bit longer. This slowly builds confidence and experience in setting goals, achieving them, and moving on to even harder ones.

But it doesn’t stop at black belt. After black belt, the goals become farther and farther apart, with fewer and fewer intermediate steps. It’s at this stage where the magic really happens.

Goals are such an important part of progress. Without a goal, most people feel lost. But eventually, to achieve real greatness in life, it’s the progress that becomes the goal. A true black belt comes to a realization and a place of being: Happy, never satisfied.

The End Goal: Happy, Never Satisfied

“Happy, never satisfied” is a delicate balance of confidence and challenge. It’s the attitude a student needs to stay in the grow zone.

The grow zone is where you’re constantly challenged to be better. It’s the opposite of the comfort zone. In the comfort zone, a student is happy and satisfied. If someone always succeeds, it’s because they’re never challenged—they are in their comfort zone.

Goal setting helps motivate us into the grow zone. However, the ultimate goal is to make a habit of always being in the grow zone.

In the grow zone, the student is challenged to be better. Take sparring in class as an example. Students will first get comfortable sparring people of their same age and rank. For some, it’s quite nerve-wracking just to start sparring in the first place. So, the fact that they are out there sparring someone of the same age and rank is the victory—that’s the grow zone.

Then, eventually, the student becomes comfortable with that. Now it’s time to move on and start sparring people of a higher rank or perhaps someone older, taller, more advanced, or higher-skilled. This puts them back in the grow zone.

Gaining a habit of not staying in the comfort zone is one of the great benefits of going for black belt. However, one cannot grow if they don’t believe in themselves. A person needs to have enough confidence to treat failures as opportunities to learn instead of as judgments of who they are. This is the “happy” piece.

A black belt is always happy with their progress and comfortable with who they are. However, just like in fitness, muscle doesn’t get stronger without first breaking down. A person must be willing to challenge themselves and fail in order to grow. When confidence and experience combine to allow growth to be the goal, a student has achieved the never satisfied mindset.

So, here’s the real test of being “never satisfied”:
Ask yourself, Am I smarter and better than I was one year ago?
Does that mean one year ago you were bad? Of course not. After all, if you’re always growing, you’ll always be better. And without the combination of confidence and challenge, you’ll never grow.

In class, you will hear us call out “last one” and your kid will call back “best one sir or ma’am.” This is because if you are always trying your best, and always improving, then your last one will always be your best one.

Goal setting is practiced so much in your kid’s path to black belt that it becomes second nature—it becomes habit. A habit of goal setting is another black belt advantage.