I AM THE KARATE KID

Have you seen the 2010 version of The Karate Kid yet? My boyfriend and I saw it the first week it came out (we're big movie buffs; 1-2 movies a week! :P), and it is AWESOME! Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan do an excellent job, and this movie is going to be a classic for this generation and beyond easily! Yesterday my boyfriend called me The Karate Kid... but The Karate Kid BEFORE he became the awesome, underdog-turned-kung-fu-champion at the end of the movie. He was saying that I was acting more like the Karate Kid BEFORE he went through the heartache, turmoil, and basically self-discipline to become the winner he eventually became. The reason for this cute, sarcastic comment, you ask? I was super-duper tired, and instead of filling my gas tank, which was already angrily blinking "Empty" at me, I wanted to go straight home and just "take care of it tomorrow." After the name-calling, though (haha, just kidding; my boyfriend is my BIGGEST FAN, and he knows how to motivate me; he'll lovingly give me a kick in the butt when I need it), I sucked it up and did the hard thing: I took care of business right then and there, even though I SOOOOOOOOO wanted to just go home and flop on my bed! That brings me to this point: SELF-DISCIPLINE. I need more of it. I need to push myself through the discomfort and difficulty of staying on my steno machine for more than I currently do because I'm trying to get the steno machine to be an extra limb. I can't do that with half-hearted practice sessions. I have to put all of me into it... WHETHER I FEEL LIKE IT OR NOT! Practice is not always fun (don't we know it?!), but it IS essential. I don't want to be The Karate Kid BEFORE. I want to be The Karate Kid AFTER! And to get there, I have to endure the training of Mr. Han (not Mr. Miagi for this version). For a court reporting student, that means:

• practicing 20 wpm over my speed limit to gain speed
• practicing 20 wpm below my speed limit to maintain accuracy
• learning new briefs
• finger drills
• reviewing my theory
• learning common words
• staying on my steno machine longer and longer for endurance
• reading my notes
• analyzing my notes
• editing my dictionary
• eliminating hesitation strokes by writing a different way
• ...and sometimes the hardest part, KEEPING A POSITIVE, DETERMINED, I-KNOW-I-CAN-DO-THIS ATTITUDE THROUGHOUT IT ALL! :)

So this excerpt is for me and whoever else out there needs a little dose of self-discipline pep talk. I got this from one of my favorite books, Life's Greatest Lessons: 20 Things That Matter by Hal Urban. Here are some other excerpts from the same book that I've posted previously on my blog: THE BENEFITS OF SETTING GOALS REAL MOTIVATION COMES FROM WITHIN ANOTHER KEY TO ACHIEVEMENT

DELAYED GRATIFICATION: THE HEART OF SELF-DISCIPLINE

Play now, pay later! This is the way life works. Actually, this is the way life works for too many people. They look for the quick way, the easy way, and they play now. So they pay later. And, believe me, they do pay! That approach to life, no matter how many people get sucked into it, is backward. Real success comes when we pay now and play later. It's called self-discipline, and at the heart of it is the principle of delayed gratification: the willingness and the ability to postpone pleasure. It makes the work, the pain, and the sacrifice come now, and the good things come afterward. There's no such thing as instant gratification. There's no prize without a price. In an earlier chapter I referred to Scott Peck's wonderful book, The Road Less Traveled. The road he refers to is the one that he has a sign in the entrance saying, "Life is difficult." Those just happen to be the first three words in the book. That's why this is the road less traveled. Too many people are looking for the one without difficulties. They're looking for Easy Street. There isn't one. Peck says if we learn to schedule the pain and sacrifice first, and get them over with, we'll enhance our pleasure that comes later. Notice that he doesn't say avoid the pain; he says schedule it. Whatever the price is for getting something done, pay it first. You have to give up something to get something.