Do, Don’t Be

Today, during yoga (yes, yoga is good for competitive shooting), talking to another guy in the class, he made some excuse for not being able to do something because he is “short.” My internal reaction to what he was saying is that it was ridiculous. As someone who started yoga after someone twice my age was able to kick my ass in a variety of strength, flexibility, and balance skills, I realized that who you are can only limit you if you let it. What defines you is what you do.

Let me rephrase that in an even more stark way: identifying what you are will limit you, and identifying what you do will propel you forward.

This works, even if you’re identifying what you don’t do, because usually that means you know what it takes to achieve your goal, and at that point you have to consciously make the choice whether or not to do it. In fact, a lot of negative am’s are supported by negative do’s. “I’m not a Master because I don’t dry fire thirty minutes a day.” When you identify what you do and don’t do, then you can decide whether or not to change it.

The guy in my yoga class isn’t unable to do whatever it was because he is short, he’s unable to do it because he does not practice enough to be able to do it.

I can hear a lot of you now, saying that no, you really just can’t do things. Either you’re too fat (stop eating so many carbs), you’re too poor (you do too many other costly things), you have too much family responsibility, you’re too old, and so on. Now, I only have solutions for the first two because I’ve found myself in both situations and changed what I did to fix what I was. I have confidence with sufficient study behavioral changes can be found that would relieve or solve those issues and any other limiting self-identity.

I’m not saying you can never characterize yourself as a certain thing. I am a USPSA B class shooter. But what I am is the result of what I’ve done in the past. What’s much more interesting is what I will be, which is the result of what I do today.

Another example of this self-limitation is the simple difference between shooting and liking a Glock, and being a Glock guy. We’ve talked about this before, but tying your self-identity to being something rather than doing something will almost always limit you. “I’m an IDPA shooter, so I can’t shoot USPSA.” is a lot more convincing than “I shoot IDPA, so I can’t shoot USPSA.” and all it’s doing is convincing yourself not to do something that might be beneficial or enjoyable.

The comparison works equally well with “I am a self-defense person, so I can’t be a competitor.” Self-identity tends to be so binary, where we all take hundreds of actions that are somewhat complimentary to each other every day. “I focus on self-defense so I can never shoot a competition” makes about as much sense as “I like drinking beer so I can’t drink wine.” Maybe you prefer one to the other, but that’s an action, a discrete choice.

This is all still a little unfocused and raw, so I’m sure you’ll be hearing more about this as I refine the idea and apply it in more places. If this doesn’t make sense, let me know, or hit the comments.