Pain and Process…

One of the most important lessons I ever learned, I learned on a martial arts studio floor while looking up at the ceiling wondering how I came to be splayed out on the ground. The lesson was simple and yet somehow profound. Pain cancels technique.

No matter how hard you practice. No matter how perfect that practice might be. It all goes away when you are introduced to the wonderful world of exquisite pain. Unless your preparation includes full contact, no holds barred, sparring where the introduction of real pain is constant, how much or how hard you prepare is irrelevant.

When you are hurt and the pain is significant enough all that planning, and all that preparation is likely to go away. That is as true in martial arts training as it is in life and in business. And, that’s what I’m going through as I deal with the residual pain associated with this last bout with Shingles Zoster. It is debilitating to the point everything is more difficult, bordering on impossible.

Harder because the pain clouds not only your vision but your ability to produce anything of consequence as well. The only way I’ve been able to work through this is by creating lists. Lists of things I would like to accomplish, placed alongside those things I think I might actually complete. And, then, prioritizing those To Do’s according to what floats to the surface. Which of those multiple projects I might actually take from conception to completion.

It isn’t easy. When present in sufficient intensity, pain clouds the lens through which we see just about anything and perverts just about everything!

The impact pain has on process is certainly something we should all be aware of. Something to overcome. Something to transcend.