FITNESS TEST!!

Saturday, two days ago, was the first of four fitness tests for the black belt candidates. I was both nervous and excited going into it. I was very excited for the week leading up to it, and then the nerves hit me the night before. I was nervous because I didn't know what to expect. Well, I knew the contents of the test, but I had very little idea where I was fitness wise. I was excited because I got the opportunity to do an extra fitness test, and get a baseline to see where I was at. 

Anyway, it was wonderful! I had a blast. I learned tons about myself, and it showed me where exactly where I was fitness wise. I am so grateful I had that opportunity. I now know what I need to do to improve myself, and become the best me I can. I made a few changes to my training, and I'm very excited to see the results. 

I'm already looking forward to the next fitness test!! :)

Acts of Kindness

    Acts of kindness. At first glance, this requirement seemed pretty easy. But I'm actually finding it quite challenging.

    Every night before I go to sleep, I look back throughout my day. I do this to find the acts of kindness I have done, and see where I can be kinder. There were a couple times where I'd go through my day in my head and think, wow, I wasn't very kind today. On these occasions, I wasn't mean. I just didn't go out of my way to be kind to anyone.

    Because of this I began to start my day with the idea of being kind in the front of my brain. I'll search for any opportunities I have to do acts of kindness. I feel like this might not be the right way to go about this requirement. It feels strange to count something as an act of kindness if I intended to do it from the beginning of the day. Obviously, I'm not being kind just to record it. I quite enjoy helping others, and making people smile. But sometimes it feels like I'm not doing the requirement the way it was intended to be done.

    When I started to pay more attention to my acts of kindness, I began to notice how kind the people around me are. The people surrounding me are (for the most part) incredible kind. This makes me really happy. I like how kind people are.

    A few times when others would be kind, I'd find myself jealous. I wanted to be kind!! But I quickly realized how ridiculous that was. Being kind is definitely not a competition. Everyone can be kind!! And someone else's kindness doesn't take away from my own.

I Am Forgiving

I am forgiving. 

I think that I am quite forgiving of others. Everyone is going to make mistakes, or 'bad decisions'. This is okay. We're all humans, and mistakes are just a part of life. I believe that in most situations everyone deserves multiple 'chances', because people are always growing and changing. I think that forgiveness is very important.

Not only is it important to be forgiving of others, it is also important to be forgiving of myself. Again, everyone makes mistakes, and this includes me. I struggle with forgiving myself more then I do forgiving others. But I am getting better at it. I have been acknowledging when I make 'bad decisions', and I have been trying to forgive myself, learn, and move on.