“The warrior doesn't fight himself. He fights for himself.”
Reflection:
For a long time I thought becoming a better version of myself meant being harder on the person I was. If I fell short I would criticize myself and if I made a mistake I held onto it longer than I needed to. If I wasn't where I thought I should be I found a way to remind myself of it. I thought that was discipline but I'm starting to realize that spending so much time fighting myself can make it harder to grow. This is something I'm still learning and I have high expectations for who I want to become and when I feel like I'm falling short my first instinct isn't always patience... it's frustration. I. have noticed that I can become so focused on who I think I should be that I forget to appreciate how far I've come and appreciate my accomplishments. Honestly, I think a lot of us do this. We look back at past versions of ourselves and judge the decisions we made using the knowledge we have today (you don't know what you don't know) and we criticize the person we were without considering what we were going through, what we understood at the time or what we still needed to learn but what if those past versions of ourselves aren't people we need to defeat? What if they're people we need to understand?
That's where this idea of Me Plus Me comes in.
It's me plus me because I'm deciding to be on my own team. It's not me versus the versions of myself that were less experienced, less aware or still figuring things out. It's me plus them. I can look back at who I was and recognize the mistakes I made and understand that those experiences helped shape the person I am today and yeah maybe there are lessons I haven't fully learned and maybe there are things I still need to work through but either way I can't change who I was by constantly punishing myself for it. I can hold myself accountable without becoming my own enemy. I'm not always good at that yet there are still moments when I catch myself being overly critical or feeling like I should be further along than I am. It's one thing to talk about patience and personal growth. It's another thing to practice those principles when you're frustrated with yourself or when life isn't moving at the pace you expected. I'm learning that growth isn't just about building better habits, developing discipline or achieving goals. It's also about learning how to treat yourself along the way.
That's why I keep coming back to the idea of getting 1% better every day. Not because every day will be perfect but because every day gives me another opportunity to learn from yesterday and make a better choice today. Sometimes that 1% means showing up when I don't feel motivated and other times it means recognizing when I'm being too hard on myself, taking responsibility for a mistake or choosing to respond differently instead of falling into an old pattern. Progress doesn't always mean doing more sometimes it means understanding yourself a little better. So take a moment to think about how you've been treating yourself. Are you learning from your mistakes or are you using them as evidence against yourself? Are you building on who you were yesterday or are you constantly punishing that person for not knowing what you know now?
The warrior doesn't fight himself. He fights for himself. I'm learning what that looks like in my own life one day at a time. I'm learning to take the lessons without carrying all the shame, to pursue growth without relying on self criticism and to recognize that the person I was yesterday deserves understanding just as much as the person I'm trying to become deserves effort. I'm not writing this because I've mastered it I'm writing it because it's something I need to remind myself of too. We can learn from who we were, take responsibility for who we are and keep building toward who we want to become. It doesn't have to be me versus me. It's me plus me. One percent better, one day at a time.
Actionable Steps for This Week
1. Morning: Choose Your 1% Move
Ask yourself: What's one thing I can do today to become 1% better?
2. When You Slip: Run a Debrief, Not a Trial
Ask yourself: What made that hard for me? What would help me next time?
3. Night: Build on Today
Ask yourself: What did today's me add to yesterday's me?
Practice these three steps this week. Keep learning, adjusting and building on who you were yesterday.
⚔️ Step into the Forge. Listen, reflect and grow.
What if you stopped fighting the person you used to be and started building on who you are today?
In Episode 23, we explore the idea of Me Plus Me and what it means to get 1% better every day. We talk about learning from past versions of ourselves, holding ourselves accountable without tearing ourselves down and why one bad day doesn't erase our progress. Growth isn't about being perfect it's about learning, adjusting and continuing to show up for yourself.
Ready? Step into the Forge. Hit play on YouTube below or listen on Spotify.
MindForge Podcast Episode 23 Link: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1FPOhaZSrNgDyGXGdfiqpr
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