They say honesty is the best policy but it can sometimes be a little difficult, especially when telling the truth might hurt someone’s feelings. Most everyone is guilty of telling a lie from time to time, though we will rarely admit to doing so. We often shield our lies under the guise of being polite and our kids see us doing it day in and day out. So, if we cannot even be honest ourselves, how are we to ever teach our kids the value of honesty?
Why Should Anyone Attempt to Practice Honesty?
Many people are surprised to learn honesty can be practiced until it becomes a mastered skill. We train our bodies in practices, such as Martial Arts, but we often do not put this same focus of attention on the skills that shape our character and make us honorable people. If it takes great focus to shape the body and mind, why shouldn’t it take the same to develop a character of integrity?
Have you ever been asked a question and immediately found yourself thinking up a lie to say? “Do you like my new haircut?” You really dislike her new haircut but you do not want to hurt her feelings. So, you lie and say you love it but what does that do to your honesty meter? Does your character develop towards honorable or dishonorable when you do this on a regular basis?
When you go to the gym to train, you know you are going to feel uncomfortable and you are going to have to push yourself to the very limit to gain success. This goes with Martial Arts training, sports, or any other physical endeavor. We must look at practicing honesty as a means of stretching ourselves to the point of discomfort so we can be a better person. This applies to adults and kids of all ages. Work must be put in to see success.
What Lying Traps are Waiting For You?
* Your spouse cooks dinner but they put way too much salt in the soup. Do you tell them the truth or eat it, while smiling and pretending you are enjoying it? How will they ever learn to be a good cook unless they get honest feedback?
* Your friend wants to buy a new skirt but it does nothing for her figure. Will you be honest and tell her so she can avoid making a bad purchase? Do you really want your friend walking around looking less attractive than she could?
* Your mom just made you your “favorite” cookies again and you really dislike them and wish she would stop. Can you look mom in the eye and let her know? Do you want your mom to keep wasting her precious time making you something you dislike?
There are many traps that we all fall into and they can be cumbersome to overcome. We don’t want to hurt those we care about but are we hurting them more when we lie? Perhaps, we are hurting ourselves more than anyone because we are slowly becoming less honest each time we tell one more “little white lie”.
It Takes a Concerted Effort to Develop Honesty
Every parent knows the importance of training during parenting but we often forget to train ourselves. We do not realize the impact we are making on our kids’ lives when we constantly lie. When we approach honesty from a training standpoint, our goals become benefits. We strive to reach our goals by working hard and then we reap the benefits by changing who we are, for the better.
Honesty training is not going to be easy, especially if you have built up a lifetime habit. Before you begin your training, it is important you realize how you would feel if you knew someone was lying to you, no matter how small the lie. Would you want to know you made the soup too salty? Would you rather a friend tell you the one you are interested in is no good for you?
You first need to discover why you feel the need to lie instead of being honest with your friends, family, and acquaintances. When you focus on being honest, it can sometimes be embarrassing and uncomfortable. We may be afraid we are coming across too bluntly. Being honest requires true clarity in the situation. Sometimes, we fall into the trap of lying simply because it is easier and we do not ruffle any feathers along the way. Instead, we slowly destroy our foundation of honesty and lose who we really want to be.
How Can You Get Started?
1. Always be honest with yourself! We often lie to ourselves more than anyone else. Look at yourself in the mirror and be brutally honest with who you are, blemishes and all. Be you and only you and you will never have to pretend you are something you are not. Do this once a day to begin changing your integrity level.
2. You must realize you are showing kindness when you are honest with others. This is going to take practice so you may want to start with someone you know you can trust, who will not be easily offended. Make a goal of being honest every time you speak with this person, no matter the conversation. If you can master honesty with this with one person, you are well on your way to becoming a truly honest person.
3. Practice makes perfect in any method of discipline, including honesty. When you know you are going to be around a person or in a situation that normally triggers your impulse to lie, prepare yourself by practicing in the mirror. You may even find it helpful to video yourself so you can see your facial expressions and listen to the tone in your voice. This can help you look at yourself through the eyes of others so you can be honest without causing undue offense.
When you take careful consideration before you speak, you will find yourself being empowered with honesty. Instead of blurting out an immediate response to a question or comment, think on your answer and ask yourself is what you are about to say true and is it necessary. If you answer yes to both, you need to say it!
No, it will not be easy at first! Your heart is going to pound like it will burst your chest. You might find yourself sweating and you may feel tension all over your body. This is the same way you will feel when pushing your body to the limits but think about the end rewards. Just like your body changes from the hard work you put in, so can your integrity.
Conclusion
The benefits of honesty are profound because your new level of integrity will begin to have a positive effect on every aspect of your life, including those you care about. Parenting is difficult for every man and woman and we all fail at some point, no matter how hard we try. When we train to be honest people, we are showing our kids a life-changing message they will take with them into adulthood.
There is always someone watching you and learning from your actions, especially your kids. Kids learn more from what we do than what we say. What are you teaching your kids each day? If you are a little concerned over that answer, consider holding yourself accountable to honesty training each day and see the changes it can make in your life and the lives of those around you. Decide how bad you want it and what level of discomfort you are willing to feel to obtain your goals. Remember, you are not only shaping your character, you are also helping to shape your child’s!
A large number of us suffer from several issues associated with self confidence. Whether it is in our schools, workplace or anywhere else, certain things are bound to happen that cripple our self-esteem and ruin our confidence altogether. But did you know that every time we confront our fears, we end up gaining a lot of inherent strength and confidence? This is exactly how Martial Arts, helps us. Martial Arts, challenges our comfort levels and compels us to confront obstacles. It teaches is to come face to face with our fears. Taking up Martial Arts might seem incredibly difficult for both kids and grownups. But once you get the drill, your confidence levels are boosted like never before.
Self confidence is nothing different from your body. All you need to do is exercise and develop it in order to be stronger and fitter. In martial arts, this happens over a period of time and every small success that you achieve in your training sessions makes it possible for you to achieve larger and better goals. With every small success, your self confidence increases and you feel like challenging yourself once again. Martial arts can help you in setting and achieving goals while giving you the strength and perseverance of mind even when the situations seem to be adverse.
There is nothing better for a child than having confidence, high-self esteem and courage at a very young age. In most cases, one of the main things that affect a child’s confidence is fear. Whether we accept it or not, but bullying has indeed become an insurmountable evil in your child’s everyday reality. These cases even tend to extend till the early adulthood of the child.
Kids are extremely vulnerable to anxiety, and there is nothing more traumatizing for them than to be exposed in a kind of environment that constantly terrorizes them. Whether it is bullies or family tiffs, martial arts, will help your little one to understand who they truly are and how to control and handle these situations around them. When a child is trained to face an opponent in a touch martial arts’ match, he will end up gaining enough courage. The confidence they get would enable them to take on the different challenges that life puts up for them. Challenges are indeed an excellent crucible, and a child who learns to tackle these challenges, are not at all afraid of accomplishing any goal. No adverse situation will intimidate them anymore.
Martial arts, normally takes your child through a beautiful journey and helps them to discover their true personality. And children do need that. As they try concentrating in mastering the different levels, their confidence and courage will grow significantly. They will get a feeling of accomplishment and realize that they can do and perform anything without being afraid.
A tad bit of self-confidence can truly transform the lives of your kid. It will help them to handle different situations, experience hard times, lose excess weight and do many more things. When it comes to martial arts, one of the main focuses would be that on self-discipline. It will also help in making them even more disciplined, thereby reminding them how to act in different situations. You will observe that the martial artists are more likely not to get into an ugly spat even when provoked, as they are completely aware of protecting themselves. Due to this reason, they will be more comfortable and confident in trying to talk their way out of a particular situation.
Having the proper training on how to fight and ample confidence to do so, doesn’t really mean that your child will be knocking off everyone who stands on their way. Rather, martial arts will teach them to resolve conflicts in a non-violent way. Although most of us have a perception that Martial arts can be violent, in reality the style and technique incorporated in this sport is much different from what is telecasted in the shows. There are many defensive styles and techniques that render insight on peaceful resolution of conflict.
Other than self confidence, this self-defensive mechanism is also likely to improve the skills of your child in various other sectors of life. For instance, the fitness levels of your child will increase, he will have better skills for teamwork, he will learn to set goals on his own and achieve them at the same time. Additionally, it will also boost the socialization skills of your child and he will learn to understand and manage both the academic and non-academic aspects of school. In this way, martial arts will help in developing a respectful and responsible teenager.
Enrolling your child in these classes, will play a vital role in building their strength, stamina and endurance levels. It will change the way your child thinks, improve their creativity and develop a better sense of self-esteem. The training will go much beyond the simple concept of self-defense and will truly transform the life of your child.
Why Martial Arts, builds more confidence than any other sport?
It has been observed that any tedious and rigorous sport can effectively increase both your mental and physical fitness, thereby turning up your level of confidence. But since time immemorial, martial arts have been observed and proven to render excellent results in a wide variety of aspects. Why is this so?
Firstly, martial arts, is a personal endeavor where training is provided in a room with students following a particular decorum. Here, the individual results totally depend on your individual efforts, unlike the different team sports where you need to consistently rely on others for support.
Secondly, the structure of martial arts is empirical. This means, the level of difficulty will rise as you eventually progress. Your challenges too will increase in terms of requirements and complexity with each new level. The prestige and self respect that you will earn through every color of belt will be extremely satisfying and motivating.
This controlled structure and environment of martial arts will help you develop a better physique, body language, stance and a posture. These extremely visible and tangible effects will reduce the severity and instances of the different perceptions that lead to low-self esteem and self doubt.
While training in martial arts, you will observe that there are different points of training that will ask you to be confident even in the situations where you are really not. For instance, when you are testing for belts you get to experience public demonstration, when you spar with someone else you have this slight fear of losing or getting hurt, when you train self defense you realize that bad things are likely to happen; but despite this, you face these challenging situations and develop a greater level of self esteem. Ultimately you get the opportunity to practice the most uncomfortable things in a regulated and comfortable environment until you gain a particular level of confidence. This is the confidence that lets you sail through the chaotic environments. Once you see these visible results, there’s absolutely no looking back.
Training sessions will boost your confidence
Martial arts, not only boosts the self-confidence of your child, but it also plays a significant role in boosting your inherent self esteem. I don’t know whether you realize this, but in reality, you end up building your confidence every time you show up to the classes. Simply bowing and stepping for your dojo sessions takes a lot of courage and every time you end up doing it, you also end up being stronger.
Well, I don’t know how you feel, but I definitely feel butterflies in my tummy when my trainer asks me to spar with someone. Every time I am asked to spar, I take one deep breath and compel myself to go out there and get it done. As soon as the match commences, the butterflies are replaced with a focus. This is the focus that drives me to give my best shot. And this is exactly how martial arts training, effectively boosts your confidence. When you are an adult you will realize that the butterflies you get when you’re asked to spar or perform a kata in front of your classmates and trainer are the same butterflies that you experience when you are supposed to give some important presentation, consult with your boss about a relevant assignment or when you are about to call some major client.
The different spheres where Martial arts boosts your confidence
Bully/bullying- One of the worst things that hurts us most while we are bullied is the feeling that we are helpless. But proper training in martial arts can help us solve this issue. Once you understand that you do have a way out to escape bullying, it will hurt considerably less and you will be tad more confident while confronting bullies.
Inferiority complex- There are many individuals who feel that they are not strong or powerful enough to handle any complex situation. The media had brainwashed us in such a way that anyone of us who do not fit the societal standards of being strong and powerful, can feel insecure about ourselves. But martial arts will flawlessly tackle this issue and restore your confidence back. It will make you feel good about yourself once again and increase your self esteem immensely.
Attractiveness- Most people prefer being with a tough significant other who can protect them and help them and help them to combat difficult situations. The ability to protect oneself and one’s family is an immensely attractive trait for many. Martial arts will help you with this and further ensure that you get your lost confidence and self esteem back.
Helps in both physical and mental development
Training yourself in one or more of the programs taught at the martial arts sessions can help you to develop both physically and mentally. As you constantly train, your body will get tad more powerful and lean. Due to this, you will look and feel better about yourself. Just imagine looking at your reflection in the mirror and seeing a fitter and stronger body. This will automatically give you an entirely new level of self-esteem. A strong body will aid in developing a stronger and better mind.
Another excellent thing about the martial arts session is the martial arts concept that suggests that you tend to be stronger both physically and mentally when your skills improve. This is indeed a very practical skill that can be used in any kind of situation that requires self defense or in a situation where your loved one or acquaintances are being threatened. This will empower you once again and boost yourself confidence. The very idea that you can indeed look after your loved ones and your family will effectively boost your self esteem.
Handling everything that comes your way
As you train for martial arts you will soon develop a feeling that’ll assure you and tell you that you can actually handle everything that comes by your way. This is because you have already exposed yourself to challenging situations in a competitive environment and performed your best in every session. With these training sessions you are actually conditioning and building your confidence. You are getting a chance to develop and strengthen it in every class. You are training and preparing yourself for focusing and performing under pressure, irrespective of the situation or the incident that causes the pressure. And this is exactly why martial arts, is an excellent tool for building and enhancing self confidence both in children and adults. You will never find something that builds and develops your confidence in a safe, fun and interesting way at the same time. You will never end up with something like this that will push you to perform and give your best shot.
Whether it is through the martial arts classes or through participating in the martial arts tournaments, every time you push and compel yourself to train, you end up building your confidence and a stronger part of yourself. With every one of those punches and kicks, you get to build a stronger self both on the inside and the outside. Keep up your training to feel and exude this confidence in every sphere of your life.
