I consider myself a follower of the Way – both through the Chen and Tao traditions in China and the Zen in Japan. And I believe the differences you describe stem from how a school/teacher understands them more than the cultural differences between the two countries. And it also has to do with how big is the school and what its BUSINESS focus is – add the Korean Tae Kwon Do and the money making machine it is in the USA at least.

Must have been a good class! Was it with this guy?

http://www.dreamworks.com/kungfupanda/images/uploads/characters/shifu_action.png

Slow and steady definitely wins the race. I wish I had learned that at your age! If you haven’t seen it, this course is all about what you aptly called the “mastery mindset”:

https://flowingzen.mykajabi.com/p/2-minute-qigong-for-healthy-habits

Thank you for this article and have a great day.

The statements about being able to train during old age are particularly useful to me. At 66, and after undergoing a six hour operation, I’am unable to bounce back from the hard daily training of a few years ago, and had to pursue a more relaxed approach. Your notes helped me choose something similar to the kung fu outlook you talk about.

Thank you so much. My current problem is this: I have worked hard and come very far in an online course I’m taking to become a certified English teacher. The program involves preparing lesson plans on certain subjects and then presenting those lessons to an advisor via Skype, as if you’re presenting to real students. On many of the lessons I have had to rewrite my lesson plan a couple of times because I’m new to teaching and my advisor has found some errors in almost all my lesson plans. On one of the lessons, I had to rewrite the lesson plan three times and then redo the presentation once more after my advisor wasn’t completely satisfied with my first presentation. Don’t get me wrong – I’m a very good student and my advisor is very satisfied with me. It’s just that she doesn’t pass her students lightly. Which is really OK. But I became frustrated at the very last lesson of the program. I have rewritten this lesson plan seven times and when my advisor requested an eighth revision, I was so frustrated that I stopped working completely. Now, my strategy after that was just to wait until my battery was recharged, so to speak. And I think my strategy is actually working: I haven’t been doing anything for the last month, and as a result of that I feel that my battery is almost full again. Now, this is OK, since the program lets you work on your own pace. But losing a month still seems like a waste. It also means that I’ll start working a month later. I’m not in financial difficulties, so that’s OK, too. But, still, it would be better to start sooner rather than later, and, who knows, in the future this procrastination trait of mine could do me harm in a situation that is not as flexible as the one I am in right now. Now, most people wouldn’t wait a month to recharge like I did. Instead, they would push themselves. But I don’t do that because in the past, when I did push myself in similar situations, it didn’t help. On the contrary, it often made things worse. So, my question is this: is there a third way? I.e., is there another way to handle procrastination, a way that is somewhere between just pushing yourself and waiting a month to recharge? Thank you very much. Best regards – Gursu

Hi Gursu. Thanks for the kind words. You’re welcome to ask questions here. If you want to develop more willpower, then I have an online course on the subject. There is even a special offer right now: https://flowingzen.mykajabi.com/p/depression-anxiety-plus-willpower-course-bundle