GNT #176: I should have tapped

Welcome to Grow North Thursday - One idea each week to help you grow on purpose, build healthy profit, and live like you mean it.

Forwarded this? ​Subscribe here.

read time: 2 minutes

Years ago, I ended up flipped and folded into a pretzel on the mat, and for the next three weeks I couldn't turn my head to check a blind spot.

My kids were little then. They were in the kids' jiu-jitsu class in the next room, and I'd joined the adult class so I could train and get some movement while they trained. I was an exhausted mom then. But this was my hour, bought and paid for, so I went.

I knew before warm-ups ended that I shouldn't be going hard. I was slow, sloppy, and every drill felt really difficult.

Then we rolled. And toward the end of class, there was a very clear moment where I should have tapped.

I didn't. I pushed.

The injury healed. The more useful thing I learned was why people like me (and maybe like you), the ones who pride themselves on pushing through, find it so hard to stop.

Let's dig in.

Tapping is a skill

In jiu-jitsu, you tap to say stop. A double pat with your hand on your partner, or on the mat, before a hold (a submission) turns into an injury. It ends the round, and you restart.

Most people think tapping is losing. It really isn't. You learn something, and it's the whole reason you get to train again tomorrow.

It's a skill, and you train it like any other move. You learn when to do it, and how to read the moment before the moment. It's an integral part of the technique.

I knew all of that. I'd been taught it. That day on the mat, I read the moment, felt my body tell me to stop, and pushed through it anyway.
 

Why it was so hard

I think of myself as resilient and highly adaptable. You might think of yourself this way too.

I'm proud of that. It's carried me through a lot of hard things, and I've gotten good at the part where you put your head down and keep going.

Which is exactly why tapping is hard for me.

The thing I'm good at, pushing through, adapting, enduring, is the thing that makes stopping feel like failing. I never had to learn to stop. My whole skill set was built on not stopping. So when my body handed me accurate information on that day, better information than my plan had, I overrode it. Not because I couldn't read it, but because stopping wasn't a skill I cultivated very well.

Takeaway

Resilience without stopping isn't more resilience. It's a faster way to run yourself down. If you're proud of how much you can push through, this skill is probably the hardest one for you, and the one you need most.

On and off the mat, the strongest people I know are the quickest to tap when they see the signs.

I'm still learning it. 

I'm always rooting for you. See you next week.

-Colleen

📩 If you’ve found value in this newsletter, please forward it to a friend. It’s the biggest way you can support my work, and I appreciate it so much.

For more short, grounded ideas throughout the week, you can follow me on LinkedIn.

If someone forwarded this to you, you can subscribe here to get it each week.