Building Your Jiu-Jitsu Future One Goal at a Time

Start your year with inspiration and direction as we explore the art of goal setting in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and beyond. Imagine transforming your training from a routine grind to a purposeful journey filled with small victories and ultimate achievements. This episode promises insights into harnessing the power of structured goals, akin to navigating a marathon, where each step builds towards personal and Jiu-Jitsu mastery. Let's reflect on our personal adventures over the past year, highlighting how structured goals have propelled us forward, even during challenging times. 

Dive into the world of goal-setting strategies with us, where we unpack the SMART method—ensuring your goals are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Explore the various dimensions of setting skill-based, physical, mental, and long-term goals, sharing practical examples designed to inspire and motivate. From aiming to master techniques like the triangle choke to aiming for personal milestones like earning a new stripe, we provide you with the road map to success. Stories of overcoming obstacles, like breaking free from a training partner's grip, underline the importance of persistence and how small goals can provide motivation on tough days.

We invite you to become a part of our caffeinated Jiu-Jitsu community, where sharing and supporting each other's 2025 goals is the norm. Connect with us on Instagram, where the gi stays crisp, and the coffee is always strong. The journey of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is one of continuous growth and camaraderie—let's embrace it together. Don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, and stay engaged with our ever-evolving Jiu-Jitsu conversations.

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Check out Rubber Bones at the website link in the show notes, and remember to use the discount code Caffeinated10 when ordering. 

Caffeinated Jiu Jitsu is a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu podcast focused on BJJ training, competition preparation, mindset development, belt progression, and the lifestyle of grappling.

If you’re looking to improve your Jiu Jitsu, stay motivated during plateaus, recover from injuries, or sharpen your mental game on and off the mats, this podcast is for you.

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Keep Your Passion Brewing

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:02

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Speaker 2 1:03

Welcome to Caffeinated Jiu-Jitsu the blend of white belt enthusiasm, black belt wisdom and a dash of caffeine for that extra kick. Dive deep into the world of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu as we explore the journey, techniques, challenges and the sheer joy of the sport from a white belt's perspective. Challenges and the sheer joy of the sport from a White Belts perspective, from intriguing interviews with renowned coaches and professors to playful fun episodes that'll have you chuckling mid-roll. We've got it all brewed and ready. Now stepping onto the mats and into your ears. Here's your host, joe Motes.

Speaker 1 1:55

Hi everyone and Happy New Year, welcome to 2025, and welcome back to Caffeinated Jiu Jitsu. I have some strong and fully caffeinated content brewing for this year. I want to start, though, by thanking all of those that subscribed and listened to the episodes last year. Thank you to all of those who came up to me in the gym and said that you enjoyed the podcast, and even to all of those who expressed their interest and a love, if you will, for the podcast at the gyms that I visited throughout the US when I was traveling for business, work or pleasure, what have you. I have been extremely humbled by the following the number of listeners, the outreach and just really the support of the podcast and the content. The feedback's all been positive. So, starting everything out this year with just thanks and gratitude and looking forward to getting some great content out there to you, we've got a lot brewing. Like I said, and if you are new to the podcast, this is your first time listening, your first episode that you've downloaded.

Speaker 1 3:26

This is a podcast that dives into topics that are important to those who are generally within their first one to five years of Jiu Jitsu, or those who are interested in learning, maybe, some more about Jiu Jitsu and considering starting their own BJJ journey. I myself have been practicing about two years and some change. I'm a blue belt and I harbor an absolute love for all things Jiu J and, yes, all things caffeinated. I love coffee, I'm a coffee addict and a jujitsu addict, so that's the combination caffeinated jujitsu year.

Speaker 1 4:31

About this time there seems to be a practice that takes place when we, where we when, or where we look back at the previous year and we kind of take a mental and personal inventory of what we accomplished that year, what goals we met, what goals we didn't meet. Did we end up where we wanted to end up at the end of the year? Did we stick to our fitness plan? Did we get that job that we were wanting? Did we get the raise that we were wanting or promotion? Did we spend the amount of time with our kids that we wanted? Did we take that family camping trip? We take a look at all of that.

Speaker 1 5:17

And then when we are either super excited about all the accomplishments or a little bummed that we didn't get to where we wanted to, we tend to look forward and set goals and set new goals for the new year. We call this, you know, making our new year's resolutions. We are just again. We are just again kind of rededicating ourselves to writing our ships and getting to a better place, a better us, maximizing our time, and I couldn't think of a better way to kick off our episodes in the new year than to spend some time talking about this topic. So with that, let's get into it. So, with this episode being surrounded around setting goals and achieving your goals in ju and jiu-jitsu and this can apply to your personal goals as well, outside of jiu-jitsu. But whether you are, you know, this could be the dedicated white belt, or the blue belt that's climbing the ranks, the purple belt that is honing in its technique, the brown belt that is just right, almost at the top of the hill, looking, you know, to grab that elusive black belt. Or is this just again someone that's thinking about stepping onto the mats for their first time? You know, this episode, hopefully, is for you and will give some benefit across kind of the broad spectrum. So let's talk about how to set some meaningful goals in 2025 and some things that can help keep you motivated, consistent and just improving on the mats and then improving in life. So before we begin, I'll share a couple of personal stories here. When I turned 40, I was probably not in the best shape of my life. I wasn't mentally, I wasn't physically, I was stressed, I was just not a pleasant person feeling good about myself on the inside and outside. So I set a goal for myself that by the time I was 45, yes, right, a five year goal that I I would be in a better place mentally, physically, emotionally. I'm not going to spend you know an hour, two hours, going, you know, brick by brick and detail by detail, on how I did it, but I turned 45 on the 28th of December and I took some time during that day to think back all the way to when I was 40. That day, to think back all the way to when I was 40. And I have to say I'm excited to share that I feel like I've met the goals that I wanted to. I am in way better shape than I was. I have, of course, jujitsu, a lot to think for that, especially in the past couple years. Mentally I'm in a better place, much happier than I was. I do have you know, career wise I feel successful. I mean, there's always things that we want, sometimes different in our career, but overall I think I'm in a lot better place. Kids are all healthy, family's all healthy. But it took five years to get me to that place.

Speaker 1 9:29

And I purposely set that far of a goal because I think one of the things that we do when we set goals is we don't. We're not very smart. We tend to jump to the absolute most ridiculous timelines and we're going to talk about how not to do that a little bit later in the episode. But I wanted to give myself time to fail and miss my goal without ultimately missing my goal. And another example or personal kind of connection I'll share is, I guess a few months ago recently you could say I set a goal this is jiu-jitsu goal to improve my half guard.

Speaker 1 10:17

It took me a long time and a lot of frustration to kind of figure out what types of guards and and things like that worked really well for me. And it turns out half guard is the guard I feel most comfortable in. But when I started looking at, you know, half guard and everything that came with it with, you know, retaining half guard, the submissions, the transitions, the sweeps it just felt so overwhelming. There were so many different aspects and techniques in half guard and I wasn't sure really where to start. But by focusing on this one guard at a time and setting very small milestones you know, I think I started out focusing on sweeps. No, no, no, no. I focused on just getting into half guard from different positions and then sweeps, and, you know, by zoning in and setting realistic goals, I saw progress and I continue to see progress.

Speaker 1 11:20

And both of these experiences taught me that you have to set clear goals, not just with the vague hope that you reach the goals, but you have to be specific. And if you can get a process of goal setting that works for you because I believe that there are different goal setting methods that work different for all of us you have to find the right one that works for you. But you can transform not just your jiu-jitsu, but you can transform yourself. And at the end of this episode it's not going to be a very long one I hope that that's what you can take away. You can take some of the goal setting methods I talk about and research them, apply them, put them in use and see if they work for you.

Setting and Achieving Personal Goals

Speaker 1 12:17

But let's talk a little bit about Jiu Jitsu. So jujitsu, it's a long journey. For those of you who have not started jujitsu, it's not like a lot of your other martial arts where you get to a black belt in you know a certain amount of months or weeks or time. You know it's a long journey. I think on average you're looking at anywhere from 10 to 15 years, and it can be longer for some people to achieve a black belt. And then when you achieve a black belt, it's by no means that you are achieving the final leg of the journey. A lot of the black belts that I talk to say that when they got their black belt, they felt like they had a whole other journey ahead of them and I actually hope that's the case, because I don't want this journey to end. I have goals that I want to be setting when I'm 60 and 70, right, I'm just not going to be rolling on the mat and things like that, but maybe it's, you know, understanding a perspective differently or what have you. And you have to remember progress does not happen overnight. You've probably heard the saying, not just in jujitsu, but it's a marathon, it's not a, and that's why setting goals is so crucial. It gives you a sense of direction and purpose. Even when your promotions or your transactional successes successes, you can put your hand on like a medal or a bell promotion or a stripe. Put your hand on like a medal or a bell promotion or a stripe, you see, you will feel so far off or that you hit a plateau that you will get demotivated. So your goals need to be built around. Yes, maybe you want to win gold in a competition. Yes, maybe you want to win gold in a competition. Your reward is an actual piece of metal ribbon, whatever it is. But you also need to set some of those goals where you're not holding something, but deep inside you know you accomplished it. And here's the thing Goals in jiu-jitsu aren't just about getting that neck stripe or that belt. Honestly, thinking about what I just said about the feelings part, it's really about the small daily improvements. Maybe it's you're escaping the bad position faster, you're holding your guard longer or perfecting a sweep. When you have a goal, you're not just rolling aimlessly, you're rolling with intention. And if you could adopt in a personal motto, rolling or training with intention could be and should be it in 2025.

Speaker 1 15:27

So recently, like everyone who listens and trains, we all have our training partners. I don't like to use the word favorite training partners. Everyone I train with is my favorite training partner, as long as they're not crazy. Everyone I train with is my favorite training partner as long as they're not crazy. But there are partners that we roll with in our academies more than others, whether it's just because we're all in the same classes or whatever. But this particular training partner, he's a blue belt, he's older than me Not going to call his age out, make him feel any older than he probably already does, and I'm sure he'll listen to this but he would always get me in gift wrap. Right, he would mount, he would give me a gift wrap and it would frustrate me. He was stronger than me, he's heavier than me and it was almost like I would kind of shut down.

Speaker 1 16:26

So my goal I set a goal about three weeks ago is to figure out how to get out of this training partners gift wrap. And well, I believe it was an out of it. I studied, I watched some videos, I asked coaches and other people who had been training longer than me and I figured out a way out of the gift wrap. And now, hopefully, he throws it on me a little bit less. But that's my point. It's small things. I felt super accomplished. I felt like, wow, this has been something that has given me a lot of trouble in the past. I took some time not a lot of time but I figured it out and now I have that goal.

Speaker 1 17:15

So it's the small things that will keep you going. Yes, you should set long goals, short goals, medium goals, but you have to stay motivated. So you know, think about this when you're, when you're tired after a long day, what, what gets you to class? Sometimes it's discipline, but often it's the pull, the drive to reach a goal. And maybe it's preparing for your first tournament or your 50th tournament, or maybe it's nailing an arm bar. You've been drilling goals. Give you a reason to show up and show up even on the tough days.

Speaker 1 18:10

It's easy to show up on the days that, um, you feel great. You got a lot of sleep, kids went to bed early, you got enough to eat, you were, were hydrated, your alarm clock went off, you jumped out of bed. Shower was extra warm, traffic wasn't bad. It's easy to end your day or start your day with jiu-jitsu training. It's not hard, but your goals are what's going to keep you coming when it takes you an hour and a half to get to work, when your house was loud and jumping at 12.30 am and you had to get up in a few hours, or your alarm clock didn't go off and you overslept, and now you're rushing. You didn't get your two cups of coffee before 10 am up, and now you're rushing. You didn't get your two cups of coffee before 10 am. Those are the days you're going to have to follow on your goals to get you to your training, to keep you motivated.

Speaker 1 19:16

So when we think about goals, one of the things that I thought about when preparing for this episode was how many methods are there for setting goals? I know people who can just think of a goal, say you know what, I'm going to do this, and they don't have to write it out. They don't have to go through a thought process or a mind mapping session or a whiteboarding session. They don't have to write down post-it notes and put in calendar updates. They don't have to do any of that. They just do smoked for years. I mean a lot of all of her adult life, but one day she decided that she was going to quit smoking. She was driving down the road, she rolled down the window, she threw the cigarettes out of the window, she rolled the window up and she said I'm not doing that anymore. And she did it. She never smoked again.

Speaker 1 20:31

And some people can do that, you know. Some people can say you know what? I'm going to put on five pounds of muscle this month and uh, or not this month, but this this year, and they'll go to the gym twice a day, They'll eat properly, and they'll go to the gym twice a day, they'll eat properly and they'll fall into that routine without any, any extra help needed. I would say, for the most part, that's not the majority of us. I think that there are enough people like that to say that there's sometimes not a need for a big, organized, goal-setting plan, if you will, or method, but most of us need some help. We need accountability, we need a method, we need a process, and I'm one of those people, and you may be too.

Speaker 1 21:29

But there's a lot of methods out there. You know, when I started researching and then I thought back to my time in business school, the methods that they taught us there, and there's countless methods, and you could even make up your own, that would fit you. But I want to talk about a few of those and then I'm going to pick one and dive deeper into it and that's going to be the one that we talk mostly about. But I hope you're able to kind of come back to this episode and write down some of these goal methods and research them to see if you know they work for you, if they fit better for you than the one we discuss. But let's take a look at some of these briefly.

Speaker 1 22:19

So the first one that I have here to talk about is OKRs, which stands for Objectives and Key Results. This is, if we're probably labeling these, easiest to hardest. This probably falls within about the mid-range of difficulty of kind of setting up and following and tracking, and it really it kind of cuts away a lot of the noise in between setting the goal and reaching the goal. Okay, you define your objective and you define what you want your key results to be, and then it's the in between that you work on and figure out yourself. The other one and I wasn't familiar with this method so I had to do a little research on this one it's called the WHOOP method. W-o-o-p. It stands for Wish, outcomes, outcomes, obstacles and a plan. I like this one, um, because the wish, of course, is the goal, what we wish, and then the outcome. We define our goal and we define our outcome, but then, before we start thinking about a plan, we start looking at the obstacles, and I think that's I really like that, because when we set goals, I don't think a lot of us think about okay, what are the specific obstacles that can come up?

Speaker 1 24:07

I'll give you an example, beginning of last year, I wanted to work out every morning before work. I also knew at some point during that year that I was going to that my kids were going to have to change schools. We were going to have to change them schools mid-year, or at least at the next school year, and I started out working out in the mornings, going to jujitsu, you know, in the mornings, working out Tuesdays and Thursdays in the gym. I mean, it was, it was flawless and I was, you know, keeping my weight down, I was keeping my training up, but I did not think about the impact that that school chain was gonna have, that school change, what's gonna have to my schedule. And had I thought about that obstacle, I might have adjusted how or my, my plan to get to my outcome differently, and because I didn't, I went from training every morning to working out twice a week, to nothing, to not doing anything for at least a couple months, and it was just like being at the top of the mountain, having all of this amazing I, all of this amazing success or whatever, reaching what I thought was my goal or my outcome, and then having no plan to overcome those obstacles. So you know, the Woot method in that case would have really worked well for me.

Speaker 1 25:47

The GROW model this is one we learned a lot about in my MBA program. It stands for Goal Reality, options and the Will. I like this as well. I remember reading the GROW model book. I read it a couple times. I like it. I like that it has this focus on the reality, because one of the things and we'll talk about this in the goal setting method that I chose to dive into we have to set realistic goals, and the other thing I really like about this method is the wheel. Are we really dedicated to this goal? Are we really putting things in the perspective and understanding that, yes, this is achievable, but do I really want to achieve that? Do I really really want that? Is the juice worth the squeeze for reaching this goal? Because if we get halfway down our plan and we just no longer have any interest in that goal, then we are going to fail and we are going to have to reevaluate and set a new goal.

Speaker 1 27:14

One of the ones that I wasn't familiar with and I didn't dive too far into is the Eisenhower Matrix.

Speaker 1 27:19

It's basically prioritizing your tasks based on urgency and importance and, if anyone, I'm not going to go any further than that, because I didn't really understand it when I did my research.

Speaker 1 27:28

If there's anyone who has any experience with the Eisenhower matrix goal setting method, reach out to me. Let me know more about that. It seemed kind of cool, but did not seem like it would apply a lot to setting jujitsu goals. The last one I want to talk about before we move on to the one I chose is the four disciplines of execution, or 4DX. Now, I use this in every professional goal setting method that I am in charge of, or that I set, that that I I I am in charge of or that I set Um. So the reason I like this one a lot and I almost almost chose it, but I thought it would be a little more kind of complex and really applies a lot to setting business goals, but I really like it because it ties to not just creating goals and strategies to reach those goals, but also execution. Okay, so the first step is identifying your wildly crazy, important goal right, whatever that is. Then identifying what's called the leading and lag measures.

Effective Goal Setting in Jiu-Jitsu

Speaker 1 28:50

Okay, leading measure is an action or attacks that will instantly drive you towards your goal or help you, you know, like giant steps towards your goal. And a lag measure is something you do that will kind of give you a residual boost to your goal. And then it is establishing a system of accountability and then, lastly, creating a scoreboard and tracking your progress. So really love the four disciplines of execution. There's an amazing book to that. I'll try to remember to put a link to that book on amazon and the notes. It's well worth your read. But each method offers a unique way to approach goals and the context. Now the method that I chose to talk about for our conversation in this episode is the SMART S-M-A-R-T framework. It's a game changer. It's one of the most popular ways of setting goals. A lot of you have probably heard about this method and it stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time bound, and it's simple but powerful. So let's break it down. So let's start with specific instead of saying let's see, instead of saying I want to get better at jiu-jitsu something, write down something like I want to improve my side control and escapes. A specific goal should give you clarity and focus the more specific you can be about a goal, the better and the more clear that goal will be for you. So let's look at measurable. How do you know if you're improving? You have to make your goal something that you can measure. For example, I want to successfully escape side control eight out of ten times okay, during line rolls. Now what you have is you have a clear way to track progress and can do this through journals. There's all kind of apps. You you need to put some numbers in some way to measure it. Achievable. This, um, if you think back to I think it was oh gosh, what was it? Was it the? It was the grow model where we talked about reality. You want to be realistic. If you are a white belt new to jujitsu and you're setting a goal to master, say, flying arm bars in a month, that might be a stretch. Set goals that challenge you but are still within your reach. Escaping side control is a great one, you know. Escaping mount Cross choke, learning how to be effective with cross choke from mount. You know, keep things as simple as possible or as a better way, maybe not simple as possible, but realistic. They have to be achievable, something that you can reach. Relevant. It's really about focusing on what matters to your jujitsu journey. If you remember when I talked about earlier, when we were talking about I think it was the grow model again where we were talking about the wheel right, it has to be relevant to keep you motivated. You have to want to reach this goal. There has to be something in it that you can't not want to fail at right. And if self-defense is your priority, maybe your goal is to master three self-defense techniques by the end of the year. If competing and placing on the podium is something that's important to you, maybe you say by the end of the year I will have competed in two IBJJF tournaments or other local smaller tournaments.

Speaker 1 35:10

The last part of the SMART method is time bound. I think this is probably one of the most crucial parts of goal setting is you have to put some kind of time, some kind of deadlines. Deadlines create urgency and instead of I'll improve my guard eventually say I'll master the basics of, let's say, close guard by June. Right when I set that long goal at 40 years old, I didn't say you know, I'm 40 now, in a few years I'm going to be healthier. Or I'm 40 now and over time I'm going to be healthier, or I'm 40 now and over time I'm going to get healthier, starting now. No, I said, from when I become, when I turn 45, I am going to be this, I am going to feel accomplished in these areas and even though it was five years and it took me five years, it was time bound. Now I don't recommend saying that you'll, you know, telling yourself you want to put some kind of date, time frame around your goals, and when you're thinking about that sounds great, joe, the SMART framework, I get it, I understand, but I'm having a hard time even thinking of some goals. You know, I'm new to jiu-jitsu, I'm new to this journey, and I don't really even know what I should be setting goals around.

Speaker 1 37:11

Well, I think, some goal-type examples, if we think about it. I think I can think of four, maybe off the top of my head. One would be a skills-based goal. Maybe you want to sharpen your sweeps or your submissions, you know. Think about an actual skill. We've talked about close guard. We've talked about oh gosh, what was the side control escapes, something that's skill-based, that you want to improve on.

Speaker 1 37:50

And the second one that I'm thinking of is your training habits. And this is huge because if you, if you set a goal around your training habits, you're also going to be improving your skills-based goal, right, you're going to be working towards it. It's like a goal helping you achieve another goal. What this would look like would be commit to drilling, you know, four times a week, or, you know, maybe you have the ability to drill a few minutes before class starts, maybe 10 minutes. Get there early, you and a partner and you, you train or drill something from the previous day's class. Maybe you um, maybe you didn't get to it. You know, you set a goal. If I can't make three hours of in-class training, then I'm going to substitute two hours of, you know, studying my notes from previous classes or watching an instructional from your professor or another professor, say on BJJ Fanatics or something like that. But you're going to invest time in your training, right, so create a training habit.

Speaker 1 39:07

Another one that comes to mind is competition goals competing in your first, let's say, tournament by end of year, october. Right, we're in January. By October I'm going to compete in my very first tournament, you know, as a white belt or as a blue belt or what have you. And then I think the last one would be setting physical fitness goals. I think there's a reason.

Speaker 1 39:34

Many people's go-to in setting goals has something to do with physical fitness, you know, to build endurance and to feel better about ourselves. It's, it's just whatever. Maybe it's just human nature, but almost you know, you have 10 people here in a room, different ages, different backgrounds, different lifestyles. I guarantee you a large portion of those. If you ask what are your goals for 2025, the majority of them at some point, if they list one to two to three goals, fitness is going to be in there. I would bet the farm on it. Fitness seems to be a reoccurring goal for people, so I think it will continue to be a good goal for health reasons. It builds endurance. Like I said, you know you want endurance to roll, say, five rounds without gassing out. So setting a physical fitness goal is another example of a goal that you can set for yourself if you're having a hard time thinking about goals, so skills-based training habits, some type of competition goal if you want to compete. And then, what are your physical fitness goals? Is it to be able to go to an open mat and roll 10 rounds? Is it to be able to make it through a three minute round without passing out. You know what is it? Is it to become stronger, where you're able to bridge and get heavier people off of you that you may not have ever gotten off before? What is it?

Speaker 1 41:19

When thinking about goal setting, I think it's important to talk about a few other things. One of those is addressing plateaus, because in the goal setting process, plateaus are always going to show up. They're part of the journey. No matter what method you use, no matter what goal you set, plateaus are going to show up, especially in jujitsu training. You're training consistently, but progress feels like it's slowing down. And what do you do about that? Well, first you're going to revisit your goals. Are they still motivating? Do you still have that will? Were they realistic? I mean, are you still driven for this goal or were they too broad? And sometimes all it takes is breaking them down into smaller, more actionable steps, more measurable steps, as the SMART method kind of shows us. And then the other thing is staying motivated. And if I'm given a tip, here's a tip it's celebrate the small wins. Hit a sweep. You've been working on. That's progress. Escape a mount against a tough opponent. Celebrate that. These moments keep you motivated. It doesn't matter that that same person submitted you seven times in the roll. You swept them. You swept them.

Speaker 1 43:00

I used to celebrate, or I still celebrate when I almost sweep someone. I have a tendency to seek training with the giants in my gym, people that I know are going to crush me and that I have very little chance of landing anything against. But I do that because my goal is to be better. My goal is to be the best I can be, and the way I do that is I go after training partners that are going to push me, that are going to make me uncomfortable, that are going to just bring it out of me. So when I almost land a baseball choke, or I almost scissor sweep somebody that outweighs me by almost 100 pounds, or and it rarely happens when I land a takedown on someone by a miracle that are bigger and stronger and more athletic than me, I celebrate it and I encourage you to celebrate your wins. And you know, look, we're early in our journey. We're going to lose way more in jujitsu training and matches and competitions than more than likely we're going to win. Okay, uh, yeah. There's some prodigies out there that just step on the mat anything, everything, all the way from white belt all the way to black belt, but that is not the norm. That is not a barometer of success in jiu-jitsu. So stay motivated and celebrate your small wins and your giant ones, but definitely your small ones.

Speaker 1 44:48

The other thing to talk about is accountability, and accountability is key. So you want to share your goals with your coach or your training partner. This is something that I do. I have training partners that I talk about goals that I'm working on. I think everybody in the gym knows by now that I'm working on Half Guard because I've asked them questions and how they use it and I definitely absolutely leverage conversations with my professor.

Speaker 1 45:21

Professor Maciel is amazing. He cuts through. He doesn't give you any fluff. He doesn't give you any BS. He cuts through. He doesn't give you any fluff. He doesn't give you any BS. If I go to him and say I am going to solely only start working rolling Kimuras and Wormguard and he's going to look at me like I just stepped off an alien spaceship, he is going to give it to me straight and tell me I'm insane and no Right.

Speaker 1 45:55

Your professors watch you roll day in, day out. They watch you from the first day you step on to five years down the road. They know you, they know what you're capable of. They know your level of athleticism. They know how your age has impacted your body. If you're an older practitioner, they, they know what works for you. So listen to them. Listen to them and maybe even keep a training journal.

Speaker 1 46:25

I'm a huge proponent of, and maybe even keep a training journal. I'm a huge proponent of, or a huge supporter of, training journals. Every new person that comes to Alliance Roswell, and if they ask me, or sometimes I'll just tell them hey, think about keeping a training journal. And one thing about this, though this goes into accountability If you keep a journal and you write all this technique down, you keep all these detailed notes, make sure you're going back and reading it and studying it. Your, your jujitsu journal should, should act like a textbook to help you improve you. You know, you write down what you're working on, what went well, what you need to improve. And then the last thing to kind of sub-share here is about adjusting your goals. It is okay. It is okay to pivot. Life happens If you get injured or your schedule changes. Adjust your goals. Instead of focusing on rolling, maybe you just switch to studying techniques and or improving mobility and flexibility. Don't think, because you said something on January 1st, that by March it can't be adjusted. So let's think about a step-by-step process.

Effective Jiu-Jitsu Goal Setting

Speaker 1 47:54

If we're creating your action plan for 2025, start by reflecting on the past year. What went well, what didn't, what? Maybe you improved your takedowns, maybe you improved your takedowns, maybe you improved your takedowns, but you struggled with your guard retention and use that insight to guide your goals. And if you're just starting, you know and let's say you're within your first week I guarantee you within your first week, there's goals you can set going forward, right. There's goals you can set going forward right. Maybe it's learning how to break fall or learning how to forward roll or back roll or shrimp and hip escape or technical stand up. I mean, there are things within the first half, an hour of your very first class. There are things that you're going to see that, oh wow, I need some work on that. So I'm going to set some goals on that. Some work on that. So I'm going to set some goals on that.

Speaker 1 48:53

So, if you think about a template for your goals, set three goals for the year and that's going to be a skill goal, right? That can be something like mastering the triangle choke by June. A physical, mental goal, maybe it's improving flexibility to play open guard comfortably. And then a long term goal, something like earning my first stripe by December, okay, and then you're going to want to break those goals, each of those, into steps. Now, all of this, you're using your smart method. Now, all of this, you're using your SMART method. Right, you are not deviating from the specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound model that we discussed, okay, but you're breaking them down now into steps For the triangle choke.

Speaker 1 49:48

It would be, you know, step one might be drilling setups twice a week. Step two would be sparring with the intent to use it during a role, and step three would be reviewing that progress every month. Okay, and this is something that I've started to follow with Half Guard, especially on my sweeps, going into the first of the year. And then you're going to want to, you know, kind of second, to last create a routine. Consistency is always going to be keen. Commit to a schedule that works for you, whether it's three times a week or two hard sessions and one light one. Build a plan and stick to it if you're, if we're continuing with the example of the triangle choke. The only way to you know perform, or when you break your goals down in a step, the only way to to do those things is by you being consistent and setting time to train and do those things. And then the last thing is you want to um, you want to track your progress, write it down, use an app. Even a simple notebook works. Seeing how far you come is a huge motivator.

Speaker 1 51:12

I think that's about it for the things I wanted to talk about around setting goals setting jujitsu goals in 2025. 2025. Okay, I want to really reiterate that. Yes, I covered the SMART method. I talked about different ways to break down goals. I kind of talked to you really quickly through a step-by-step process and a goals template.

Speaker 1 51:47

If you're having trouble developing goals, we talked about, you know, skill-based goals, training habits, competition goals and physical fitness goals. But look, this is just a sounding board. If you're having trouble thinking about setting goals, or if you set goals every year, especially around jiu-jitsu, and you never made them, take a look at your or you've never achieved them. Take a look at your methods. Make sure that you're being specific and you're defining your goal right out. Make sure that it's something that you can track and measure and see your success. Make sure it's something that you even want to do. It's relevant to where you want to get to in your jujitsu journey.

Speaker 1 52:44

Juj need to enunciate jujitsu better this year. That's the goal of mine. And then you also need to make sure they're time bound. You need to put specific times around it. So all the methods we talked about before we went to the smart methods, some way or another do those things. You just have to figure out what works for you.

Speaker 1 53:13

And before we wrap up, there's a there's a couple of quotes that that have really stayed with me over my time in jujitsu is not about perfection, it's about persistence, and I've heard a black belt say and I think this was on IG but that the mat never lies. Show up, set your goals and put in the work, and the mat is going to show you the results. So the mat never lies. And then the last one that I want to share with you is a quote that I heard from one of our guests last last year Sometimes the purpose of the journey is not arriving. It made so much sense to me and that's the way I am looking at it is that the point of the journey is not arriving.

Speaker 1 54:25

I'd love to hear your goals for 2025. Share them on Instagram if you're part of the caffeinated jiu-jitsu Instagram community, and be sure to tag hashtag caffeinated jiu-jitsu. Let's build a community there of motivated practitioners inspiring each other. And if you've enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review and share it with your training partners. And, yeah, let's help more people discover the journey of jiu-jitsu. And for those of us who are new, let's bond together and keep ourselves motivated and informed, and just stay connected. Again, if you're not following the Instagram caffeinated jiu-jitsu community, be sure you do for more updates and tips. There's a lot of things that we're going to be or that I'm going to be doing via the instagram page this year. And remember, every day on the mats is progress. Train smart, roll safe and keep your passion brewing strong.

Speaker 2 55:47

And that's the final tap on today's episode of. Caffeinated Jiu-Jitsu. A big thanks to all of our listeners, especially today's insightful guest, for sharing their BJJ knowledge and tales. If you felt that adrenaline rush and are hungry for more, hit, subscribe, drop a review and the jujitsu buzz. For show notes and to contact the host, reach out to the email provided in the podcast description and to join our grappling community, head over to Instagram. Get those geese, crisp your coffee strong and always be prepared for the next role.