Cameron Allen
Table of Contents
Creating an extraordinary life is something every one of us craves. We all have dreams and aspirations but what are those dreams without a real plan of attack? Just hopeful thinking. We need sturdy principles in this life to navigate the waters and truly become a “life master”. We learned these 22 principles from a book that highlights the transformative nature of the sport of jiu-jitsu. Mastering jiu-jitsu in itself teaches you the principles to master this life!
22 Principles to be a Life Master
1) Mindset
Mindset is everything in this life. The way you frame things in every situation will make or break your ability to see the good things in life OR always find the bad things. It is important that you craft a mindset that tries to see the brighter things life has to offer, cultivate a strong belief in yourself, and always know that anything can be learned over time with immersive action.
Developing a strong growth mindset is something that does not happen overnight. In some cases this can take months or even years, it all depends on your willingness to push forward through any challenges that arise. Deciding for yourself that you will no longer fall under the guise of negative thought patterns is a daily choice we all must make.
2) Momentum
Momentum is the greatest power in the universe.
Think about it.
When you are in space, once something is in motion it will not be stopped unless acted upon a greater or equal amount of force. This a law of physics that has stood the test of time that can apply to our everyday lives.
For better or worse, momentum can impact how we move through this life. Take one step in front of the other and build that positively charged momentum, once you start it is going to be hard to stop what is already in motion!
3) Consistency
Arguably this is one of the most important principles to embody today.
Everyone has shiny object syndrome, chasing after the next high and never following through with what is right in front of them. It is so easy to jump from ship to ship when you have a million distractions being thrown at you a day in the form of a phone signal.
Staying consistent was always a struggle for us until we found jiu-jitsu. It taught us that when you put effort into something, no matter how big or small that is, you will get better over time and we have seen that evolve in our game. Everything great that you will do requires this principle. There is no exception.
If you are serious about mastering anything in the ability to stay consistent will set you apart from all your competition.
4) Discipline
Discipline is described as the practice of training yourself to obey rules or a code of behavior. How your life turns out is all based on your habits as an individual. Habits and creating discipline for those habits is all a behavior that you have to force yourself to obey.
Sometimes having discipline is a challenging thing but anything in life that is easy is never really that rewarding. This again was another principle that we lacked going into 2022 before we found the sport of jiiu-jitsu. You can say that this sport has completely changed the way we operated as a human.
On January 1st of 2022, we started a program called 75 hard. This program requires you to do a number of tasks on a daily basis for 75 days to cultivate that discipline that you may be lacking. We started training jiu-jitsu right around this time and have not looked back since!
5) Principles
Having principles that you stand by is a principle in itself. You can take a number of principles from this list and apply them here.
Being a principled person ultimately gives you a code of \ethics that you can stand by. You draw your line in the sand and stand by it no matter what happens around you. This is not only a very powerful statement to those around you that commands respect but also a tried and true way that people have cultivated extraordinary lives using!
6) Processes
We all only have 24 hours in our day. There is no workaround here with that. All these principles listed so far build on one another. Having processes in place that you habitually follow will build the momentum that you need in order to master life.
Staying consistent with the processes that you build for yourself makes all the difference here.
7) Adaptability
Why does everyone hate change? Because change is an uncomfortable place to be in most cases. It is not fun to have to completely change everything about how you do work, how you act, or how you manage relationships but it is a necessary thing you must do in order to cultivate that extraordinary life.
“Be Water, My Friend. Empty your mind. Be formless, shapeless, like water. You put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle. Be water, my friend.”
Bruce Lee
8) Minimize and Simplicity
Life is already a hard thing to master. No one ever really has this thing figured out.
Nothing listed here is an easy task by any means so why make things more complicated than they need to be? This is where being a good decision-maker and finding the most optimal solution to your problems will come in handy.
Sometimes you will have to maximize the effort you put into things to get the needle moving. But always staying on overdrive is a surefire way to find yourself burning out. Create the systems in your life that will minimize and simplify the critical tasks that you know you have to accomplish.
When you minimize it makes you more focused, when you are more focused you can get more done and become a real expert!
9) Tracking and Bench Marking
Anything in life that is not tracked cannot grow.
How can you make more money if you don’t know how much you are making in the first place? How can you lose weight if you are not at least have an idea of how many calories you are intaking? You get the idea. The more you track and benchmark the things in your life that are important to you ( like health, wealth, love, and personal happiness) the easier it is to become a master in this life.
10) Continuous Deep Learning
You have to stay curious and immerse yourself in tasks that force you to learn. Deep learning is done when you take action and do the things that you have set out to do.
When you seek to learn something deeply, you tell yourself you are willing to fail. Failure is not a bad thing, in 99% of cases it is the most wonderful thing on the planet. Learning is only done through failure, big or small. The harder and faster you fail the more quickly you will learn something!
11) Workload and Stress
This principle goes well with number nine. Getting stressed and not managing your workload is the best way to kill momentum and all the progress you have been making.
You are only human. You cannot get everything accomplished in one sitting. Thinking long-term, managing your time, and finding ways to manage your stress are the building blocks to mastering whatever it is you are setting out to master.
12) Modeling
noun – a standard or example for imitation or comparison
The best artists that have ever existed modeled their work around people who inspired them, this has been outlined in a great book called “Steal like an artist”. You are an artist that is painting a picture called your life, mastering it does not have to be a task that is done alone.
Use others that you are inspired by to help craft an idea of where you would like to head.
13) Do Your Best
This one explains itself. In everything you do, you have to do your best.
Even if you are working a shitty job that you hate, you have to do your personal best. This builds character. The way you do one thing is the way you do all things. Do not compromise on this principle, it will make or break your ability to actualize what you want from life.
14) Goals
When you find a model, you almost instinctually created goals. Goals are nothing but dreams without action so doing your best to build momentum in your pursuit is crucial.
Follow the S.M.A.R.T method when crafting a goal!
15) Visualization
Believing you can achieve something you have set out to do is a very large component of this whole thing. You have to see yourself living that life you imagined before it is actually in front of you. Many will call this manifesting. Whatever you do call it, it is important to note that this is a critical component of life.
Back in college, we created a great habit of writing everything down in places where we could see them daily to help us visualize the life we wanted to live! If creating a vision board is something you are keen to, try that!
16) Ego
The ego is important to self-belief as an aspect of life. You have to have the audacity to believe in yourself and in itself that is ego acting superior. Managing your ego and having a healthy relationship with it is a principle 50% of people do not know how to manage.
Ego gets in the way of someone learning something because they think they know it all or cannot admit to it when they are wrong. The ego is damaged when you fail and come to the realization that you’re not as good as you maybe once thought. EGO will stop you from becoming great if you choose to not manage it properly.
17) Habit
Having good habits builds the building blocks that you need to create this exceptional life that you are looking to build for yourself. The habits you create can be both destructive or positive, be careful with what you are adopting.
18) Become an Artist
Life imitates art.
You are crafting your story as we speak. Falling in love with the game you are playing is a key differentiator for someone who is just going through the motions or actively being the artist/creator of their own life.
Art is playful by nature. Why would you not want to embody this principle? It’s a fun way to look at everything you do.
19) Personal Growth
Personal and constant growth are choices. You can always take one small step in the direction you are looking to head and that is enough.
It is unrealistic to think that you will always have good days, months, or even years. Life happens. But you’ll find out that when you have the last three principles stapled to the front of your mind, your personal growth will be inevitable!
20) Know Your Why
Know why you do the things you do.
Having a greater sense of purpose behind the thing you are pursuing in life allows you to step into that artist’s mindset and freely craft the life that you want to live.
What is your why?
Discover this immediately.
21) Perseverance
It is not surprising that life is challenging. When things get tough how will you react?
Will you fold?
Or will you stand tall as a principled human being that takes charge of the things in your life? Perseverance is a choice. Whether is hard or easy in the moment does not matter, it is a choice!
22) Longevity
Those that think long-term have a significant advantage over those that think in shorter time frames.
Everything great in life takes time to accomplish. Everything worthwhile in life was not given out, it was always earned. When you think in longer time frames the perspectives you have about things change.
Life is long.
The 22 principles to being a master of life is a way to live that is embodied by strong individuals. The crazy thing about all these principles is that jiu-jitsu is the one that taught us these. Grappler’s Graveyard was built to help martial artists become exceptional humans. Helping people embody these principles that we live by is a mission of ours that we will not stop pursuing as we become more of a life master. Making the world a better place for future generations starts with the principles that jiu-jitsu instills into those that allow the sport to transform them!
