On the plateau, it can seem like there’s little or no progress made each day. Then we’ll have some peaks and valleys, but most of the time, the line appears flat. So what can help, besides reminding yourself that most of our lives are spent on the plateau, is to look at your month-to-month growth instead of the day-to-day.
Matt Serra talks about this briefly in his Gallerr course with Renzo Gracie.1 He says we all have bad days in class and it can be easy to get discouraged, but if we compare ourselves to last month’s self, improvement is usually obvious.
Closely related to that, was Renzo’s advice, which was just to keep coming to class. And in order to do that, make sure you have a big smile and have fun.
Both are all about enjoying the journey. That’s life. It’s just another reminder that jiu-jitsu’s lessons apply to so much off the mat.