Tuesday, January 15, 2008

三日坊主 (mikka bouzu)


In Japanese, there is an expression "三日坊主" (mikka bouzu), which means "three-day monk". It is used to describe people who start things with big promises and great enthusiasm, but never see them through to the end. A person who decides to get in shape, buys a $1000 membership to a health club and a new training wardrobe, and ends up training like gangbusters only to quit three weeks later would be a 三日坊主. Let's all strive to NOT be 三日坊主 in 2008!

8 comments:

SF said...

Here are a few things why some people never see it through the end:

Time...Lets face it, some people are impatient and they want fast results. They place unrealistic schedule on their goals, and as soon as they miss their appointments about where they should be, they quit.

Goals. We have to be honest with ourself and carefully evaluate our goals. Its good to have big goals but it is also better to have incremental goals to reach those big goals. Say you want to bench 200 pounds by the end of year. Your current bench is 150. So you set up small goals througout the year, i.e. in 2 months my bench will be 170, and the next 2 months, my bench will be 190 etc...

Patience. Patience is something everyone has to learn. Even though one did not reach his goals, he/she must not give up and never lay off. Be a dog that bites and never let go, and you will see yourself reaching your goals one day.

Failures and mistakes. In this real world, the road is not a yellow brick road. Failures will come whether you like it or not. You can do everything right, but everything can still go wrong. Pick yourself up, learn from your failures/mistakes, and attack your goals again and again.

Thats all I can think for now, and I am sure there are plenty more.

Boris said...

Good stuff. Thanks SF.

Taikei Matsushita said...

I heard and saw a lot of 三日坊主 description but never an actual picture of a 坊主 !!
Nice one!

Brett Jones said...

Boris,
I'm going to borrow this if you don't mind - that is a priceless piece of wisdom and I love the Tao of Pooh! Great stuff.

Boris said...

Thanks Taikei!

Brett,
You bet! I'd be flattered.

Unknown said...

Boris, I'm going to follow in Brett's footsteps here too. I haven't been to your blog in a while. This is brilliant stuff!

Thanks for sharing these pearls.

Boris said...

Thanks Doc!!!

Steve Bach said...

Nice outfit :-)