平常心　Heijoshin

平常心　Hei Jo Shin is the word that I think we should keep in mind during the challenge. And I happened to watch Brian Tracy Live. He talked about how to keep our minds and daily life and I remembered “Heijoshin.” Also, he said,” You are a leader. Behave like a leader. Now everyone is a leader.”

It’s familiar to most Japanese who had education at schools where teachers willing to share the wisdom of life. Some people hear it before games (sports) and others hear it before an entrance exam from a coach or a teacher.

“Stay cool. Stay being yourself. Do what you do as usual, and you will perform the best. Don’t worry. Don’t be afraid. You can do it.” That is used in a serious situation or when we face a big challenge good or bad.

We should watch the news and updates but at the same time, we should keep ourselves calm, think, (and pray ), and behave.

I found a good page explaining “Heijoshin” by a non-native Japanese speaker. From OkinaLearning.com as below.

平常心（へいじょうしん/ Heijoushin） is a Japanese word that describes the mind status always stays the same regardless how the internal or external environment changes. This is widely used in Japanese martial arts or should say in all martial arts. This is also one of the important disciplines I follow and work on for now and the rest of my life. I would like to share it with you.

When we fight our opponents, we should aim to do that as it can benefit you to be more unpredictable as there is no change in the emotion. This is just one of the benefits.

In life, we often zoom in something that is negligible, blow it up, and affect our emotions and decisions. For example, some unknown driver overtakes you without turning the indicator on. How would you do it?

Let it go.
Do the same thing to the driver.
Chase after the car until it stops and pay the driver back with whatever you’ve got.

I don’t suggest number 2 and 3 solutions. They are not worth it. They are the ones that appears in your life for a few seconds. They will be gone after it. There are lots of them on the road. Are you going to wipe them all out? Sometimes, we can make regrettable mistakes as well. In extreme cases, you can destroy your own life.

Everyone could and may have a bad day. This is not always avoidable. So do we run away from it or deal with it? For things we have already done, we should accept, compensate, and make an apology wherever necessary.

Alright, …let’s get back to the technical side; this discipline gives our technique more consistency and stability. From the personal development side, you will start to see and realise something we didn’t see before. If you would like to advance to another level in your martial arts, this is important to keep this in mind.

Let’s try to keep ourselves calm, consistent, and clear

when dealing with things in our lives.

This is going to take while to obtain 平常心（へいじょうしん/ Heijoushin）, so don’t rush into it. If you rush, you can give yourself stress, and again you’ve altered your status of mind.

Note:

平常心（へいじょうしん）consists of 3 Japanese Kanji characters: