Burnout Was My Biggest Test of Discipline

Martial arts taught me how to chase difficult goals. Burnout taught me why discipline matters even more when motivation disappears.

I always say that motivation is a nice thing to have - like a cherry on top - but it rarely gives you a reason to get up from the sofa and go for a run, train martial arts, or do whatever difficult thing you need to do. Often, motivation only shows up once you start.

Discipline is what helps us reach our goals. No matter what, I put on my running shoes, or I go to the gym, whether I feel motivated or not. These skills became extremely important in my life, but I never thought one of the biggest challenges they would help me overcome would not be training for a world championship or becoming a professional fighter at 37, but simply staying afloat during burnout.

Working two jobs while training as a full-time professional athlete was difficult as hell. I was constantly tired and had almost zero personal life. Mostly, I learned to push things aside, not think about them too much, and just keep going because I didn’t see any other way through except straight through.

When I lived in Hong Kong, I was often the only foreigner in my neighbourhood, living in a Cantonese-speaking bubble and sometimes not talking to people for days - by choice, because I wanted to immerse myself in the culture as much as possible for my love of kung fu. But this was also what eventually brought me to therapy, and I am very happy it did.

Culture shock was the starting point of our conversations, and years later, here we are talking about burnout.

What was funny is that many of the instructions for burnout recovery could almost be mistaken for advice given to athletes: stick to your routine, make your bed, go to sleep at the same time, wake up at the same time, and if everything falls apart, still stick to your routine. Go to training. Warm up the same way. Plan your rest.

During this year, it became obvious that I could not coach full-time while also training and working another job, so I decided to jump fully into online teaching. It was one of the scariest things I have ever done in my life, but also one of the most certain. I knew this was something I was being called to do.

But that didn’t magically make me fulfilled or make burnout disappear. If anything, suddenly I was working even more.

When you work on something that means the world to you, where the outcomes are directly connected to your own effort, it becomes difficult to rest. What do you even do? Scroll your phone? And suddenly I was working again — cutting a video, posting a reel, checking inspiration online.

I started leaving my phone in another room for an hour at a time, but somehow my mom always had the special skill of messaging me exactly then. And I wanted to be present with her and my dad. Living on another continent chasing my dreams made me very sensitive to the fact that I am far away from them, and sometimes deeply regretful about it, too.

So when things started getting heavy again - maybe even heavier than before - I returned to discipline.

It took a long time to start feeling more energy again, and even longer to stop being angry at myself for not healing faster. Sometimes I allowed myself to rest, to not fight against my mind, and just stay home. But most days, I fought for myself instead.

Stick to the routine. Get out of bed. Go to training. Plan your rest.

Do I feel motivated to suddenly have all my energy back, to never feel burnout again, and to become my old self overnight?

Of course.

There is so much motivation for that.

But when things get heavy, motivation hides. So the thing you get to rely on is discipline.

I think martial arts taught me a lot throughout my life. I got a PhD, but becoming a professional fighter with much less support than I expected, and against the odds of my age when many athletes are retiring, was one of the hardest things I have ever done.

Learning how to take care of my body and mind was difficult, but incredibly beneficial. Learning how to react quickly and stay calm saved me many times in daily life and even on the road while driving. Learning how to stay grounded and keep my emotions under control became more than useful in conflict.

But the very first thing I taught my kung fu students years ago when I started teaching was to make their bed.

You would think it was simply about discipline.

But we often don’t realize how enormous a role discipline can one day play in a person’s life.