You cannot have access to all of me. That’s a hard and established rule that will not change. You cannot have access to the parts of me that are under construction, restricted personnel, or VIP. The VIP section is the most exclusive of all and I don’t even get access to that part of me all the time.

Under construction is the one seen most from those passing by. It’s the one that is right next to what’s publicly available and it’s the one that frustrates or motivates the most people. It’s the one where I share some of the broken or unfinished parts of me to remind myself that there is an accountability.

The accountability is not to others. My standard for myself is higher than anything they would ask of me or accept from me. They don’t understand the drive, and they don’t need to. I say it out loud so they become the alarm clock I set the night before. They don’t know why I need to be up, they just go off when they need to.

They are not my motivation. They are not the reason I get after my goals, and all of them come with a snooze feature. I am the one that leaves a piece of me behind, not them. I am the one that defines, redefines, builds, and rebuilds the broken or worn-down parts of what makes me.

Wearing down doesn’t mean something is cheaply built. It doesn’t mean that it’s been overused, just that it’s doing what it should. Like a battle tested knight’s armor. It may not be shiny because the knight needed to be struck to become great. Put another way; if I start a sport at the same time as someone else and show up more than them I grow differently.

Seen only as hours dedicated to our growth it’s clear that we will reach the same goal in the same number of hours, not the same number of days. If I am on the mats sixteen hours a week I will improve four times faster than them if they are only on the mats four hours a week. They will also get the same injury as me at the same time, but on a different day and that’s where things permanently change.

I would have established a routine were showing up is not negotiable, while they would have had to win that negotiation every time they showed up. Their road would not have earned the grooves, or oil, or skid marks. The guardrails would never have been tested, damaged, or replaced while my road will be battered. When that injury happens, my road would have already become a main artery, theirs would have become a convenient detour.

Access to my under-construction section means that if you’re not here to help, you could be a distraction and more harm than good. If, by some permission you’re working on this road with me understand I will work you harder than you’ve ever been worked.

If you’re a teammate I’m going to look to be in the pits of physical and mental pain and I require you to be a little heartless helping me get there. If you’re family, I need you to be a guide for me as I revisit what broke or made me. That’s a real hardship and I don’t need your judgement, just your hand. If you’re a professional colleague I need your judgement. I need your competitiveness, and I need your grace so we can win together.

Regardless of who you are, I will work you to the level of my irresponsible self-experimentation. You will see what it means to have heart when you see how I build my heart through pain. It’s not a sick kink, or some kind of self-hate. It’s also not dangerous. It’s calculated and the envelope is pushed because I know I have the heavy machinery onsite to repair the deeper parts of the road, if or when I dig a little too deep.

It’s safer because when I leave the construction zone, I have a step I didn’t have before. I have the added step of driving on that road without feeling obligated to work on it. In other words, I have a time to myself to work on myself on a spiritual level. That drive back home means even though my clothes may smell, even though my hands may be bloody, and even though I am exhausted, I am not working on me, I am reflecting on the work I just put in.

There is a lot of silence for you if you are in the car on that ride home with me, but there’s a full on Grand Central Station of thoughts in my mind. Self-improvement is not just an action; it’s a reaction too. It’s you looking back at what your intention was, who influenced it, and whether or not you continue.

In David Goggins’ book “Can’t Hurt Me” he speaks about the importance of a “backstop.” He shares how the Navy SEALs have pre-planned points where they make critical decisions. If things are going bad they initiate a regression plan. If they are undecided then they move to the next backstop. If they feel like they aren’t making progress a backstop shows them what they’ve accomplished.

It’s more difficult in daily life to see when you need a backstop which is where restricted personnel, or an unlikely stranger shoves it in your face. I was a black belt for six years before I discovered the biggest hole in how I fight; I didn’t know how to back away safely from danger. Up to then the way I dealt with danger was pushing deeper into it.

I fought the lion biting my arm by pushing my arm further down its throat. Sure I would suffocate it, but I risked my neck in doing so. When I learned this the next two years were spent learning how to disengage when I reached a backstop. I didn’t understand that I was also learning how to do the same in my off the mats life.

It’s this mental operation of the spiritual “Under construction” zone that’s actually the “restricted personnel” part of me. Only the right people for the right moment are allowed in. If this part of me was a number pad that you had to put the code into for entry; the pattern would be the same, but the numbers would be different. From the public access you could see past the construction zone to the door labelled “restricted access” but you’d have to first be part of the construction crew to even get close to it.

That’s the general rule, but there are times when a complete stranger is allowed into the restricted personnel area. Sometimes it’s because of what they said, other times because I’ve shared something with a stranger that is safer than sharing with someone I will see again. I restrict access to others and to myself.

I restrict that access because the VIP area is the most guarded part of me. I guard it with the strongest traits I have. They are my army of resilience that no special forces soldier, or black belt, or brain bully can beat. The VIP room is placed far away from my road. Not just so that I can see what’s approaching, but to also test it in ways only I can survive.

To get here you must go through hell, and just because you’ve survived hell doesn’t mean that you’ll be let in. If you didn’t make it out of hell better, more patient, more loving, and most important, ready to forgive, you’re not allowed into the VIP section.

My VIP section is where I protect myself from me. Changes made here are reversible, but historically mean that a new road has to be built. The times that I made it into the VIP section I saw parts of it that I just couldn’t make it to. The crowded room would be too dense for me to make it to those parts.

Versions of myself that had been there already knew that the hell I just went through was not the one I needed to pass through to get to a particular part of my own club. There was no animosity for this, there was no burning desire to make it to that part, just a nod of acknowledgement that maybe next time. Maybe may never come, and I have always forgotten to look back every other time I made it into the VIP room.

There’s one more catch with making it into the VIP room. It’s the hell I have to go through to make it out. The Vicious Improvement Process room has killed more versions of me than any loss of this life ever would. I died getting there, then died again getting out. I went through hell just to get back to a construction zone. I worked myself to the emotional and spiritual bone not once driving on that road, but almost daily until an injury forced me to stop or slow down to reflect.

I’ve injured myself training for jiu-jitsu tournaments, saying things out of anger, allowing my career to come before family, or health, or self-worth. I’ve injured myself and others because I’ve worked so hard on my road the overlookable details of a single pebble of asphalt took my attention away from the big picture.

My father once said, “If you spend all your time at the beach looking at the sand, you’ll miss the sun kissing the horizon. You must pay attention to the details, but the line between that and obsessing over them is what splits atoms. If you cross it, you may not know until it’s too late.” Injuries are what have shown me that line was crossed. Those long slow drives on the road I’ve built with strangers, restricted personnel, and myself is the same road I drove on while getting better.

It’s not the never-ending work on the road that brings you to self-improvement, it’s driving on the road and not worrying about the dips you can feel that no-one sees with the right person for the right stretch of it.