Chasing Your Dreams While Working Full-Time

A lot of people have goals that are bigger than the amount of free time they have. Maybe you want to earn a black belt. Maybe you want to compete. Maybe you want to become really good at MMA or BJJ. Maybe you're 20 years old and genuinely believe you could become a professional fighter someday.

But you also have a job.

You have bills to pay. You have school. You have a family. You have relationships and responsibilities that don't care how badly you want to train. For most people, training isn't going to be their full-time job. It's going to be something they have to fit into an already busy life.

That's okay.

One of the best examples of this is Demetrious "Mighty Mouse" Johnson. Before he became one of the greatest MMA fighters in the world, Johnson spent more than five years working a full-time factory job while building his fighting career. His schedule wasn't exactly convenient. He would get up at 6:00 in the morning and be at work by 7:00. He worked until 3:00, then went to the gym for conditioning before heading to his fight gym to train from 5:00 to 7:00. He'd get home around 8:00, eat dinner with his girlfriend, who would eventually become his wife, and go to bed. Then he did it again the next day.

And the next.

Johnson wasn't doing this because he didn't have anything else going on. He was doing it because becoming a fighter mattered to him.

Eventually, Johnson reached a point where he could leave his job and train full-time. But interestingly, he didn't make that decision simply because he wanted to be a professional fighter. He understood the risk. His factory job gave him something fighting couldn't: a guaranteed paycheck. Fighting didn't guarantee anything. He could get injured. His career could end. He could fail to make enough money to support himself.

So he kept working.

He trained around his job until he believed he was in a position to make the jump.

I think there's an important lesson in that. Taking your dream seriously doesn't mean ignoring reality. Sometimes pursuing your goal means getting up early. Sometimes it means training after work when you're tired. Sometimes it means giving up things you would rather be doing. Sometimes it means making sacrifices that nobody else will ever see.

And sometimes it means keeping your day job while you pursue your dream.

Your Goal Doesn't Have to Be Small

One thing I don't want anyone to take from Johnson's story is that having a full-time job means you should lower your expectations. It doesn't.

The 35-year-old who works a full-time job and has a wife and kids might have a goal of earning a black belt. The 25-year-old might want to compete. The 20-year-old might want to become a UFC champion someday. Those are very different goals, but none of them are automatically invalid because you have to work for a living.

If becoming a professional fighter is your goal, you're going to have to figure out how to train while you're working. If earning a black belt is your goal, you're going to have to figure out how to consistently get on the mat while balancing the rest of your life. Someone else might have a completely different goal.

That's fine.

The goal determines how far you want to go and, eventually, how much you're going to have to do. But you still have to start with the life you actually have. You don't get to train in the life you wish you had. You have to train in the life you have.

It Isn't Going to Be Easy

This is the part people don't always want to hear.

Chasing something difficult while working full-time is hard. There will be days when you get home from work and don't want to train. There will be weeks when your schedule gets screwed up. There will be times when you're tired, stressed, busy or simply don't feel motivated.

That's normal.

You shouldn't expect your life to suddenly become perfectly organized around your training. It probably won't. Instead, you have to become good at making training fit into an imperfect life.

That might mean training three days a week instead of six. It might mean getting to class immediately after work instead of going home first. It might mean planning your week around the classes you know you can consistently attend. It might mean saying no to some things.

And sometimes it might mean accepting that you aren't going to progress as quickly as someone who has nothing else to do.

That's okay.

Slow progress is still progress.

If you train consistently for five years, you're going to be a very different martial artist than you were when you started. It doesn't matter that you couldn't train twice a day during those five years. The person who consistently trains three times a week for five years will almost always be in a much better place than the person who trains six times a week for three months and then disappears.

Consistency gives you something intensity can't: time.

You Don't Have to Know How It Ends

There's another part of Johnson's story that I think is important. When he was working in that factory, he didn't know exactly where his career was going to take him. He wasn't guaranteed a UFC title. He wasn't guaranteed a long career. He wasn't guaranteed that fighting would ever become his full-time job.

He trained anyway.

That's something I think is valuable in martial arts. You don't necessarily need to know exactly where you're going to end up before you start. Maybe you think you want to compete and eventually decide you don't. Maybe you start BJJ because you want to get in shape and eventually become obsessed with earning your black belt. Maybe you start MMA because you want to become a fighter and discover that you love coaching.

Maybe you're 20 years old and your goal really is to see how far you can take this.

You don't have to have everything figured out. You just have to take the next step.

Don't Confuse Commitment With Recklessness

There's also a difference between being committed to your goal and making irresponsible decisions because of it.

Johnson understood this. He didn't quit his job simply because he wanted to be a professional fighter. He waited until he believed he could afford to do it.

That's important because sometimes people think that if they really believe in their dream, they have to bet everything on it immediately. You don't.

You can work a job and train. You can go to school and train. You can raise a family and train. You can have responsibilities and still take your goal seriously. In fact, learning how to pursue something while carrying those responsibilities might be one of the most valuable parts of the process.

If you're 20 years old and you want to become a professional fighter, that doesn't mean you need to quit your job tomorrow. It means you need to start taking the training seriously enough to find out what you're capable of. Train consistently. Learn. Compete when you're ready. See how you respond to the demands of the sport. Then make bigger decisions when you actually have information to make them with.

Your dream deserves commitment.

It doesn't require stupidity.

The Work Nobody Sees

Most people will never see the hours you put in when nobody is watching. They won't see you rushing from work to class. They won't see you training when you're tired. They won't see the nights you would rather stay home. They won't see the years of showing up when progress seems slow.

They'll see the belt eventually. They'll see the competition result. They'll see the transformation. They might see the fighter you eventually become.

But they won't see all the ordinary days that built it.

That's the part that matters.

Demetrious Johnson didn't become a world champion because he eventually got the opportunity to train full-time. He became a world champion after years of training when he didn't have that opportunity. The full-time job didn't make his goal impossible. It just made the road harder.

And maybe that's where you're at right now.

Maybe you have a full-time job. Maybe you have a family. Maybe you have school. Maybe you have a hundred other things competing for your time. That's life.

You don't need to wait until you have more time to start pursuing something difficult. You need to decide what matters enough to make time for.

Your goal might be a black belt. It might be a championship. It might be becoming a professional fighter. It might simply be becoming the best version of yourself that you can.

Whatever it is, don't assume that having responsibilities means you have to give it up. For most people, pursuing something meaningful isn't going to happen under perfect circumstances. You're going to have to work around the rest of your life.

That's not a reason to quit.

It's just part of the work.