Just Showing Up: Life Lessons From Anime (Especially Tien)

I get asked quite a bit these days how I find the motivation and drive to get to the gym, eat right, or discipline myself.

As much as I’d like to say it’s always an intense burning passion that leaves my soul on fire it’s much less exciting than that.

I just show up and do my best on that day.

Let’s frame that.

You can’t get a good workout if you don’t show up to the gym, you can’t get a productive work session if you don’t show up at your desk, and you can’t make a good cosplay if you don’t sit down and craft. You can’t get good at something unless you show up.

So I do, just like all those fictional characters that I look up to and admire.

The best example I can think of for 'just showing up' is Tien from DragonBall Z. During the Cell saga, Tien shows up to fight Cell even though he KNOWS he can't beat him. But because he showed up, just because he TRIED, he managed to slow down Cell just long enough until Vegeta and Trunks got there. People who did have the power to stop him before he could reach his perfect form (as badly as that may have turned out).

Have the guts to just show up, Be More Shonen.

"Do your best every day, to do your best every day" - John Cena, the best anime character