Many times, when you ask people what their greatest fear is, they will immediately reply back with the fear of failure. But often times, this is not the case. It is not the actuality of failure that we fear, it is the fear of disappointing others in our lives or even ourselves. Everyone fails, that’s the god’s honest truth in life. Sometimes, you can do everything absolutely right, and still lose, and that is even a tougher pill to swallow. It doesn’t make you a failure, it just makes you human and the product of reality. The only time you ever truly fail, is when you don’t even try or take the time to invest in yourself. Failing to prepare is preparing to fail, but it also alleviates the pain that comes with putting a lot of effort into something only to come up short. Still, I’d rather live with the pain of trying and failing than the regret of never having tried at all.
We put so much pressure on ourselves, that we scare us with all the ‘what-if’ possibilities. Living in a world of ‘what-ifs’ has to be one of the most miserable, anxiety-inducing lands in all existence. It takes our focus away from the present and what we can actively be doing into a distraction of all the outcomes and possibilities that may or may not even come to fruition. These are outside distractions threatening to inhibit our current mindset, and the only thing we will be capable of accomplishing with these intrusive thoughts weighing heavily on our minds is the cull of our own progress. The accumulation of stress this will undoubtedly bring is enough to overwhelm us and drown us in despair. And you don’t want to deal with the worst ‘what-if’ of them all, and that is when some time has passed and you are reflecting back in your life wondering ‘what-if’ you had just done, said, pursued, or acted on the thing in which you had feared.
Those on the competitive Jiu Jitsu circuit are well aware that competition season is in full swing, especially with the IBJJF hosting a surplus of almost weekly competitions to make up for the drought of last year brought on by all the Covid protocols. Many competitors are chasing rank and achievement in their respective categories while many others are looking to make their first-time debut on a much larger scale, so to speak. This can be exceptionally daunting to many; either those who have high expectations for themselves with many eyes on them who expect them to dominate, or to those dealing with the nerves associated with something new and on a figuratively “big” stage. But by focusing on all the outside factors, we are drawing attention away from what is important in the moment.
We need to remember to take tiny, bite-sized pieces and chew our food thoroughly rather than force ourselves to swallow chunks whole, lest we choke. I’m not trying to live my life constantly performing the Heimlich on myself because I am too focused on the end results and the possibilities of what could go wrong that I fail to savor every bite of the journey. If you’re shoveling an entire 5-course meal down your gullet in order to get to the dessert, you are depriving yourself an opportunity to enjoy one of the greatest pleasures life has to offer you absolute gluttonous pig. The results that accrue are fantastic, don’t get me wrong, but my worth is not determined by the 5 minutes of competition time someone else sees, but the countless hours of mental and physical preparation that went into this entire ordeal. The journey cultivates our character, the finish is merely a byproduct of the hard work we create.
Starving my distractions and feeding my focus is something I still grapple with internally that threatens to manifest itself externally. But I have noticed I am much, much happier when I enjoy the steps that go into my preparation much more than scrutinizing any hiccup that can go wrong. Fighting and Jiu Jitsu is incredibly fun for me, and the moment it stops being fun is the moment I know my attention has been diverted to extraneous mitigating factors and it is time to reign in my focus once again. It’s good to set goals for myself and to want to do well, but holding steadfast to expectations often leads to heartache and it’s better to focus on the present than to dwell on the past or have anxiety over the future. As long as we keep making the effort to try, we are winning a little bit day by day. Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue which matters.
So much truth! Our biggest battles come from within our own minds.