Life is a fight. In my sport which is boxing, the parallels between the struggles in the ring and in life are strikingly evident. There are those rounds in life wherein you've steamrolled challenges ahead of you. Other times, you get steamrolled yourself. Just because you're hurting now doesn't mean that you're dead. Dying perhaps, but certainly not dead. Realize this, while there is still life there is a fighting chance. Where there is chance there is hope. Hope combined with action opens the gates to possibilities and with possibilities come the means by which to achieve your dreams.
While I'm not telling you that you have to be miserable and in pain in order to succeed, but if you are struggling and inevitably so, look beyond the current discomforts and visualize but more importantly realize that every painful inch you go through will bring you one precious inch closer to your dream. Don't quit, buddy. 'Cause you may never truly know how close you may already be to success!
Sometimes on my path to achieve my goals, I wonder what it would be like for me to quit. Believe me, I think about it a lot. I could be an average guy with an average job getting average results because I set average goals if I decide to quit and take the easy route. On the other hand, I could do what perhaps one in a couple hundred or maybe thousand people would choose to do. I could put myself through the pain of fighting, putting my body and mind to the test to forge them into something as hard as the iron I lift and as solid as the blows I give and take. At the same time, I am a sport science student. It doesn't sound quite as badass, but even in something as seemingly ordinary as studying, requires patience and the will to succeed under pressure especially when it comes to balancing your other life priorities while still seeking to excel. I want to aim far and I want to go even farther. Why quit? When we have our goals set high, realize that not many people may be able to dream so big. Fewer may actually attempt to achieve those dreams. Even fewer may actually achieve them. Be the odd one out and dare to do something great.
People, circumstances, maybe even yourself may be your worst enemies in the fight to seize success. But remember, even fighters who "run" from their enemies must still land a punch to win, so I suggest you stand and fight and get punching. Ultimately we cannot really control circumstances, but we can determine how we handle them, which results in more favorable outcomes. Perform the process and the result will follow if you don't run away from the "enemies" but instead decide to land your own blows. Confront the challenges life throws at you and be willing to stay in the pocket. You may be taking some blows, but you're dishing out your own as well by not being daunted by the challenges ahead. Life isn't a marathon, it's a fight! We need to stop running and start banging. Achieving success may be elusive, but not far-fetched. You want it? Then fight for it!
To all you out there who are struggling in the fight of life, hang in there. The rounds ain't over. Hang tough, fellas. I'm rooting for ya.
I'm heading into my third year of study in New Zealand. I'm gonna have to leave my family here in the Philippines again and get back to business in a few weeks. I always say this, but I can't believe where I've ended up. It seems that it was just around in 2009-2010 when I was a teenager eager to find a course and lifestyle that I could be engaged in a hundred percent. Fast forward to 2013, I'm already entering my third year of study and I'm even studying abroad! It feels absolutely nuts to be in this position after thinking I could never pursue this field of study after failing a university entrance exam in the Philippines years ago.
Secondly, I can't believe that in a few months, I will no longer be a teenager. Gone are the childish things, my responsibilities have changed, and I'm on the path to being able to move on to more fulfilling pursuits. A few years ago, I was content with writing articles on my blog, now I'm trying to write a book on functional fitness. A few years back, I thought my chance to compete in boxing was crushed. In 2012, I finally got the chance to compete in legitimate amateur bouts. In high school, I wished that I would never have to go to school. This time around, I appreciate my time in school and honing my skills to refine my craft in sport science because its something I love which can help me improve myself and others. Ah, how my life has changed!
Lastly, I've grown to appreciate the people around me even more since you'll never know when the Lord can take them away. I know I'm quite the loner having spent mot of 2012 virtually alone, but life is impossible without others. It is great to be independent, but human beings are truly interdependent on each other. Last December, the second Christmas season a loved one of mine passed away, I found out that my foster father in New Zealand passed away. It's scary how sometimes we wonder what life would be like without a certain person and one day that person is gone. Though I've known this man for only about two years, the impact he has had on my life was tremendous. Without him, I would have not learned so many life lessons, lessons on being a better Christ-like man living a fulfilling and purposeful life. Because of him, I am now living my dream as an amateur competitor since he did everything to connect me to people who could help me pursue this fancy of mine. He motivated me to aim higher, boosted my confidence, and was a good companion in the good and bad days. I will sorely miss him.
This year, I seek to live a more fulfilling and purposeful life. I dedicate my pursuit of excellence in class, in the gym, in the ring, and in life to all my loved ones, my foster father who has passed, and most of all to God. Every day, every week, every month, every year, I have the choice to take a step forward. I choose to take MANY steps forward. I will aim far and run even farther!
Here are some excerpts from the motivational section of a training program book that I am attempting to write. These writings are based on the lessons I've learned as I continue to reach my goals and live the dream. I'm currently living the dream of being in New Zealand, studying sport science, getting the chance to fight, and training people. These lessons I've outlined have been essential tools in my journey to reach my goals and continue to reach more. Take some ideas from the passages, take action, and start achieving something!
1) Think Like a Champ
Now if you really want results, work for them. Visualize yourself reaching your goals. Be confident that even if training takes time, results are possible. If you believe that you will succeed, you probably will (positive self-fulfilling prophecy to psych nerds). On the other hand, if you have already convinced yourself that you will fail, you probably will (negative self-fulfilling prophecy). Ultimately, results are your responsibility. Success or failure to reach them is attributed to nobody but yourself. In the end, it really is your choice to do the work for yourself. Nobody can pick up a barbell, lift it, and grow muscles for you. In the end, you can’t just be thinking about doing something that you want to happen, so you might as well do something and make it happen. Anything in life from getting your meals for the day to hitting the gym requires you to get them and do them under your own initiative. If you have the desire to truly succeed, you ought to use whatever initiative you have to meet those goals. You have been endowed with a good dose of free will, so use it. Will you choose to do something? Or will you choose to do nothing and get nothing?
2) Failure Is Inevitable But Success Is Certain
As it is with all things, training has its setbacks. You may stop seeing results for some time, you may be tired, you may have some bad sessions, but that’s alright. That’s all inevitable. However, treat these “failures” as part of the learning process. Identify what could be improved on and move on from there. Do not dwell on the small errors that you make, but look at the bigger picture made up of small personal victories in the midst of failures that you’ve accumulated over the long haul. You cannot win all your battles but you can learn from them all to win the whole war. It is not how many failures you have experienced that determines success, but how you get back up and learn, that makes all the difference. You can treat failure as a sign of failing or you can treat it as a lesson on the road to success.
3) Skeptics Skepticize, Achievers Achieve
They’ll tell you that you can’t do it. They’ll tell you’re too fat, to skinny, too weak, that your not “built right”, that your not the right age, or the right “type” (whatever that is) to achieve your goals. We all know them as skeptics. Being a skeptic in itself is a waste of life. Letting yourself be influenced by one is wasting your own life away by falling short of your potential by letting somebody who hasn’t tried to succeed or failed to succeed dictate what you can and cannot do. Ultimately, nobody knows how far you can go except yourself. Perhaps you don’t, though! What if you could go farther than you thought?
Don’t be a skeptic, be an achiever. Do something. Don’t worry if you don’t succeed immediately. It’s better that you learnt something through failure so that you could become stronger than rest on your laurels without really being challenged to improve yourself. The greatest victories are often noticed in defeat. You’ve never truly lost until you’ve said to yourself that you’re beaten.
Many people defied the skeptics and achieved more than even they themselves may have expected. This has been the case in one of the toughest sports around; pro boxing. People said a middle-aged George Foreman was too fat and unfit after years away from the ring to win a championship bout, much less fight a bum. However, he didn’t just beat, but knocked out the champion and became the oldest champion in boxing history for quite some time. Another old fighter, Bernard Hopkins continues to fight even as he approaches his golden years, winning competitive bouts and winning world titles as he goes. There have even been world champions such as Sergio Martinez, Giovanni Segura, and Wilfredo Vasquez Jr., who started boxing between the “old” ages of nineteen to their early twenties. Many boxers who learn to fight as children are often experienced or championship-level pros at that age, but these men didn’t mind that they were “old” for the sport. They were dedicated to improvement, motivated, and took action to fulfill their dreams and became champions in the process.
Whether you’re a fighter, a doctor, a dishwasher, or whatever you are, do something. There is always a way to achieve your goals and you will not find a way until you start to do something. Action is the force that fuels the journey to achievement and achievement isn’t something for the timid. If you’re a bit crazy, that’s good. The skeptics hate that. You have to be just a bit more motivated, a bit smarter, a bit more hard-working, and maybe a bit crazier than the rest to be a cut above the norm. Skeptics can only sit on the sidelines telling people what they can and can’t do while the achiever simply does something. It is the absence and presence of action that defines a skeptic from an achiever. Don’t be scared, skeptic, or even normal if it helps. Be an achiever. The arena of excellence is no home for the skeptic, critical, or timid.
"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat." – Theodore Roosevelt
4) Formulas For Success
· Achieve + Believe + Conceive (“ABC”)
Plan to achieve a goal. Believe that you can do it. Conceive a plan to reach your goals and do them. Success is a combination of knowing what you’re trying to get, planning how to get them, and actually acting on getting them.
· Planning + Patience + Persistence = Progress
Achieving a goal is like going to war. You can’t expect to win if you don’t have a plan of attack. At the same time, you can’t expect to beat the odds by mindlessly going in for the kill, lest you get killed yourself. Therefore, have a plan to achieve you goals. Start with small but realistic aspirations bound by time. Once you’ve figured that out, think of practical strategies you can employ to reach those goals.
Let’s say you want to muster more willingness to train when your mind tells you to slip into couch potato mode in the afternoon which is you goal. A practical strategy would be to identify habits that possibly lead to your feelings of sluggishness. Perhaps you need to start sleeping earlier to get quality sleep that allows you to stay fresher for the next fay. Perhaps you need to cut back on sugary beverages at lunch that give you a temporary rush and then a crash at noon. Then perhaps, you probably just don’t have enough motivation due to overtraining, calling for scaled back workouts or changes in activity to keep you interested. Know yourself and know the situation so that you will know how to respond.
Now that you know your goals and have practical strategies in place, be patient with the process. Progress may take a day, a week, a month, or years. The key is to be patient and realize that physical and even habitual adaptations take time. At the same time, you must be persistent. How bad do you want to succeed? Don’t let up on your goals. Each day that passes by and each drop of sweat that comes from working towards you goals brings you an inch closer to reaching them. Don’t quit, since you’ll never know how close you really are to actually accomplishing what you have been striving for.
A realistic goal that is properly planned for can be achieved no matter how long it takes to get there. Don’t worry too much about merely achieving the outcome. It’s easy to focus more on the outcome when we should be focusing on the process of reaching it. Remember, it’s not thinking of the outcome that brings about success but acting on the process. In other words, do what you have to do and the result will follow. It’s just like a math equation. Two plus two will always equate to four. Three plus one also equates to four. You have two different equations with one common sum. The bottom line is, so long as you have the proper variables in your process, you get the appropriate outcome which is the sum of your process.
· Failure = Success
I am not telling you to start losing to be successful, since that would be totally senseless. However, do not think of losing or not reaching your outcome goals as plain failure. Think of failing as a learning process. Along the path to success, there are stumbling blocks. The key is to know these stumbling blocks to reduce your risk of stumbling again. Learn from your mistakes. As I’ve heard somewhere, learning is a gift even when your teacher is pain.
It is in perceived moments of weakness when we fail where we learn to gather strength in order to succeed by learning from the experience. Even great people have had their share of failures. What made them great was not that they were perfect, but that they did not let their human imperfections hinder them from trying their best to achieve things. Losing doesn’t make you any less of a person. In fact, if you learn from your mistakes, acknowledge them, and just keep on living not being enslaved by the thought of failure, then you will succeed. The thought of failure itself can bring about failure. But the willingness to succeed despite failure can indeed bring success.
You may become disappointed that your body has hardly improved in the way you perform or look. Don’t let the thought consume you and get you down, causing you to just quit and end up nowhere. Be honest with yourself and analyse possible areas of error in order to correct them. Continue learning and studying about nutrition and training in order to troubleshoot any other problems that are currently present or may possibly occur. So that you can learn from your mistakes, don’t forget to do some study yourself. You can’t expect to pass an exam without studying for it. Therefore, gather knowledge and you will learn. Learning brings understanding. Understanding calls for action. And action is the key to success.
Sit down, relax, and listen to this short tale of mine. It's been a hell of a long time since I've dropped by the forum and so much has happened over the past year. Over six years agi, I was this teen preparing to leave my homeland to pursue my dreams of getting my sport degree and competing in boxing. Mission accomplished! I got my degree in sport science, piled up a whole lot of experience and knowledge from training myself and other people. When I thought my chances of returning to boxing were shattered after being TKO'd and injuring my hand in my homeland, I ended up resurrecting my career and winning tournaments including the Novice Golden Gloves too.
After that, I moved to another city to work, meaning no more competitive fighting since I had to focus on paying all my dues and finding a way to settle down permanently in the country I've grown to love. This meant working from morning til night on plenty of days, juggling three jobs, and moving places and modifying my lifestyle to help me get some financial stability and make the independent life work. However, though I studied and worked in this country for years, the sad thing is that they would not let me reside in their land permanently. It felt unfair but life can be indifferent and cruel. It seemed that my goal of settling abroad to live a prosperous life was shattered right there despite all the attempts I took to work it out.
As a result, I am back in my homeland working from morning til night on a way busier schedule. On the bright side, business is far better and I'm even getting media coverage and have the luxury of living across my workplace where I can train and educate all sorts of people. Also, the seemingly measley couple thousand dollars I earned overseas have been keeping quite financially stable here.
Am I rich? No. Well, not yet. Have I seen my dreams come to life and then die right in front of me? Yup. However, I believe that anything worth pursuing comes at a cost and that I must become adaptable. Perhaps I can no longer be a competitive fighter at this point in time because of my priorities but I can still become someone great. Perhaps I may lose free time and even sleep on some days but it all seems worth it when you have a clear purpose and the will to succeed. Purpose gives you power, brothers. Find your purpose and you can endure so much more than what you thought you could.
To this day, I hold the same vision of making myself and others stronger through improving the various facets of our life whether we are hard-training athletes or the average joe hustling to pay his bills. Find something that moves you, inspires you, and benefits others. Embrace it and bring that vision to life. Will the journey be easy? Absolutely not. Will it be fulfilling? You bet. Forge your vision and walk your own path because nobody can walk it for you. Get moving now, my friend. You have a ling road ahead and an even longer story to tell.