What Boxing Taught Me About Being a Competitor and Not a Spectator

Human beings as a whole seem to be creatures of comfort. We want to be great but have a tendency to subconsciously create situations where we can just sit back and be content with our job, our family, and our position in the universe in general.

4 months ago I was relatively happy, doing the job I had become so used to, going to my boxing gym for health and fitness, maintaining a passive interest in my family.

Then I realized that there was the problem... I had become passive, I felt somewhere along the way with the hustle and bustle of maintaining what I had, I had left personnel excellence and endeavour behind, I was in a rut!

The problem with being in a rut is you generally don't know you are in one. you fill the void left by not progressing in your life with stuff, consumer products, electronics, things to put on your desk that make you forget that at one point you had dreams too. Slowly you get angry, you don't even know you are angry, but you start snapping at the people you care most about, if something happens at work you don't like, you let it slide and huddle down and just do what you are paid to do, if you miss an opportunity you let it go, it eats away at you a bit... but still you let it go, and you find yourself all of a sudden in the same place you were in three years ago, your situation is the same, but you need to change.

So about three months ago I decided I was in a rut, I was angry and I needed change! But the problem with needing change lies with the ultimate question what do I need to change, where do I start, how daring am I willing to be... What happens IF.

Ultimately you learn something I have never fully understood up until this point. That being the fact that there is no "IF" and what was holding me back from so many of my goals in my life is the lack of doing. Ultimately I am the only person who cares if I succeed or fail. those who love me or are my true friends will be there for me for support, and everybody else isn't affected by it one way or the other. Which leads me to notice something leading up to the fight this was that no matter what happened in the ring, win or lose, everybody respects somebody who tries... Everybody appreciates and recognizes a competitor! somebody who is willing to lay themselves on the line to accomplish something, to learn and grow, to better themselves and thereby make those around them better!

I see now that this applies to every aspect of our lives. If we really want to excel in anything we have to have it present in our mind about what we want to accomplish. We cannot expect to achieve excellence if we choose to be a spectator of our own existence flipping from one task to the next with no clear endgame in mind.

I have plans now to strive to be the best I can be at all things I do. we can not fear what may happen if we don't succeed, we need to keep actively engaging and striving for our dreams because ultimately for our well being, it isn't if we win or lose it's if we choose to compete or not.