Becoming Is A Way Of Life
This excerpt is taken from my Boxing Chronicles which is a collection of notes I began writing when started my boxing training and journey in 2014.
Becoming a champion is a process; it is a way of life. The hardest part as you get older is not so much the physical side, even if things are a little bit harder, but the mental side. The hardest is the mental acceptance of going through the training every day.
It is all about the day in and day out grind because what you do doesn’t only count in the gym. After gym you have to warm down and stretch. You have to drink water. Eat.
During the day you try to recover and conserve energy. You try to have a clear mind because you need that. A clear mind calms everything, calms the body and helps recovery.
And, you do this (speaking of me) because you are trying to recover to go train again in the evening. You rest again and go again in the morning. It is this drudgery that is the hardest the part. That is the part you have to accept and embrace.
Have I done this adequately? No. Not enough. It is a never ending struggle. Like Brian Tracy said, you never get to a point where have everything mastered.
It is a fight. I have fallen a lot. I’m coming out of a major dip right now all-round and I believe it came about because I stopped going to the boxing club. I had quite a few injuries, things got stop-start. I sort of lost focus. I stopped going to the gym. And this was about for a full two months.
Once you miss a few sessions or drift away from the process, rationalisations become a danger and an enemy. I started rationalising: “The gym is expensive. Perhaps I can do without it; I could do my own morning training.”
This was a complete fail. The gym brings structure and focus. It is an immediate win first thing in the morning. And you win every day. It is a great way to start the day.
Without this winning I was lost. And in the end, the money you pay is very much worth it. I’m going to try again and mount this horse. This is my third week back and it is about improving everything, all-round. Let’s try go for another three weeks. Let’s try live the champion life.
19 July 2016
