Many boxing or kickboxing matches are marketed as "the fight of the century," you have seen this, for example, in the matches between Badr Hari and Rico Verhoeven, but during the matches things go a little less than "the fight of the century."
Later you will find out what this has to do with getting in your own way now.
I also help a kickboxer who trains in the same gym as Badr and because of that I knew Badr could do well, but so an injury occurred.
Kickboxing may be the only sport where athletes say, "If he hadn't gotten injured, he would have won."
You don't hear that in other sports. That someone was actually better and deserves the title. Ajax was actually better, yet they lost. They are not going to replay the game to see who wins then.
Kickboxing, in my opinion, is one of the few sports where they say, "We'll go again."
I find that very odd, if you get injured twice, as far as I'm concerned, you're obviously just not strong enough.
If I'm in the ring with Rico and I get hit, I get injured too. Would I have won then, too? No, that's different again.
In itself, there's not that much difference. You win by knocking someone out, by winning on points, or by someone giving up. If you give up, you have lost, period. Even though you're ahead by a hundred points. It's a technical knock out and then you've won.
It is very interesting to see what happens next, because then you can also see Rico's frustration that he has not been able to prove that he is better.
Then I think, "Dude, you're just better because he just gives up." Badr may have been technically better or something, but physically he just gave up. Done.
Then I'm also reminded of one of those Chinese table tennis players. He had a very bad backhand, but he won because he could smash well. Then you can say, "Yes, but I had a better backhand, so if he didn't have that smash then I would have won."
So yeah? He wins gold.
Yes but if this, if that. Yes, if Ajax had gone through they would have won the Champions League. If a team had not had two red cards they would have gone through. If Michael van Gerwen slips and falls headfirst on the stage he was never world champion.
If I had trained extremely hard at tennis, and if I had had ball skills, I would be as good as Federer now. Then I would have become a multimillionaire in tennis by now.
Super interesting. Of course, that's the biggest bleat in the room.
I wouldn't put up another fight at all. Drop out injured again? Or you must think you can cash in nicely then.
Kickboxing is one of the few sports where that "if" lives so strongly. That "if" is kind of a weird belief for kickboxers, so they don't really claim the win.
Your personal struggles
What I also find interesting is that many people do almost the same thing. We also fight battles with ourselves, with our minds, all the time. The greatest opponent is found in the mirror.
After all, the goals or resolutions you are going to set for a coming year or period, are you going to implement them?
Then comes the struggle to deliver that.
Imagine you don't want to eat pink cakes anymore, don't buy them and avoid them. This goes well for the first two weeks and then it becomes more difficult. It's often the same way with sports or work, or finding the right partner.
These are all goals you set for yourself. But what will you do and do to achieve it?
That's a battle with yourself, with your beliefs. Those beliefs can get in the way of yourself. Maybe you think you are not good enough, that you are insecure, too shy, too introverted or just extroverted. Then there are all kinds of other beliefs.
You have to fight those, you have to push them aside so you can move past them. This is difficult because they can cause you to not see the facts clearly. They affect how you see the world and how you think you can function in it.
You can also say, "I can't do it well enough." Instead of: "I'm not good enough." That changes things already.
Some struggles you don't want to face at all, either. The struggle with "I am" is very difficult; the struggle with "I can and I want to learn" is more manageable. Then you assume that you can do something, but also that things can go wrong.
For example, sometimes I have a workout that doesn't go at all, which is frustrating, but then you've taken another step and the next workout will go well. It will go well again one day.
You don't know when, but you just keep taking those steps. You have to go through a tough moment sometimes.
It's still a struggle, but you choose your own.
Because which fight do you want to fight and which fight makes no sense? You choose the fight that will benefit you the most, such as:
- I want to grow personally.
- I want to become a better person in my relationship.
- I want to be a better person as a father.
You choose something you want to grow in. This can be a skill, this can be something spiritual, it doesn't matter. It helps you grow. You just want to become a better person than you were before.
Your belief
Fighting that personal battle also has to do with what you believe. If you don't believe that you can achieve your goal it becomes very difficult, you get in your own way. On the contrary, if you believe that you can, then the struggle becomes much less. Then it becomes much easier to achieve the goal.
This belief doesn't mean it won't be a struggle, but this makes it easier.
Yet you shouldn't go for the easiest either. Your comfort zone is deadly, literally. If all you do is lie around, eat chips and do nothing, dn you often become unhealthier and there are consequences.
Then it's better to do battle with yourself. Your primal brain only wants lying and comfort and you have to override that. That battle is within yourself.
At some point, you just go.
Hypnosis can help you do this faster, making it less of a struggle. You can choose not to fight, as with aikido. Then you learn to fight by not fighting. Then it looks like you don't have to do anything, but those people were able to do it especially well by training for 50 years.
Those people had fought so many battles with themselves that it became quiet in their heads. So it is with meditation.
Then you have often won the biggest battle with yourself. That those thoughts of I'm not good enough and the like are just silent and so don't affect you negatively.
Also listen to this podcast:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/195236/2338754-het-gevecht-van-de-eeuw?play=true
Learning not to hold yourself back
Getting in your own way often happens because you still have unconscious beliefs somewhere that cause you to do self-destructive things over and over again, when you are just getting ready to achieve your goals.
You've probably figured out by then that you need to change, but yes how do you do that? Learning is an important part of change, whether it is personal change or change in an organization[1].
It is important to have some kind of learning strategy to stop getting in your own way. For example, in the goal of being a good father, you can have the "learning strategy" of having full attention to your child for 30 minutes every day.
It may be disappointing at first, but in time you will find that you learn to better pick up on your child's signals, even beyond those 30 minutes.
Resisting group pressure to keep yourself out of harm's way
Another problem kickboxers face in simply claiming a win is peer pressure. If all the kickboxers say "Yes, but if it was different then", it is very difficult to just say myself, "I am stronger and he lost".
Now with kickboxing, I can also imagine that it has something to do with avoiding losing face in front of your opponent.
But like kickboxers, every person is under peer pressure. This can be pressure from your family, pressure from your friends and/or pressure from your colleagues. You feel this peer pressure especially when the group wants something or expects something from you that makes you feel bad(er), but still feel like you have to do it.
Just then, it is important to have your intention clear, the goal you want to work toward, and to determine if the behavior the group requires of you is going to help you achieve this goal. If the answer is "no," then it is important to resist group pressure and go your own way.
How to do all this can be supported with hypnosis.
Join us for a free online master class on hypnosis to master the basics.
Or enroll in one of our training courses.
Sources:
[1] https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/00197850710755131/full/html
