Embracing Discipline To Overcome Your Fears
Today I wanted to dive into a bit of a different topic. No worries I’m going to be touching on the training aspect of things, but more in a way to show you how your training can help you to overcome your fears. You see today’s topic is all about overcoming fear and doubt.
Overcoming Fear And Doubt…
I remember when I was young teenager first being scared to sign the papers to play football. When I was in elementary school the middle school football coaches would come down to the elementary school to meet with the 6th grade class to try and recruit players to sign up for 7th grade middle school football team. I remember them coming and I decided not to sign the papers because I had fear and doubt in my mind.
A year later I was in middle school and I remember the coaches calling us back into the lunch room cafeteria to do the same. Many of my friends signed those papers and once again I just threw it in the trash as I left the cafeteria. Even though I was athletic and had played baseball for some reason I still had doubts in my mind about whether I could play football. I don’t know why, but for whatever reason those doubts were swimming around inside my head.
And so another year came and went and I was now in 8th grade. This time the high school coaches were coming down to the middle school to go through the same routine. Now in my mind I was faced with a more pressing choice. Being that me and my classmates were entering high school I knew I was running out of time.
I had to make a decision. I had talked with some of my friends and they told me to give it a try. This had been something that had been bothering me now for over 3 years up until this point. The fear of trying and failing had kept me from taking action. Well that would soon come to an end.
When the coaches handed me the application for going into the 9th grade I signed the paper. Inside my head I had made up my mind to jump in with both feet and to go at it as hard as I could.
I went on to play the remainder of my high school years and did end up suffering a major knee injury ending my final senior season. I had worked hard and had gotten constant recognition from my coaches and teammates from my work ethic during the offseason workouts. I took pride in these workouts and in the fact that I was molding my body for battle.
Granted all these years later as a seasoned strength coach I can tell you that as a teenage kid I didn’t know near what I know now about the body and training. Nevertheless, I enjoyed what training I had to accomplish because in my mind I was building myself physically and mentally for something bigger.
Even as I continued I certainly wasn’t the biggest or strongest athlete. I knew I was mentally tough, but my football playing career was cut short due to the traumatic knee injury. You may say this was a disappointing end to what may have seemed like a feel good story. Well…yes and no.
You see I did realize something during that whole process. I realized once I had mustered up the courage to sign that application and actually started training and practicing that there were some growing pains. I also took many hits and felt a lot of pain, but I quickly realized that I would come right back stronger every time.
You see that part in my life made me realize that after all the worry, fear, and doubt that the biggest battle of it all was happening right inside my own head. It wasn’t anything that anyone else was doing to me. No, this was something that was going on inside of me. This was the battle of all battles and over time I realized this and I never let fear and doubt slow me down again.
You see one thing I quickly realized was that once I actually started into the process of training and practicing for the sport that those fears and doubts went away. Just being in the middle of all of it just helped me to continue to grow and build confidence in what I could do. I had learned to embrace those fears which in turn caused them to just simply disappear.
Check out this video about embracing fear with a Navy SEAL breaking down the process. This is essentially what I’m getting at!
As you can see the best formula is action. That’s what I learned. In addition to that I also came to realize over time that I wasn’t just training my body for the sport of football. I was training my mind and body for something else. I was training for something bigger. I may not have completely realized it at the time, but I was training myself for life!
You see eventually I had to bring that same work ethic and grit to the table for me to overcome the fear of having a debilitating knee injury. I had to fight through some rigorous physical therapy and start figuring out in a hurry what I needed to do with my life because the football portion of my life was over.
You see this ultimately led me in the direction of studying and learning more about the human body and taking that drive and determination that I had learned all those hot summer days and continued to apply them into my life as an actual way of life and as an income earning profession.
I would have doubts in many jobs that came and went in the fitness industry and also doubts in starting my own business, but this time I didn’t let fear grip me to the point that I was stagnant. Instead I would take the leap and just take the hits as they came rather than sitting stagnant worrying about something that hadn’t even taken place.
Having been in this position during my physical training it had also gotten me accustomed to testing myself both physically and mentally. As I would push myself in the iron game and work on a killer bout of conditioning I would get lost inside my own head as my body was thrust into overdrive from the physical stress I would regularly place on it. You see I was testing and growing myself.
You see at this point pulling a heavy deadlift, squatting for a new PR, or swinging a kettle bell gets me into this state of mind every time. The discipline of it helps to harden the mind, it hardens the body, and programs me to better handle any fear, or doubt monster that may try to rear its ugly head.
You see the beauty of this is that you can also rely on this to overcome your fears and doubts. You get stronger by testing yourself both mentally and physically and what better way is there to acquire strength. After all strength is what overcomes doubt and fear, right?
I hope you enjoyed today’s post. Please post up in the comments below. Stay strong and keep training smart!
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