When you train in Mixed Martial Arts you will often be faced with roadblocks. For most of us the challenges sometimes seem insurmountable and we are not always sure how to overcome them. We make excuses for our inability to get past these obstacles or we shift the responsibility and blame to someone else. This often falls upon the coach! As an athlete no matter if you are just a ‘weekend warrior’ putting only a few hours of training in a week or a pro-am fighter, the first thing you need to realize is that your coach is not responsible for your performance, you are!
If there is an aspect in training that seems to difficult to overcome such as a technique or strategy that you keep making mistakes on or you are struggling with your conditioning and mental game then you and only you must accept responsibility to overcome these roadblocks.
You can do this by first keying in to a simple formula, essentially you need to A.C.T.
ACCEPT
Like it or not, and most of the time you wont, you need simply to accept your current situation. I hear athletes who continuously complain about the difficulties they are having in training, in fact they complain so much at times that the wasted time spent on complaining could have more than likely resulted in a solution being found.
It serves no purpose to complain about difficulties you may be having, simply accept that you are and then….
CREATE
You need to create the desired state required to overcome the obstacles you are facing. Now that you have accepted your current situation you need to create a way to overcome it. Start off by writing down what the desired result you are seeking should look like, then work backwards from there listing all the processes that would be required to accomplish this outcome. If you don’t know what those processes should be sit down with someone who knows, possibly your coach. Once you have that outlined begin to….
TAKE action!
You take action by focusing on each process incrementally, one step at a time. This whole process may seem simple but you will be amazed to find out how many people who when faced with an obstacle simply give up because they cannot get it right the first time. Nothing of value comes easy – you have to work to achieve it. If you set out action steps to get there and you focus on achieving each one in succession, without trying to take shortcuts, then you will arrive at your destination before you know it.
ACT Today!
Rodney King©2005
Rodney is a Performance Enhancement & Mental Games Coach. He is the innovator of the Crazy Monkey Defense Program which is taught in over 15 countries worldwide. For more information on Rodney and mental game consultation go to his personal website at Rodney King Training alternatively go to his online membership program at Crazy Monkey Defense.
