What's your worth?
When competing in fight sports, some of us connect our self-worth to the result of the competition. One’s sense of worth is tied up in victory; often feeling better about ourselves when we win. Now, what I am saying is different from enjoying winning, I’m talking about how a person views themselves in relation to a victory or a loss.
Just to be clear, when I fought, I connected my self-worth to the result of the fight, even though I was not aware of it at the time. I now see the same thing happening to other people and I think this is quite common amongst fighters. To me, self-identity and self-worth are very closely related, and that I think these are very important to a person’s view of themselves. Let’s use a BJJ blue belt as an example. The blue belt knows they’re not the best on the mat, but they might see themselves as the best blue belt. When they go into a competition and get beaten, how the see themselves change. They ask themselves, am I really the best blue belt in the club? Will the other people in the club think I am crap? These questions go on and occur because one’s sense of self-worth can be wrapped up in victory. In reality, all that happens is other people see the loss and think “gosh that other guy must’ve been good”, their opinion of you doesn’t change.
From what I have seen, the pressure we put on ourselves is far greater than that which is bestowed on us by others. The most common response I hear when asked “why don’t you compete” is, “I don’t want to let anyone down”. This is rarely the real answer. They don’t want their image of themselves to change. Let’s face it, what is the worst this that can happen at a BJJ comp? You get tapped out; that is the single worst thing that can happen in terms of competition. When you think about it that way, you begin to realise that most people get tapped out on any given night and it doesn’t stop them training. There is obviously a lot more to it than that though. Some people worry about the crowds and some people don’t like the pressure. What that really means is they don’t want people to see them lose or they don’t want to ‘officially’ lose.
Self-worth is a very important thing. However, as competitors we should not link our sense of self-worth to a win or a loss. Some of the best fighters seem to be able to take it for what it is – a win or a loss. Yes, they hate to lose and love to win, but they don’t get too down on themselves if they lose as there are greater values which make up their identity. They are still a good person, have a family and so on, regardless of the win or loss. However, in saying that, a lot of professional sports people are not content; there has to be something driving them after years and years in the sport. I found it the hardest when I stopped fighting; I couldn’t look at myself as a fighter any more. A fighter was who I was, it was all I wanted to be and consequently, my life revolved around that. Then when I stopped, questions flooded my head. Who was I? A failure? A loser? All these things came to mind. Not once did I think, “well, that didn’t work the way I planned – on to the next thing”. It took years and a trip overseas to a fight gym to finally reconcile it with myself. All of my self-worth was tied up in me being a fighter.
If you could step out of yourself and see that no one really cares about how you do in a competition; they are usually more concerned with themselves, or like you too much that a loss won’t change a thing. The level most of us compete at is local so hardly anyone knows about it, or watches it anyway, so why do we worry so much? It goes back to the start where we worry because it can change how we view ourselves and that is a very difficult thing to deal with.
When you put it in perspective, if getting tapped out in a BJJ comp is the worst thing that happens in your week, that is a damn good week. At a funeral you are not going to hear someone’s sporting record, no matter how good they were, the sport will be mentioned but it will be more about how they made people laugh, how they inspired people and so on. So, if you are like me and link your self-worth to sporting success, change it now. There are so many better measures in life than how good at sport you are. Get out there and compete and give it all to win, but if you don’t, does it really matter? The competition does not change who you are.
Gareth Lewis
Head MMA Instructor