When it’s impossible

Every week I owe myself at least two Jiu Jitsu training sessions. This week was rough with my work schedule and weekend commitments, so I did two training sessions yesterday. When I got into the second one, I started talking myself out of it. There was a moment where my heart was pounding so hard that it was audible to me. My breath could not get into my body quickly enough. I hit the wall and began to think of quitting. Then, I kept going.

This morning, it was time for a Tabada workout on the Peloton. It was worse than last night. Already over-fatigued, it was a struggle. But, I kept going. It wasn’t the best workout in terms of my spot on the leaderboard. It definitely wasn’t a personal best. But, in a way, it was because I struggled through even though I wanted to quit.

Why not quit?

They say that fighters don’t quit because it not within them to do so. Fighter’s are bred to keep moving forward no matter how bad they are getting beat. In the same vein, a quitter is also bred…bred to quit.

Every day we have a choice. We can choose to move forward regardless of any adversity we face. Or, we can choose to quit. We can rationalize that we don’t feel well today, or that we don’t have the time to do what we set out to do. There’s always tomorrow, we tell ourselves. Too many of these days in a row leads to a live bred for failure.

Positivity isn’t about walking on a pink cloud of marshmallows and daydreams every day. Sometimes you will have difficult days, weeks, months…or years. Maybe you will have a difficult decade. Regardless of where you are at any given moment, you owe it to yourself to grid through the struggle. It’s in this grinding that we become bred for success. Remember, everyone thinks about quitting during their darkest moments. Winners simply don’t listen to those thoughts.