Mental toughness allows us to enter the battlefield with poise…

Love The Battlefield

“Strength and honour!”

“Three weeks from now I will be harvesting my crops. Imagine where you will be, and it will be so.

Hold the line. Stay with me.

If you find yourself alone riding through green fields with the sun on your face, do not be troubled for you are already in Elysium…and you are already dead!! (loud cheering from the soldiers).

Brothers, what we do in this life, echoes in eternity.”

                                    ~ Maximus Decimus Meridius

“Strength and honour!”

In your mind’s eye see who do you love deeply. Maybe it’s your children, your spouse/partner, your pet.

When those you love are in need, do you run the other way or charge forward to defend, protect and save? Are you fearful? I think not. There is nothing but courage and conviction spilling out of you to get done what is called for. You have a mission to complete and you do not hesitate.

This is your mind set on something that causes a high emotional vibration inside of you. You willingly step forward to act.

This is an example of a fight or flight emotional charge. Not one that we want to experience on a regular basis. If we think about it, we have positive experiences in our lives like this as well. We were so emotionally charged about an event that nothing could stop the excitement, the joy, and we likely performed exceptionally well at whatever it was we needed to do.

Because I view life from an athletic perspective, through a fitness lens, I describe this phenomenon of heightened vibration and awareness of self:

“Loving the Battlefield, poised and fierce before entering the arena.”

One of my battlefields that I enter regularly and willingly is CrossFit. Yours will be something different. Regardless of what it is, we LOVE it. We get excited and giddy when it’s time for it.

Life is many different battlefields. Or a playground. We have highly honed skills in some areas (vocation, relationships, health, time/money freedom) and less honed skills in other areas. I have areas of my life where I am not poised and fierce before the arena. I am weak in confidence and self. I am sure you have both too.

LOVE the BATTLEFIELD. Whichever one you are being asked to walk on to. Call up courage and conviction and poise and greatness. They are in you in greater amounts than you can imagine. We just need to practise calling on them.

Regardless of WHY you compete, we need to approach it the same way; to experience ourselves in this particular life-arena, this one being competitive sport. And this arena tests us mentally and physically. There is not much else to it at the very end of the day.

Did I remain calm and poised?

Did I choose thoughts that served my purpose? Or thoughts that served fear and anxiety?

Did I discover another level to me at the point of physical exhaustion?

Did I discover another level to me at the point of mental exhaustion?

Was I able to do what I said I was going to do when the gun went off?

    ***TIP

These might be questions you ask yourself after an intense board meeting, an intense child-parent interaction or a CrossFit workout.

The battlefield, the arena is our opportunity to grow and discover who we are. AND the next statement is the most important one to understand. The only competitor in that arena to pay attention to is you. In any arena I enter, the goal is to execute with thought control, flawless skill, and 200% effort. There is nothing more I can expect from myself. If I follow this plan the outcome will be my best performance.

I believe that when we hone our skills on the battlefield of fitness/exercise it has incredible crossover into the other battlefields or areas of life.

Look at it like this:

My mental fitness is Captain. My physical fitness is the soldier. In order for the Captain to shine and explore its potential, it has to have fit, strong soldiers to work with. As you get fitter your mindset, your attitude, your perception of everything that comes your way will change…for the better. You will be stronger mentally in every area of your life.

LOVE the BATTLEFIELD. Show POISE, FIERCENESS in the arena.

So…do not fear the competition, the start line. It is an opportunity to test your metal, go to battle and as a result, grow.

 “I am Tomoe Gozen! Swordswoman of the Minamoto Clan! Champion, consort, and war-captain to Kisoe Yoshinaka! I bow to no man!”

                                             ~ Tomoe Gozen (First female Samurai)