Trusting the process

I realize I’ve not blogged much for a while, and I’ve had a few people nudge me about getting back to writing, so with a fight coming up I thought now would be a good time to get back to it.

I’m currently five weeks out from my next fight with Aisling Daly on Cagewarriors in Dublin (June 2nd). The usual question I’m being asked is “how’s training going?”. I’m never quite sure how to answer this. The standard answer for a fighter to give is “yeah, it’s going really well. I’m feeling great; in the best shape of my life. I can’t wait to fight!”. And some of the time, that would be true enough.

The thing is, though, an eight week training camp is a long time. A lot of stuff happens in that time, and I’m fairly sure that nobody really feels fantastic all the way through it. Nor would that necessarily be a good thing. The bad days when nothing goes right, the frustration, fatigue, anxiety and self doubt are all as much of the process as the good days when everything feels great. Feeling good all the time (at least in my experience) can breed a dangerous overconfidence.

I’ve found that how I feel isn’t a good indicator of how things are going. The important thing is to believe in the process. I know that in 34 days time I’ll be where I need to be, having done what I need to do to prepare. Training is mostly about getting the details right. Going through the routine, turning up, ticking the boxes. It’s not about being the best in the gym, or winning every round in training. It’s not always about making one big heroic effort. It’s about doing a thousand little things right, every day, and trusting that it’ll all come together at the right time.

Oh, and here’s a video of some of my S&C work at Strength and Performance gym.