One Simple Habit That Will Make You Fearless
How to build mental fortitude.
Before my first match at the Combat Jiu-Jitsu Worlds a few weeks ago, I felt something that I hadn’t felt before a competition in a long time.
I felt…
Fear.
Normally, before I compete I’m very loose. I’m in a great mood — all the stress I have about my life withers away for a bit when it’s time to compete. I feel happy.
Competing is one of my favorite things to do. I know it might sound strange, but I get the same amount of joy and peace from competing in Jiu-Jitsu as I do from writing in my journal, going for a walk, or listening to my favorite music. I’ve competed in grappling so many times and in the last year or so I’ve turned a corner mentally and competing has just become “fun”. I don’t feel much pressure anymore.
But why didn’t that happen at CJJ?
Was it just the slaps? Or is it something deeper?
Let’s talk about it.
It’s not the slaps, it’s what the slaps meant.
In my CJJ reflection article, I wrote about how I was nervous about the slapping.
I was scared even. I’d never done it before. I’m also not an idiot.
I’ve seen several videos of people getting TKOed, bloodied, and battered via open-palm strikes. In the match before mine, the eventual champ of the tournament threw one strike and cut his opponent, who then spent the rest of the evening working with medics at the event to get his eye sewn shut.
I was aware of the brutality of the open palm strikes ruleset.
So yes, I was nervous about getting hit in the face. But really, I was nervous about doing something new.
That second sentence is really why I was more anxious than normal.
I’ve built up a tolerance to the anxiety of competing in grappling. I have not built up a tolerance to the anxiety of competing in Jiu-Jitsu with strikes.
In my initial hindsight, I was a little disappointed in what CJJ did for my grappling skills.
I didn’t develop any real new skills. Doing one grappling tournament that allows open palm strikes with a bunch of grapplers most of the time just becomes another grappling tournament.
But still — there was an element of fear. There was an element of “Oh fuck, I haven’t done this before.”
I think this fear that you feel when you try something new (whether it’s competing, doing CJJ, or even just going snowboarding) is a very good tool for personal development.
Here’s what YOU should do.
Eventually, through enough exposure, you don't fear "going to the gym" or "competing in Jiu-Jitsu" anymore.
You’re probably always going to fear getting hit in the face, but that’s not really my point.
My point is that you need to shock your system every once in a while if you want to grow. Get out of your comfort zone.
The pickup artist doesn’t fear asking a woman out, he fears intimacy, commitment, and love. The serial entrepreneur doesn’t fear starting another business, he fears a weekend off in a cabin with no wifi or email.
However, until you take the next leap toward something you fear, you’re not really challenging yourself. You’re relishing in who you already are.
You’re protecting your ego. You’re protecting your current identity. It’s an act of self-preservation.
You will always need to find new ways to challenge yourself. New ways to feel fear or anxiety and continue moving forward. Eventually, through enough work, the things that once made you anxious will become sources of comfort. They'll become routine.
If there’s anything that ADHD has taught me, it’s that novelty always wears off. You must address this before you become comfortable doing things that used to make you uncomfortable.
You need to constantly make your life challenging to keep it interesting. You need to constantly expose yourself to the stress of discomfort. You need to constantly find new fears and face them.
That’s how you become fearless.
Generally speaking, I also think more physical challenges are not the way. You should aim to actually challenge yourself — meaning forcing yourself to operate in new ways over and over again.
If you’re a Jiu-Jitsu guy, you can either do MMA or challenge yourself intellectually. For most of y’all, I’d recommend the latter. Face-punching is not a smart career path.
If you struggle with performance anxiety, competing in Jiu-Jitsu helps until you’re no longer anxious about competing in Jiu-Jitsu.
Try publishing a book (it’s a terrifying process). Try starting a newsletter or podcast. Start that business you’ve always wanted to. Try wrestling or another combat sport (I did Combat Jiu-Jitsu). Go back to school.
Shock your system. Put yourself in deep water and figure out how to swim out.
Try something completely new. Subject yourself to the fear, anxiety, and deficit of being a beginner again.
You will reap the benefits in the long run.
Closing Thoughts
Another time in my life that I felt trapped was the last few months that I was living in Chicago.
I don’t talk about it a lot because people tend to misconstrue everything as drama, but it wasn’t that. I just got comfortable.
I had everything I had once wanted. I had a nice teaching job with good people. I was consistently making a decent income. I had some good writing gigs. I had lots of competition opportunities.
But I wasn’t really happy. I wasn’t really excited about anything.
I wanted a change. I wanted a challenge. I realized that I’d rather drown chasing a dream than settle for what I had. I was okay with failure, but I really just wanted to see if the life I’m currently living was even possible.
While I wouldn’t recommend constantly moving, completely restructuring your life, and always chasing dreams, you should always be trying new things.
The more things you try, the more you’ll realize that nothing is as scary as you think it is. Things just exist. You make them scary because you are unfamiliar with them.
There’s comfort in that idea — but if you learned anything today, it should be that you shouldn’t take too much comfort in anything.
Also published this week:
I’ve also started a new free newsletter on using digital writing to pursue freedom and self-actualization. The first free article came out this week. You can read it below.
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