When my boy lost the fight, but all I could see was the win…(and the bruises

Agony and pride and all the emotions sat right next to each other this weekend while I watched my boy step into a ring and do something I don’t think I could ever do. Well in fact I know I could never do because I’m a proper jessie.

And I mean I really watched him - sometimes through my fingers, never taking my eyes off him for one second as hard as it was. Not that half watching we do when we’re on our phones or thinking about what’s for tea. I mean eyes locked, heart in your throat, every second stretched out so long it felt like time had packed a suitcase and gone on holiday without you.

Five rounds. One and a half minutes each. My boy stepped into the ring for his fifth competitive Thai Boxing Match.

I can confirm it’s the longest one and a half minutes you’ll ever experience and I include labour in that when the say 'push through the pain.'

I felt everything. Pride, fear, admiration, panic with a whole heap of need to jump into that ring and protect whilst marvelling at his brilliance, his determination and his grit. That primal urge to jump in and drag him out, mixed with the very real knowing that this is his thing, his fight, his moment. Part of you is bursting with pride. The other part is gripping the seat, heart in your throat, wondering how quickly you could get to them if you needed to. Agony and pride, side by side.

That’s the duality, isn’t it.

You can be bursting with pride and absolutely a bit broken apart at the same time. You can want something for someone and want to protect them from the very thing they’ve chosen.

We don’t talk about that enough.We like things neat. Win equals good. Loss equals bad. Simple. Tidy. Box ticked.

Except it’s a massive crock of shitbiscuits and needs to get in the bin. My boy didn’t win this fight. It was a split decision and the final result didnt go his way, but what I watched this weekend wasn’t a loss.

I saw eight weeks of discipline, grit, determination, passion, discipline and perseverance walking into that ring.

I saw early mornings, tired legs, meals planned when it would’ve been easier to grab whatever was nearest, runs done when motivation had long since buggered off. I’m frankly in awe of how he approached the fight, how he has approached every fight with mind, body and soul all going into the preparation. His commitment to nutrition and fuelling his body with the right things, no alcohol for eight weeks, living at uni with all his mates, his carefully planned meals and water loading, his understanding that his mindset and his mantra that ‘you can’t teach heart’ mattered as much as his fitness and nurtrition - and that’s how he stepped into the ring. His preparation the days before with the weight cut (which is frankly hideous) and then the day before as he visualised every round, practicing how he was stepping into the ring including mindset work on how he was going to celebrate his win (thank you to the fabulous Jamil Qureshi for his insights on that). Some of it taken from the learnings I have inhaled through my work and some of it through the fantastic teachers at his clubs and so much of it through his own instinct.

Everyone bangs on about motivation like it’s some magical force that floats in and carries you through. It doesn’t. It nips off the minute it gets inconvenient. Motivation isn’t what fuels you, us, or him.

What carries you is what you do when you can’t be arsed. The discipline, the grit, the passion, the purpose, all mixed up in one fabulous alchemy of cracking on.

And my lad has been doing that. Sometimes quietly, sometimes with all the frustration, occasionally with tears, always with heart, always consistently moving towards his goal.

And then in round one, he took an elbow to the head, a cut to his head, blood, the whole thing. He could’ve stepped back. No one would’ve blamed him. I wanted to step in. He didn’t. I didn’t.

He stayed in it. I watched. Watching someone you love do something hard. Really hard. And every part of you is split in two.

He fought every round. He never gave up. Not once. His fitness over the last eight weeks (and before that), his runs in the cold, in the hail when his legs had given up, his training, his dedication carried him through. But mostly his grit shone through.

He lost on a split decision, and he was gutted. Of course he was. That matters. Wanting to win matters, but that night, battered, bruised, hobbling about like he’d aged thirty years overnight, there it was. Pride. And the knowledge that he had done all he could. He was against a more experienced competitor. He was proud of what he had achieved and he told me he learnt a lot from those elbows. He knew he’d done the work. Of course, I was a hot mess worrying about him, but that's an entirely different post.

Every run, every session, every choice that nobody else sees, he’d already banked it. So when the result didn’t land how he wanted, it didn’t take his pride with it. He knew he had done all he could do to win - and it helped that the judge came up to him afterwards and confirmed that it was close and he was the winner in his eyes. And then all his mates scooped hm up afterwards.

He knew he hadn’t cut corners. He didn’t dip out. He didn’t tell yourself a story about why it was too hard. All stuff I’ve done on steroids.

He did the work.

That’s what Carol Dweck talks about with an effort mindset. When you measure yourself on the process, not just the outcome, you build something that actually lasts. Research shows that people who focus on effort and learning are more likely to persist and improve over time, even after setbacks (Dweck, 2006, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success).

And I’m sat there thinking, I am more proud of that boy in this moment than if he’d won. More proud of the loss than maybe I would’ve been of the win.

You don’t build resilience in the win. You recognise it in the loss. This is where resilience shows its face. Not in the highlight reel. In the wobble. In the cut. In the decision that didn’t go your way.

So maybe what we need to ask ourselves this week in a little bit of self-reflection is:

Where are you measuring yourself purely on the win? Where are you writing yourself off because it didn’t go your way, when actually you showed up, did the work, stayed in the ring Because that counts; way more than you’re giving it credit for.

And if you’re waiting to feel motivated before you start, you’ll be waiting a long time. Start anyway.

Build the habits. Do the reps. Stay in the round. It takes 21 days of repetition for new neural pathways to form - connecting your goal to taking action every day is how you crack on, on purpose. Because when it doesn’t go your way, and sometimes it definitely won’t, you want to be able to stand there, a bit bruised, a bit fed up, and still say,

"I did everything I could."

Now crack on. Then crack on, with purpose and all of that grit that we have in spades.

And thankfully the son shine has now retired from competitive Thai Boxing for a while and has gone back to uni with a commitment to partying which I know he will follow with the same diligence as he did his commitment to training. So now I can crack on with "just" being worried about the partying, the drinking and all the other things 20 year olds at uni do.

But Blimey O Riley - I am so blink stinking proud of him. He's my winner and I'll fight anyone that says otherwise (with maybe cotton buds and from a distance).