Trying To Find My Focus – The Climb #269

Tuesday 17^th October 2017

In my head, I’d go to Romania at the beginning of October and then have a full month until the next Wessex League tournament.
However, I looked today and it’s the end of next week. Which means that Swordfish is the end of the week afterwards.
In many ways, I’m in a good condition. I set either a new record or matched my existing record on the cross trainer today. The physio work has given me greater mobility, and I come into the tournaments having steadily improved over the course of the year.
And yet, there’s part of me that feels I’m overdue a disappointment. I’ve set my expectations low for Swordfish. I’ll be fighting the world’s best, and whilst I’m now good… I’m not THAT good. Still if I win one fight I’ll be pleased. I’d secretly like to get into the final 16 though.
And that’s my problem. At the start of summer, I’d be happy to make it into the quarter finals of a competition, now I expect it. And with Wessex looming coupled with a lot of competitiors I have trouble defeating, I can almost feel the frustration building already.
I need at least a 4^th place to do well in the league. I want gold. I don’t like that I’m setting expectations for myself, and especially not ones that are so high. And if I do badly at Wessex, it’s going to affect my performance at Swordfish.
What I desperately want is another massive level up like I had during the summer. I want the physio work I’ve subjected myself to be the catalyst.
The problem is that I’ve already overperformed this year. I should be happy. I should be more than happy. I think to where I was at Swordfish last year and where I am now and the improvement is brilliant.
And yet… the more you progress the more difficult it gets. The more I win, the more I want to win. And I can’t help feel I’m overdue some losses.
I attribute all this to my weird state of mind. I’ve gone easy on myself and despite wanting to edit some more, I gave myself the night off where I did essentially nothing other than a few blog posts and chatting to a few people online.
Yet another example of me not having my focus on point.
On the plus side, it looks like we’re going to have a tournament sparring prep session tomorrow night. I was down to teach but I asked to be let off it. I’ve taught all year and could really do with a bit of focus on sparring. Hopefully this should help get my head a little more focused. I plan to take my current good level of fitness and really, really push it tomorrow.
I suppose in many ways, I can only do the best I can. It’s great to dream of performing well, but that depends on more than me. All I can do is react to the situation.
I’ve got some huge, huge fights coming up in the next couple of weeks, against opponents who can crush me. I have to make sure that doesn’t happen and I have little less than a week to prepare.
If you want to follow more of my journey, then be sure to check me on my social channels. Likewise, if you’d like me to expand on any point mentioned above, please say so in the comments.