From a young age I was told I can’t do things. “You won’t be a professional athlete. You can’t be a rock star. Less than 1% of people ever get that far. They are lucky and you are not.” We are told this over and over again. Parents, through school, and then as we grow older by friends and family. This never stopped me from dreaming, but when you are told something so consistently, you start to believe it. Can you really work hard at something if deep down you don’t believe it is even possible? HELL NO. As soon as you have lost belief, lost that faith in yourself to accomplish what you are setting out to accomplish, well you have already lost.
This is my biggest regret. I know I was just a kid, and then just a teen, but eventually, I became just an adult and I was still listening to this shit. “You can’t do that. You can’t do this.” My response was program, “Oh okay, well I guess I will go to plan B, plan C, plan D, plan E” and on and on and on as long as I let it. It took me getting a disease to finally understand the big picture.
When I was diagnosed with my disease, once it became a real issue, it made me realize that I was the only one who could make decisions regarding my care. I was the only one who knew how I felt, what I was willing to do to get better, and how I was responding to certain treatments. I couldn’t rely on my parents making decisions for me because they truthfully had no idea what I was going through. Ulcerative colitis is one of those “invisible diseases”. Unless I tell you I have it, or that I’m in pain or symptomatic, you would never know. So, when the doctor offered me surgery, and I turned it down, no one could understand why. Everyone encouraged me to do it. Get the surgery and be done with this whole thing. But I knew that it wasn’t my path. Maybe surgery worked great for other people, but it wasn’t for me. So, for one of the few times in my life I stood strong in what I wanted to do. To this day, I have yet to have the surgery… four years later. And I’ve learned to adopt this principle of being able to do anything you truly believe in.
I didn’t simply just say no to the surgery and then walk around with blinders on for four years. Rather, I had a vision in my head. I decided that this was the end of the line, I will do whatever it takes, regardless of what anyone else thinks, to get better. I started taking injections, which I administered myself. I changed my diet. Living in a very cultured house, when you tell your mom that you will no longer be eating any sort of gluten, or bread, or pasta; it did not go over well. That was, until I started feeling better. I put my head down and started working out again, regardless how hard it was. But I was only able to do this because I believed in my vision that I would be better. I believed, therefore, I became.
I apply this to other areas of my life. I wanted to play soccer and I wanted to do so against the best competition that I could. I picked up the sport at the age of 25 years old. That’s old enough to be considered “old” for picking up a new sport. Within a year, I had multiple teams asking me to be their goalkeeper, I was working as a goalkeeper coach, and I was winning matches. I did it because I had a vision. I was prepared to do what I had to do to be successful. I trained every day, I read every book I could get my hands on, and I watched every YouTube video I could find. I became obsessed. I had a vision and I accomplished my goal. I continue to challenge myself in this way, both in the athletics domain and in my work as a trainer. I have had the vision of being the best strength and conditioning coach in the country and I will achieve that accolade, in time. I am also returning to a sport that I have taken a decade off of, attempting to learn a new position, and doing so in the way that I will once again face top opposition. Oh, and this whole time, people are doubting me and letting me know as often as possible. Good… because those are the people who will read the story of my success first.
My point is that you will always have people who doubt you, or your child (if you are a parent who believes your kid can be a pro athlete). My advice is that if you truly have the passion and you truly believe, in your heart, that you can accomplish your dream, don’t let others stop you with their doubt. I spent six years and $30,000 in tuition at an engineering school because I let other people’s doubt dictate my life. It was a pricey lesson that I had to learn so that you hopefully do not need to repeat it. People will always doubt you, it’s your job to prove them wrong. Stay true to yourself, to what you believe. If you want success, you have to have that audacity, that belief in yourself that is so strong that no one will convince you otherwise. It is the only way. I believe to be at the pinnacle of success that you have to transcend what is expected of you from others. They do not know you truly. They do not know how passionate you are, and they may never know. But take yourself outside of their doubt. You will become what you believe, so believe in yourself and success will never pass you by. Belief and effort, the only magic ingredients to success and no one can sell those to you, because you already have it. You just need to unlock it.
