How to Bring Out the Fighter in You
Discover how to be a fighter so you can conquer your life battles.
Life can be a struggle at times.
You may be at a point in your life when you’re running out of hope.
By gaining greater insight into your life battle, you will begin to dismantle its power over you.
Don’t be discouraged if you feel overwhelmed.
At times, all we can do is take small steps.
This is all right, your life is not a competition.
You will heal at your own pace.
The first step is that you are willing and committed to improving your life; otherwise you will not have a fighting chance.
In order to conquer your life battle, you must empower yourself.
What battle are you fighting?
Understand your battle.
Who or what are you up against?
Think of your life battle as your “opponent.”
Is your opponent money, food, health,a broken relationship, depression or perhaps something else?
Your goal is to defeat your “opponent” so that you can gain control over your life and live up to your full potential.
Just like a boxer, analyze your opponent’s strengths and weaknesses.
If you have been losing the battle, it means that the opponent has overpowered you with its strength.
Allow me to provide more insight, by detailing my greatest life battle: overcoming a health crisis that would leave me disabled for several years.
This was a long-term battle, which would test every ounce of me.
My opponent: an undiagnosed health illness.
This illness had impressive capability of causing major havoc to my physical health.
In addition, it had the strength of being very elusive.
Countless doctor visits and vast amount of testing yielded no answers.
Doctors were baffled.
How would I ever defeat my illness (opponent) without a proper cure or treatment?
The more time passed, the less likely I would ever be victorious.
My opponent, this mysterious and debilitating illness was winning many rounds, and it would keep knocking me down.
Each knock down left my body weaker.
My symptoms would intensify, at times feeling life threatening.
I was losing more of my independence, I had to quit my job, I couldn’t drive, and there were days I could barely walk.
When life throws many punches, eventually you begin to self-doubt and wonder if you should just throw in the towel.
Yet, I wasn’t ready to surrender.
I would keep getting back up.
I was determined to win this battle, despite losing countless “boxing rounds.”
How could I claim my life back with such a dismal outlook?
How to Be a Fighter – Bringing out the Fighter in You
After analyzing your opponent’s weaknesses and strengths, it’s time to focus on you.
Determine what makes you strong and on the other hand, what makes you weak.
In my case, my obvious and great weakness was my physical health.
The other weakness was the lack of available medical treatment.
However, my mind and spirit were very strong.
I still felt empowered, and my faith was very much intact as well.
I knew that the illness couldn’t take hold of my mind and soul that was, after all, my opponent’s weakness.
I focused on my strengths to continue the fight.
I was determined to get my life back.
Use your strengths to defeat your battle.
Winning takes empowerment and endurance.
If you lack these qualities, it is vital that you work to gain them.
Take the time to work on your weak areas whether it’s increasing your self-esteem, facing your fears, gaining willpower, and so on.
While you are fighting your battle, don’t allow yourself to dwell on the pain and suffering.
You want to create outlets that will help you maintain a positive outlook.
Take the time to give yourself much needed TLC.
Speak words of affirmation, “I will overcome this.”
Another point worth making, just like a boxer has a team that provides support and guidance; gather your own support team and/or coach.
My mother was my amazing and relentless coach.
I couldn’t have won my battle without her.
She was my rock throughout my ordeal.
The person you are is a reflection of how you think and feel about yourself.
Are you content with the image of yourself?
If not, now is the time to empower yourself to make the necessary changes needed for you to be strong enough to win your life battle.
Determine Your Motivation
Motivation is what keeps us going and fuels our energy.
Ask yourself, what is the reason(s) you want to win the battle?
Why is it so important to you?
Your motivation is the reason you are fighting the battle.
Without it, you would give up completely.
In my case, I felt empowered to take control of my health because my son was depending on me.
It broke my heart that my son was losing his vibrant mother.
My son, who was 4 years old at the time, was my main motivation.
I was also doing this for myself.
I had aspirations for my life and refused to be locked in an unhealthy body.
This illness was not going to rob me of my hopes and dreams.
Coming Up with a Victory Plan
You are almost ready to put on your boxing gloves.
A boxer never enters the ring unprepared.
If you don’t have a plan of attack, you will be overpowered and lose the battle.
It’s like going inside the boxing ring without boxing gloves on and letting the opponent throw countless easy punches until you’re knocked out.
This would most likely happen in the first round.
Develop your victory plan.
You’ll win by disabling your opponent’s strength and/or overpowering it by tackling its weaknesses.
My plan was to keep on searching for a treatment.
I researched all and everything that I possibly could about my symptoms.
I would go from doctor to doctor, hospital to hospital in hopes of getting treatment, and when that didn’t work, I searched for alternative treatments.
After many brutal unsuccessful attempts to find treatment, I was feeling all bruised up and in intense pain.
My spirit although relentless was beginning to show wear and tear.
Just like a badly beaten boxer, I would pick myself back up, unwilling to admit defeat.
Defying all odds and with what seemed like my last breath, I would rise up to face my battle once again.
And this time, finally, I would be victorious.
It was then that I found my healing angel, a magnificent TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) practitioner who restored my health.
I am forever grateful to him.
There’s no cure for my chronic condition, I had to make peace with the fact that I would never be able to defeat my opponent 100%.
In the end, no one could tell me what exactly caused me to become so ill.
Ultimately, what matters is that I regained control of my physical health.
I returned to normal life.
I was able to work once again and I was blessed with a second child, a baby boy.
I’m back to doing the things that I love and much more!
Build up the fighter spirit in you.
It’s very important to feel empowered no matter the circumstance.
When you feel empowered, you are giving yourself authority, and confidence to win your life battle.
You’ll make the best decisions because you love and value yourself enough to say, “I am worth it!”
You can be strong despite the storms in your life.
You are not defined by your situation.
What defines you is how you handle your problems.
Learnt How to Be a Fighter?
I didn’t win my life battle overnight.
It took years of empowerment, patience, and persistence.
It took every part of me not to give up.
Gather your strength, confidence and empowerment, so when life comes at you hard, you can come at it even harder.
And the champion in you will emerge!
I hope the above tips have helped you learn how to be a fighter and conquer your obstacles.
So, how do you plan on winning your life battle?
I’d love to hear your story in the comment section below.
Edith
January 19, 2023 at 4:24 AM
Hi! I have always struggled with a lot of uncertainty from a very young age because my mom was this parent with so much favoritism amongst her children. My matter got worse after I found that I do not share the same father with my other siblings. Our father died years back before I was born. Now it made a lot of sense why she was ill-treating me out of other kids.
I felt like my mother hated me and I wanted to leave. Around 16-17years I met my boyfriend who I dated for 2years then unfortunately I fell pregnant at 18. I was very much ashamed of myself and wanted to commit suicide. Let alone the thought of how things are going to be with my mom. I begged my boyfriend to marry me because honestly I could not live with myself.
We got married but started having problems at an stage of our marriage. I was at varsity by then. He was into drugs and we had to separate because he was very abusive. 4years down the line, he came back claiming to be a changed man and was willing to work things out. I was unemployed by then, having graduated, I was raising our daughter alone and it wasn’t at all easy.
We got back together but still in a short space of time he started showing some red flags of cheating. Somewhere somehow I caught him cheating, that’s when I found out that he had other kids outside our marriage. It was hard for me because he actually had this kids before our separation.
I thought we could work that out but his mother became a great influencer on his son’s cheating behavior because he wanted him to support her financially.
Things got tense between me and my mother in-law.
I got tired of fighting with my husband and his mother and one day, just one day I decided to pack my stuff and leave everything behind.
After I decided to leave he filed for divorce and it was finalized.
Two months after divorce I found out he had impregnated my younger sister and they were getting married.
I got so broken that I wanted to walk far far away from these people. I met a man whom I didn’t really love but was supporting me financially as I wasn’t working also when I left my marriage. I still had one child and I wanted to find my way out to survive and provide for my daughter. The relationship continued, I got a job, I got pregnant with my second child after 10yrs. Unfortunately because of the complications that came with the pregnancy I had to resign from work to keep my baby.
When I was supposed to go back to work, my partner could not let me to, he started complaining that if I become financially stable I’ll leave him. I did not go to work and settled down to raise our kids. He started being jealous and very much over protective of me so much that he did not want me to be meeting anyone, either friends or family. My life had revolve around him alone. He became emotionally abusive but I was stuck with him.
He later got a job for me at his workplace, he would monitor me so badly that I’d go to work according to his rules.
I got pregnant again after two years, unfortunately I lost my baby at 8months of my pregnancy. The guy was emotionally draining me and it affected my child.
In a nutshell, I am at my breaking point now, I want to lose hope, throw in a towel and leave, but I feel like I’d be a loser once again. We are always fighting, especially if I am working. I don’t know what to do anymore. I love him so much now, I feel like I ain’t going to find love again after him. I am tired
Danielle Dahl, Managing Editor
January 19, 2023 at 3:05 PM
Thank you for sharing that with us. It certainly seems like you have gone through some incredibly difficult things. We appreciate so much that you came here and read through our article looking for some insight. You are definitely not a loser, and it is ok to realize that you might need a little help in the fight to find yourself and improve your situation. Therapy can be a wonderful tool if you are interested in that route. We think you matter and hope you don’t forget that!