There’s an old African proverb that goes like this: “If there is no enemy within, the enemy outside can do us no harm.”
The meaning? The toughest opponent you will ever face in life is yourself and if you can overcome yourself, then you will be able overcome anything else. You are the greatest barrier to your becoming all that you are capable of being. Not your circumstances, not your setbacks, not other people. Only you.
I wanted to write this piece after I saw the movie, Creed. Everyone’s been telling me to go see it and after hearing the tremendous impact that it had on them, I had to go. That movie everything is they said it was and more. It changed my perspective on what it means to persevere towards achieving your dream. I’ve been a big fan of award-winning actor, screenwriter, and film director Sylvester Stallone, aka Rocky, after hearing about his life story, and I can see how he took what he had learned into every scene with rising actor Michael B, aka Creed. Jordan. Rocky reminds Creed that his toughest opponent is himself.
Isn’t that something?
WATCH: TRAILER FOR CREED
It really made me think.
Look, there are 86,400 seconds; 1,440 minutes; and 24 hours in a day that you will have to face yourself. Plus, multiply this by the number of years that you will live. That’s a lot of time to face yourself – if you are always against yourself.
Now, take in the fact that whenever you are trying to become who you were meant to be or to fulfill a dream, you will become your toughest opponent many times. All of your inner thoughts often come against you. This is one top of the resistance that you will most likely get from the world. You will have lots of self-doubt, discouragement, anxiety, disbelief, and more. But as Buddha once said (and not that I’m a big fan), but “All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become.” The way you think about yourself is everything.
You overcome your toughest opponent by never allowing yourself to stay down when you get knocked down, as they say in Creed. Fight your thoughts. Fight yourself. Constantly remind yourself of who you are and what you are capable of doing, despite what is coming against you.
There is no greater enemy that you have than yourself. It’s that simple.
Once you are able to overcome yourself, the extra negativity you have to face is just noise. Let this piece give you the courage to meet and overcome your toughest opponent: yourself.
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