By my sixth fight, I thought I would be better at being afraid.
I’d done this five times before. I was on a winning streak. I was fighting at a home show. I knew exactly what the day looked like.
And yet, as my coach wrapped my hands, my breathing began to change.
You’ve done this before.
But what if this time is different?
Maybe you’re not quite ready.
Maybe…
There is a photograph from those final minutes. My gloves are on. My coach is beside me. I’m looking down.
I look calm.
I wasn’t.
What the photograph cannot show is everything happening underneath it. Some part of me was already looking for an exit.
Maybe something would happen and the fight would be cancelled.
Maybe I really wasn’t well enough.
Maybe…
if I absolutely had to…
I could still run.
A little while later, I walked towards the ring. Friends who came to support me told me afterwards how composed I looked. How focused. How confident.
I understand why.
We mostly encounter other people’s courage from the outside, and our own from the inside.
We see the walkout.
We don’t see the changing room.
For years, I assumed this conversation would eventually disappear. I thought courage would arrive looking like confidence. Instead, after six fights, I was still wondering why my body hadn’t got the memo.
The question
It hadn’t always made sense to me. Or perhaps it had. I just hadn’t found the right question yet.
A couple of years earlier, I lost my second fight. It wasn’t the loss that stayed with me. It was how quickly I stopped trusting myself.
What if I’d been wrong about what I was capable of all along?
A few months later, I was offered a late-notice rematch against the same opponent. I remember sitting at my desk with a notebook, trying to convince myself what to do.
My coach didn’t try to persuade me either way. He simply said,
“Write down the pros and cons.”
So I did.
On one side:
- Eight weeks of training.
- Time to face my fear.
- I don’t have forever in boxing.
- My coach believes in me.
On the other:
- Lost to her already.
- Not prepared for her style.
- Busy at work.
- Part of me doesn’t want to.
Looking back now, I don’t think the list was really about boxing. The two columns weren’t answering the same question.
One asked:
Can I do this?
The other quietly asked:
Do I really want to find out?
At the time, I couldn’t have told you the difference. I only knew that every rational part of me pointed one way. Every emotional part pulled the other.
The decision
By the time I finished the list, I already knew what I was going to do. The fear hadn’t gone anywhere. It had simply stopped being the loudest voice in the room.
The next evening I met my coach at training and told him I’d take the fight. Without another word, we spent the whole session preparing for her.
Until then, the rematch had lived only in my imagination. Now it was becoming real. Every combination mattered more. Every mistake suddenly felt expensive.
After training, I picked up my phone.
I typed the message.
Deleted it.
Typed it again.
Deleted it again.
Eventually I stopped trying to find the perfect words. I said to my promoter:
“Let’s do it Jamie.”
I held my breath as I pressed send.
A few moments later my phone lit up.
”It’s on.”
That was it.
Five words.
Then two.
The debate I’d been having with myself for days was over. Until then, one part of me had been trying to move forwards while another quietly looked for the nearest exit. Now they finally had somewhere to go together.
The fear came too. It just wasn’t driving anymore.
The walkout
The closer the fight came, the louder my body became.
During the day I was mostly fine. It was at night that everything arrived. My breathing became heavier. Sleep stopped coming easily. My brain refused to switch off. There was a constant knot in my stomach, as though my body knew something important was coming long before I was willing to admit it.
I imagined everything that could go wrong.
Not getting hurt.
Finding out.
Finding out that I wasn’t as good as I’d hoped. Finding out that the doubts had been right all along.
The funny thing about fear is how sensible it sounds.
It never says,
“Hello. I’m terrified.”
It says,
“Maybe this just isn’t the right time.”
Fight night arrived.
Backstage everyone was laughing. Talking. Completely normal.
Then my coach looked at me.
”It’s time.”
He took me into a quiet corner to warm up. The noise disappeared. There was only my breathing. The rhythm of my gloves hitting the pads. The game plan we’d repeated hundreds of times.
Then he looked at me and smiled.
”Remember - if I had to pick one person to go to war with, I’d always pick you.”
It still makes me emotional thinking about it. Somehow, that one sentence changed everything. It reminded me how much work I’d already done. How much he believed I was ready, even when I wasn’t sure myself.
My breathing slowed.
My shoulders softened.
I smiled.
Someone patted me on the back.
My name was called.
For my first few fights, I used to force myself to look serious. Focused. Intimidating. I thought that was what courage looked like.
Now I smiled.
Not for the crowd.
For myself.
A quiet reminder.
You chose this.
There was no more debate. No more running. Just go time.
The bell
Then the bell rang.
It still feels impossible to describe.
Time slowed down.
Everything sped up.
The crowd disappeared.
There was only the person in front of me.
Before every fight I worried I would forget everything I’d spent months practising.
Instead…
my body remembered.
In.
Jab-cross.
Out.
Again.
I barely remember thinking.
I remember doing.
Somewhere during that fight, another thought quietly arrived. I’d spent months waiting to feel ready. What I had actually needed
… was simply to be ready.
Those turned out to be very different things.
I wonder how many things we wait to feel ready for before we’re willing to discover that we already are.
Finding out
I lost.
Again.
For a long time, I thought losing was what I had been trying to avoid.
It wasn’t.
The punches frightened me. But they weren’t what kept me awake at night.
I was trying to run away from finding out.
Finding out whether I was good enough. Whether I could come back after failing. Whether I really was the person I hoped I was.
And then…
I found out.
Not because I won.
Because I didn’t run.
Walking back into the changing room afterwards, what made me proud the most wasn’t because I’d boxed brilliantly. I was most proud because, when it would’ve been so easy to choose flight…
I chose fight.
One of my closest boxing friends later told me it was her favourite fight of mine. Not because it was my best boxing. Because she’d never seen me fight with so much courage.
The funny thing is…
I still don’t remember feeling courageous.
I remember feeling terrified.
And then going anyway.
The next time
That fight didn’t make the fear disappear. It didn’t cure the nerves. It didn’t suddenly transform me into one of those composed fighters I’d always admired.
Before my sixth fight, the conversation came back.
The heavy breathing.
The negotiations.
The tiny voice quietly looking for an exit.
The difference was that I recognised it now. Not as proof that I shouldn’t do something. Just as proof that something mattered.
These days, I don’t ask fear whether I should do difficult things.
I ask a different question.
Have I done the work?
If the answer is yes…
Fear is allowed to come too.
It just doesn’t get the final vote.
My coach wraps my hands.
My heart beats a little faster.
My name is called.
I smile.
And I walk.
···
Still asking.