What if the real reason you struggle in competition is not fear of losing, but fear of what winning would require of you?
We often speak of fear as the enemy of performance. But rarely do we examine what kind of fear we’re actually facing. Is it fear of failure? Rejection? Humiliation? Those are real. But deeper still lies a more subtle fear, one that hides behind ambition, effort, and even confidence:
The fear of the pain that victory demands.
Victory, at the highest level, is not just about being better than your opponent. It’s about being willing to face parts of yourself that most people spend their lives avoiding. The loneliness of commitment. The discomfort of change. The vulnerability of putting your full self into something and risking that it might still not be enough.
And so, we fight. We struggle. We “try hard.” But deep down, we’re not playing, we’re surviving.
Because playing, truly playing, requires you to open yourself to pain. Not imaginary pain, not fear-driven fantasy, but real, present pain: the pain of risking, failing, learning, trying again. Of letting go of control. Of allowing the moment to teach you something about yourself.
Most athletes don’t burn out from competition. They burn out from resistance. From constantly fighting the experience rather than living it. They live in strategies of avoidance, defending, reacting, controlling, not to win, but to feel safe
But safety is not where greatness lives.
Safety is where we go to survive. Greatness is where we go to grow.
Many players say, “I’m fighting for every point.” But often, that “fight” is not about the point, it’s about avoiding the pain of not knowing who they are without the win.
We’ve been taught to fight before we’ve been taught to feel. To control before we’ve learned to create. To defend before we’ve dared to play.
Real play begins when you stop running from the pain.
Because pain is not the enemy. Pain is information. Pain is a door. It reveals what matters. It awakens you to where you are not free. It shows you your limits, and then asks if you’re ready to go beyond them.
Fighting is reactive. Playing is creative.
When you play, you experiment. When you fight, you protect. When you play, you grow. When you fight, you resist.
And the more you resist, the more you shrink.
But when you let go of the need to fight and instead choose to feel, to fully enter the game as you are, with what you have, in this very moment, you become powerful. Not because you’re perfect. But because you are present. And from presence, comes precision, clarity, and flow.
So many careers end not because the body gives out, but because the mind gives up. Not because the game became too hard, but because the fear of pain became too loud.
And yet, pain is what makes you real. It’s what makes the joy of mastery possible. There is no creativity without tension, no growth without failure, no freedom without facing discomfort.
To become a player, a true player, you must stop playing out of fear and start playing with and dealing with the pain.
Because the pain of growth is not what blocks victory. It is what creates it.