This past Saturday there was a UFC event.
It was one of the weekend fight night types, but I tuned in to see Tyron Woodley vs Colby Covington.
If you don’t know, there’s bad blood between these two. They were supposed to fight years ago but for whatever reason, a match could never be agreed to.
Anyways, the fight happened and Tyron Woodley got destroyed.
Colby outpaced him in everything until he got TKO.
Watching this fight, you would have never thought that Tyron Woodley was a champion.
Tyron looked like he didn’t want to be in this fight. In fact, his last 15 rounds looked like he wasn’t interested in fighting.
For whatever reason, I found this sad.
Tyron was the champ for a long time. But looking over his title run, I realized that Tyron set himself for a trap that was bound to destroy his fighting career.
And this trap is something millions of people set themselves up without realizing the long term effects.
So what is this trap?
Playing it too safe.
You see, after Tyron got his title, it looked like he wanted to follow the safest strategy in his title reign. The very things that helped him gain his title, like boldness, athleticism, and aggressiveness. Seemed to have vanished.
And the reason I think Tyron fell for the safe trap was that during his title reign, he told himself that he couldn’t afford risks.
Whether it was for training or fighting, he just kept telling himself he couldn’t afford risks and needed to play it safe.
And this kept getting reinforced in his mindset. Even though he was defending his title multiple times, it was only a matter of time before he lost it.
Then when he lost it, he thought he would get a win and then be back in title contention.
But then he lost.
And lost again and again.
All those losses were in the same manner.
Now people are wondering if Tyron can keep up with the elites.
All those years of trying to keep it safe and Tyron can’t muster the courage to fight a great round.
Like I said before, every decision you make affects you. So when people choose to play it safe consistently, they are numbing their creativity, risk-taking, authenticity, etc. And then when a sudden change comes and they need to use their creativity, risk-taking, and authenticity, they can’t find it.
And they end up on a long losing streak like Tyron.
Sometimes it’s easy to play it safe. Heck, it feels good in the short term.
But always remember that it’s going to affect you in the long term.
So as you live your life, choose your decisions wisely.