Broken bones? Yes… Broken fortitude? No…
One of the most important things you can take away from extreme sports is that if you do not have the mental fortitude to keep moving forward when things get tough, then you inevitably are going to hit that ever so daunting plateau of progression. Along the highs of sports and life, the lows are surely to follow. Say you have a bad injury, you must know you are going to get through it and come out stronger than ever and ready to show the world, no matter what takes you down nothing can keep you down.
I know this one from personal experience. I was in a pretty bad motocross accident: I missed a double and broke my hip in two. Doctor told me I wasn’t going to be able to walk right ever. I looked the doctor square in the eyes and told him “I’m going to walk normal, and I am going back on my bike.” The road to recovery was long and painful. Months without being able to get up from the bed waiting patiently for my bones to heal. Afterwards, it was learning to walk again, and regain my strength. Every task they gave me through rehab, I went twice as far and twice as hard as they asked me to. Why? I wasn’t going to let this accident define who I was and take me out! I had goals to reach, and I was going to do whatever it took to achieve them, no matter how painful it was, giving up was not an option! If it wasn’t for the mental fortitude and positive attitude, that recovery would have taken twice as long, and the results would have been less than good. After I was cleared by the doctor I rode my motorcycle again, jumped the double I missed that day, and only then I decided to sell it! This is just a personal example of what I have learned from extreme sports and crashing over and over again.
My friends, you and I can truly do anything we set our minds to. We’re the ones in the driver’s seat of our lives and the only ones who can steer it in the right direction.
To be continued…