Green Light Your Life

 "Green light."

These are the words I most loved to hear when I was a competitive boxer and mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter. Not "well done." Those words, while still coveted, signified an ending. What drove me as a fighter -- what drives me still -- is the journey. I love the journey.

It's the freedom to step fully into my power and strive with everything I've got to compete. To be clear, winning is a byproduct -- a lagging indicator -- of having done the right things with focus, consistency, and discipline. Winning is the result of being fully, violently present in the moment when the skills, power, and determination you've honed are being tested. Even if a fight is lost, rising to the challenge is the critical win. Getting to rise to the challenge is the real motivation.

Now that my combat sports career is behind me, it's crystal clear that what I was really in that ring or cage chasing was the freedom, and the joy, of no longer having to hold back any of my power or competitive drive. Chasing "green light" moments.

For background, in combat sports training, your job as a good teammate is never to "win" practice. It's to work on your strengths and weaknesses with a pure growth mindset, and allow your teammates to do the same without injury or demoralizing each other. You must balance testing each other and yourselves so you all improve together. You must practice highly disciplined restraint while in one of the most viscerally combative settings around, outside of the military.

So when you get a "green light" from your coach, it's like being suddenly released from ropes binding you. Whether it's in a final practice before a fight, or in a fight itself, that sudden freedom is a glorious and joyful opportunity. "Green light" signifies the ultimate words of encouragement to seize your moment - to seize the day.

For me, and so many women I've known in competitive sports, the bindings we leave behind when we get that green light are ingrained societal expectations: to be nice, put others' needs or goals above our own, and never be seen as too aggressive, ambitious, or assertive. Competitive sports, however, allow -- demand -- that women leave these shackles behind and own their power.

I think this athletic imperative may be why so many of the people (of all genders) I've seen thrive in the legal and business worlds are former competitors. They have great practice giving themselves the "green light" to courageously go after their goals. To face, and work to improve, their weaknesses with humility and optimism. To find joy and meaning in the journey and the fight itself.

All this to say two important things, one about me, and one about you.

1. I have learned that this is my purpose: to help others to claim their agency to create their most fulfilling lives. To help strivers realize they don't need to wait for anyone else to give them the "green light" - they own that power themselves.

2. You own the power to be violently present in your life, go after your goals and build the life you want. Give yourself that "green light" today, and every day.