I am a huge mixed-martial arts fan. UFC, Bellator, whatever. If it’s MMA, I’m in. Rather than being part of the unwashed masses that are only watching to see blood, (which is a stereotype and the small minority of MMA fans) I draw a lot of inspiration and life lessons from watching these athletes compete at the top of their game. I’ll share one these lessons from the sport of MMA with you today.

Survival Mode

Sometimes, you witness a real mismatch in MMA. One fighter hops into the cage with another fighter that has them outclassed. In the first minute of the fight, you can tell which fighter is the underdog. It’s never pretty.

When a fighter is badly hurt in round one, winning the fight might not be possible at this point. The wounded fighter has entered “survival mode”. Survival mode kicks in when the fighter needs to reach the end of the round, get some coaching from their cornermen, and then try to make adjustments that can get them back into the fight.

Survival mode is obviously not a fun place to be. It’s painful, tiring, and demoralizing. Survival mode can make even the toughest fighters want to throw in the towel.

Survival Mode in Everyday Life

For us couch potato warriors not fighting for a living, life can push us into our own version of survival mode.

When things start to go to hell in life, it can feel like a physical beating. A job loss is a punch to the gut. A breakup is a kick to the liver. The accumulation of disappointments and failures in life can feel like a barrage of jabs that take their toll on you over time. You’re running out of gas, and there are still four more rounds to go. In the most extreme cases, when people dwell in survival mode for too long, they might think life is not worth living. Why continue the fight, when there is no hope of winning?

The insidious thing about being pushed into survival mode is that it comes on fast. It’s often a surprise. Much like a hook across the jaw, the beatings that life can put on us come suddenly and without much warning. One moment your head is in the game, the next moment you’re knocked on your ass and hoping to just make it through the day.

While few of us will thankfully ever feel what it’s like to have a trained fighter maul us into submission, we’ve all experienced the sensation of wanting to quit on life. Life can pummel you and put you to the test, shaking even the most resolute and stable of us.

How Do You Get Out of Survival Mode?

In MMA, fighters in survival mode risk having the fight stopped by the referee for fear of permeant injury. The only way that the referee will let the fight continue is if the fighter “intelligibly defends themselves”, meaning that the fighter tries to advance their position, and improve how they are faring in the fight. If there is an absence of intelligible defence, the fighter will lose by technical knock out.

Intelligible defence is also applicable to our lives when the proverbial shit hits the fan. We are reeling, and need to try to recover. Perhaps, victory, success, and winning aren’t available options if life has gotten bad enough. Depression, disappointment, and abandonment might be weighing too heavily on us to fix all our problems.

However, we don’t need all the answers today. We just need to try to improve our position, no matter how slight that improvement might be. We need to intelligibly defend ourselves, and stop the situation from getting worse, before we can make it better.

Call a friend. Go for a run or hit the gym. Meditate. Take a bath to relax yourself. Make a budget. Redo your resume. If it's all that you can manage, even just taking a deep breath counts. No matter how small the positive action might be, it’s worth taking. Do something that is going to help you overcome the problems that you are facing! You have to take action! Begin to intelligibly defend yourself, and you might be able to begin to turn this negative situation around.

The Comeback

Everyone loves to see the underdog win. The comeback in MMA is one of the most amazing demonstrations of human spirit that you could ever witness. In fact, when a fighter loses a few rounds in a fight, it makes it even more amazing when they come back to win it. If they just walked through their opponent, that is impressive too, but fans love when a fighter has to work for the victory. When a fighter finds a way out of survival mode, composes themselves, and continues on to win the fight, they are forever etched into the minds of fight fans.

Maybe the adversity that you are facing in life, the very thing that pushed you into survival mode, is actually another necessary plot point in your story. Maybe, victory, success, and happiness are all still possible, and this life-altering setback is something that will make your comeback story worth remembering. Assume the role of the underdog, and survive the onslaught that life is raining down on you.

Get out of survival mode, intelligibly defending yourself, and you still have a chance at turning it all around.

Your comeback story could just be beginning.

Thank you for reading the first edition of my new series on mixed-martial arts (MMA), and the lessons that the sport of MMA can teach us about life. This series will be inspirational in nature, and will be based upon the metaphors and analogies that I draw from watching UFC and other MMA events. I have also studied Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, which may also serve as a source of inspiration for these articles. Please follow me if this series interests you!