How a Suicidal Drug Addict Became Heavyweight Champion of the World

7 Things You Can Replicate Today To Change Your Life

As a boxing fan, the story of Tyson Fury is one that will inspire me until the day I die.

An overweight, 27 stone, drug addict with well documented mental health problems becoming the no.1 Heavyweight in world boxing… this is a comeback story for the ages.

But how did he do it?

After watching many interviews, listening to him speak about the journey on podcasts and reading his book (The Furious Method), there are 7 things that stuck out to me that helped him improve both his physical and mental health.

This book really resonated with me and I felt strongly that the content could help people, including many who aren’t boxing fans and wouldn’t necessarily come across these learnings themselves, to make positive changes in their lives.

1. Hardwire GRATITUDE into your system

As humans, hope and joy are hardwired into our system but so is fear.

Fear manifests itself into anxiety, self doubt and negative emotions.

In order to quieten the inner voice in your head telling you all the reasons why you can’t do something, Tyson used gratitude.

Gratitude isn’t hardwired into our system so it is an intentional shift to practise this each day.

“Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never ever have enough.” (Oprah Winfrey)

Our body is ruled by our mind — it dictates our happiness, the way we perceive others, our fear levels.

We have 70k to 100k thoughts per day. We’re more likely as humans to believe an insult than a compliment or remember our failures more than our successes.

Tyson used gratitude to turn his internal self voice to a coach rather than a critic. He looked for things he had done well and the people that he was grateful for in his life rather than the weight he had gained and the lack of purpose he experienced after reaching his goal of beating Klitchko and becoming World Champion.

Here is a life hack for helping with this:

• write down a list of everything you worry about on a daily basis
• separate out the things within your control vs the things out of your control
• make an action plan for improving anything within your control
• then write down 3 things you are grateful for each day

You will see how many things that you worry about on a daily basis that you don’t have control over. This is normal. It happens to us all. But you can take back control!

2. Re-connected with your “WHY”

One of the biggest mistakes Tyson says we all make is in relation to this statement:

“I’ll be happy when...”

• I get that promotion
• I get that new house/car
• I’m in a loving relationship

This is a fundamental error.

The week before the world championship fight in 2015, he said he was already spiralling into depression as in his mind this was the pinnacle. Everything after this moment was going to be downhill.

He had lost all sense of purpose.

If you have a strong enough why, you can survive any what.

After being stripped of his belts, spiralling into depression and alienating his friends and family… this was his rock bottom.

But it also acted as one of the most powerful “whys”.

Author: Simon Sinek

Tyson knew that if he could come back from the brink of suicide, lose 10 stone, and regain his belts, this would inspire others suffering with their own mental health demons, giving him back a reason to live.

Tyson found his why, the reason it was important and who it helped.

The journey then became the fulfilling part, not the destination (winning the belts).

Often your why will come from your hardest moments.

The reason you are being tested is so that you can help somebody else who experiences that tough time in the future.

3. Break Your Goal Into Achievable Chunks

In order to fulfil his why, Tyson new that he had to break his journey down in specific actions.

A goal without a plan is still a wish — you need planning and structure in your daily life to be successful.

Tyson’s advice: be specific with your goal. Rate all your life goals as if it were a boxing scorecard.

Then, he said, you need to break the goals into achievable, measurable mini assignments which act as checkpoints along the way.

His weight was an issue. He was 27 stone. He wanted to lose over 180 pounds but that felt like a mountain. Almost unsurmountable.

So he set himself the goal of losing 10 pounds instead. Every time he reached this goal, he rewarded himself.

After his first fight with Deontay Wilder being called a draw after some dubious scorecards, he knew he had to increase his power in order to knock him out in their rematch. So the mini goals resurfaced. This time instead of losing weight, it was the number of times he could knock the heavy bag off its hook. Each time he succeeded he got a reward, reinforcing the positive behaviour.

This is an important process to incorporate into your life if you want to achieve success in any major area of your life.

Finances, relationships, health, career, happiness… anything you value in life.

“Happy people are goal orientated” (Tyson Fury)

4. Compare yourself against the best version of you, not other people

All of us have been guilty of jealously at some point in our lives. Despite our own accomplishments. We continue to compare ourselves to other people, even though we know it is a pointless and often destructive tendency.

As an athlete, you can’t escape comparison.

The media compared Tyson to every fighter in the present day as well as those who came before him.

If you combine the external comparison with the innate human craving to compare against others, it was no surprise that Tyson began to spiral mentally.

In 1954 this phenomenon was named “social comparison theory” by psychologist Leon Festinger who highlighted the two reasons why people evaluate their opinions and abilities through comparison to others:

1. to reduce uncertainty in the areas in which they’re comparing themselves

2. to learn how to define themselves

As human beings, we struggle to define ourselves intrinsically or independently. We usually define ourselves in relation to someone else.

So Tyson did three things to stop comparing himself to the new crop of heavyweight champions:

1. Reminded himself about previous triumphs whenever self doubt entered his psyche
2. Wrote down all the times where he had ridden big waves and what behaviours he was showing to achieve that excellence
3. Focused on what he was uniquely good at rather than what others said he should be doing to improve

Doing these three things each time his insecurities surfaced put him back on track and allowed him to focus on himself.

5. Replace Bad Habits With Systematic Routine

People with good routines are generally happier and more consistent.

Tyson was the epitome of falling into the trappings of success. Drinking, drugs and nights out created a cycle of behaviour that ballooned him up to 27 stones and impacted his mental health.

In order to break any pattern of behaviour, you first need to identify the trigger. For example, when he was drunk and outside of his conscious decision making process, he would fulfil that craving by eating fast food on autopilot.

Strong neural pathways then develop around that habit which can make it tougher to break it. They are the extraordinarily developed pieces of our nervous system that allow us to perform daily tasks without having to really think about it.

The brain releases dopamine when the reward pathway is activated, and because dopamine release feels very good, the brain and body start seeking more pleasure, more reward and more dopamine.

Tyson implemented four methods to help turn those bad habits into championship winning behaviour:

1. Identified all the triggers that led to that bad behaviour & wrote them all down
2. Linked every trigger to a healthier habit by using delayed gratification e.g. making the reward for eating healthier even more attractive than the fast food e.g. time with kids / deep tissue massage
3. Focused on the long-term outcomes (his “why” and regaining the world titles) and implementing the behaviours/habits of a “world champion”
4. Brought people into his inner circle that had routines he wanted to replicate e.g. if you hang around with people who eat well then you have much better chances of sticking to a healthy eating routine yourself.

Changing patterns of behaviour is possible by changing our beliefs about ourselves and hardwiring new neural pathways.

Performing a familiar ritual before you enter a stressful challenge or situation can also lower your feelings of anxiety and improve your performance.

6. Develop an “Alter Ego”

We have a fear of failure as humans and when we tie our identity to that success in a chosen field, we have a big problem.

The good news? You can pass that responsibility to your alter ego.

This means that you separate the person in the spotlight from the human being that your friends and family love. A lot of successful people replicate this strategy to reduce the burden of stress.

“Iron” Mike (Mike Tyson)

“Sasha Fierce” (Beyonce)

“The Gypsy King” (Tyson Fury)

“Notorious B.I.G.” (Christopher Wallace)

It helps you you create a bullet proof persona in which you feel confident and can perform without the fear of failure in the ring, on stage, in a negotiation, or in any other high pressure moments in your life.

Winston Churchill used to take this one step further and wear a different hat for each difficult situation in order to perform at his best in each environment.

If there is a missing characteristic, behaviour or attitude that will help you reach your goals then build it into your alter ego.

Fuse the best parts of your heroes into this character. What are their traits? Mindsets? Dress sense? Routines? Use your heroes as inspiration.

An alter ego will help you get through the tough moments and perform on the biggest stages.

7. Maintain Consistency

Going back to his hometown by the water was a game-changer for Tyson.

He had no temptations and could focus on exercise daily. This allowed him to create an achievable daily routine that he could stick to every day for a long period of time without any distractions.

As a result, he worked out religiously, up to 4 times per day, and got back to the boxing weight he needed.

To keep connected to his purpose, he would go live with the nation every morning with his wife on Instagram during the lockdown. He was living his why and at the same time, getting his body back into the best shape of his life.

Research suggests that we are at our happiest when we are connected to nature so being able to run outside without being mobbed by fans was another step on the ladder back to success.

The fact is that Tyson will go down in history for the biggest comeback of all time. And more importantly, that you don’t need a world class talent to be able to replicate his journey and his methods. Every one of us has the capability to do the same.

Today is your starting point.

You just need to ask yourself these questions and put a plan in place to make the changes required…

1. What does success look like?
2. Who or what is likely to block your path to success?
3. How are you going to address / get rid of these roadblocks?
4. Who do you need around you to succeed?
5. What strategy will help you reach goals?
6. What routines do you need to have to make it happen?

Stay hungry, stay humble.