Matt Brown's dilemma: For purpose of winning, you try 'not to think about winning'

It took Matt Brown a long time to learn it, but now he knows: If you want to win a fight, the first thing you have to do is get yourself to stop thinking about winning.

Simple, right? Like a precious little Buddhist koan. You’ll find the same sentiment expressed in the writings of Bruce Lee, Sun Tzu, even George Patton, in his own twisted way. Basically anybody who knows anything about combat or competition will tell you to focus on the process instead of the outcome, which sounds fine. It doesn’t even sound that hard.

“But it’s a really, really difficult thing,” Brown told MMAjunkie. “Because ultimately all those things you’re trying to do – focusing on the moment, not thinking about the outcome – are all for the purpose of winning. So for the purpose of winning, you’re trying not to think about winning.”

For a long time, Brown (19-11 MMA, 12-5 UFC) will admit, he didn’t get it. Even when he thought he got it, he didn’t. For proof of that, just look at his record. He debuted in the UFC with a win over Matt Arroyo in 2008. He lost the next one, then won three straight, and then lost three straight. If ever there were a man who thought he knew where he was going, only to look back at his own tracks and see that he’d been wandering blindly in circles, Brown was it.

Maybe he just wasn’t good enough, people told him. Maybe he wasn’t cut out to compete at this level.

Brown considered that possibility. Then he decided to stop thinking about whether it was true. One thing he knew about himself was that he was tough. Even his detractors were willing to give him that much. They just didn’t agree with him as to how much that counted for in a fight.

“It can be everything,” Brown said. “If you’ve got two guys in there who are similar athletically, it’s going to come down to mental toughness. At this level, if you don’t have mental toughness, you’re going to have problems right away. I think mental toughness can overcome athleticism way more than athleticism can overcome mental toughness.”

That’s something Brown has thought a lot about leading up to his bout with Robbie Lawler (23-10 MMA, 8-4 UFC) at UFC on FOX 12 in San Jose on Saturday. People talk about how scary Lawler is, how hard he hits. They talk about the stakes – a UFC welterweight title shot – and how winning this fight could potentially change either man’s life forever. Then again, so could losing it.

When he finds himself drifting down those roads in his mind, Brown said, he takes action.

“Sometimes I’ll get on the aerodyne (bike) and crank it out as hard as I can, just imagine the fight happening in front of me, and when I imagine him swinging a punch at me, I’ll just crank the aerodyne a little bit harder,” Brown said. “The mind is something you have to constantly work on, just like the body. You have to always be making it stronger. A lot of people think you’re either born tough, born with heart, or you’re not. I disagree. I think it can be taught and it can be learned to a certain extent. It’s not so much about whether you’re born with it as whether you want it.”

And that’s where it pays to think about the process rather than the outcome. Because, especially in this sport, you can be tough and still lose. You can be mentally strong and still come up short. But that doesn’t mean it’s not worth the effort it takes to become mentally strong in the first place.

That’s the process. That’s the part you have to want, and not just because you hope it comes with some reward, Brown said. You have to want it for its own sake. As for everything else?

“I don’t like to say that I don’t care whether I win or lose, but I don’t think about it,” Brown said. “The outcome is secondary to what I’m actually trying to do. That’s a tough thing to learn.”

Maybe it also takes a tough person to learn it. And they don’t come much tougher than Brown.

For more on UFC on FOX 12, stay tuned to the UFC Rumors section of the site.

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