I'm always in the mood to be impressed by a badass woman being great at what she loves. That's why this Lifetime Fempire Moment about Golden Gloves boxing champion Jill Morley is just my style. In case you aren't familiar with what makes Morley amazing — and it's a lot — she started boxing at age 40, and, in July of last year, won the masters division of the National Golden Gloves as a light flyweight. Morley shared on her blog that she retired from boxing in May of this year, self-aware enough to know to do so at a high instead of a low. Now, she has more time to focus on her work as a teacher, writer, and filmmaker. You might know her from projects like her documentary Fight Like A Girl, which includes a personal, vulnerable look at her own struggles with depression. Not to mention the fact that it's proof that Morley gives everything to every new project she picks up.
And this clip from Lifetime's Fempire Moment series is no exception. It gives a little peek into exactly what motivates the champion, and how she's taken things from her own life that should be negatives and turned them into positives. Defining the phrase she took for the name of her 2013 documentary, Morley said:
"To 'fight like a girl' means never giving up in the face of adversity. And because you are a girl, usually there's a little more adversity, just because especially in a sport like boxing, you're kind of not supposed to be there. There's a feeling that we have to really prove ourselves."
I really love this outlook. There are plenty of people out there who would take one look at all that adversity, at how much harder things were going to be for them than for other people, and use it as an excuse to give up. I've been one of those people more times than I can count. It can feel really helpless to stare that kind of unfairness in the face.
But that's exactly what Morley has done in her career and in her life: she fearlessly places herself in uncomfortable situations, and is committed to proving that she has what it takes to not only survive, but thrive. And while she did prove herself in the form of an amateur boxing championship at age 49, less than 10 years after she picked up the sport, what she really proved is that giving up is never the right choice. Perserverance is where true strength lies.
The thing about adversity is that once you've endured it, you actually come through it stronger than you would have been if you'd never encountered it. So if you can really own that trouble and the hard work that you did to pull yourself up and think about it as a positive thing, then you can add some serious resilience to your long list of skills. And what could be better than that?
Image: Lifetime
