Do you need more motivation or more proof?

F&TF tackles themes of identity, validation and personal redemption

Trigger warning: this issue of Fitness & Thinking Fridays discusses themes of suicide and mental health and references an eating disorder.

You don’t need more motivation. You need more evidence.
Not just that your plan works – but that you work.

After six and a bit months in Southeast Asia, I came back to the UK ready to hit the ground running. But then reality hit. My living situation isn’t ideal. My business isn’t where I want it to be. And, if I’m honest, I’ve found myself circling a mental drain I thought I’d escaped.

It’s tempting to fall into a spiral – to think I should be further along than this by now. But I’ve been here before. And the version of me who survived that? He taught me what to do next.

January 2015

Ten years ago, I was in a worse place than I am currently. I’d come back from travelling but with yellow hair and an eating disorder. I collapsed at a gig I was hosting, blacked out, and woke up in my own bed but wearing a hospital gown and an admissions bracelet with a paramedic’s voice echoing in my ears: you’re such a dick. You shouldn’t even be breathing.

That night, I’d drunk Jack Daniels. What else was in my system, I couldn’t tell you.

I thought I must have dreamt it but waking up completely clear-headed to the feeling of plastic digging into my wrist was a sobering moment. I stopped drinking whiskey. Then rum after a second (and too similar) moment. And eventually, the whole self-destructive spiral stopped. And what I was left with wasn’t sadness – it was pain. Deep, unrelenting, I-don’t-want-to-be-here-anymore pain.

I had one plan that involved a bridge. And I had another, thankfully – a whisper, really – about trying to stay alive long enough to figure out why everything hurt so much.

So I wrote to my old form teacher. She taught psychology and I had an inkling she would understand. I said I wanted to learn. Be useful. Be better.

A week later, I’d read most of her reading list and submitted last-minute applications to two MSc psychology conversion courses.

By August 2015, I was a gym-goer and a student at St Andrews. By the end of August 2016, I’d earned a merit and my own respect.

I didn’t just look different, I was different

Having found a new mental fitness, I started seeing progress with my physique, and, while I still didn’t know which job/s to apply for, I knew I wasn’t a waste of space anymore. And I certainly wasn’t scared about my past, my present or the newly accessible future and my place in it.

I knew I didn’t need to be the loudest in the room, or the most broken. That I didn’t need alcohol to be popular or coloured hair to be interesting.

I’d proven to myself that I could take feedback, ask for help, and was stronger both mentally and physically.

That’s what I return to when things wobble. That moment when everything could have ended – but didn’t.

So if you’re in a rut, or watching other people’s lives seemingly unfold faster, or wondering if you’re just too far gone to try again…

Here’s your reminder: breakthroughs often come after breakdowns.

A client of mine said this recently:

“What’s kept me going isn’t that I look different – it’s that I feel different. I believe I can finish this now.”

That’s motivation from commitment. That’s I’m (becoming) a person who sees things through. That’s days of showing up, weeks of better choices – and not always perfect ones! – just decisions the person they want to be would make.

Final thought

If you’re not right for yourself, how can you ever be right for anyone else?

Pain has a way of refining you. Making you sharper. Stronger. More intentional. But only if you let it.

Let’s train in a way that strengthens your body and your belief in yourself.
Let’s build habits that make discipline feel like self-care rather than punishment.
Let’s turn effort into identity and (re-)gain our own respect.

If you’re ready to go again, message me with “COMMIT” and I’ll meet you where you are.

There’s a lot in this one. I hope it helps.

Much love, and I’ll see yas soon
Jack x