A Storm in My Heart Brought Me Here
I heard that quote on the radio the other day. I’m not even sure if it was misquoted because I’ve never been able to find it anywhere since, apart from deep in the transcript of that show. But even if it isn’t a real quote then I’m claiming it now, because it sums up so perfectly why I am where I am, and how I got here.
This time last year, if you had told me where I’d be and what I would be doing, I wouldn’t have believed you, it would have sounded way too risky and way too late in the game. But at 30 years old, I find myself in a brand new career, working as a Personal Trainer and Fitness Instructor, teaching boxing, and training for my first ever boxing match.
I’ve never had the most traditional of career trajectories, working as a television and radio presenter over the last five years in London, New York, and LA. The work was good but sporadic, the highs were massive and the lows crushing. I struggled sometimes- emotionally, financially, mentally- and the only way for me to get through those times and come out on the other side was to run. Across cities, along beaches, through canyons, over bridges. Wherever I was living, running got me through, sometimes for hours on end until my brain stopped whirring. When I couldn’t run, I’d hit the gym. It got my head right and made me feel like maybe I could ride the wave after all, maybe I could tackle another day. I realised, actually, that working out and being outside, rain or shine, was the happiest I could be. What an amazing thing if I could help other people feel like that too? But too risky. Too out of character. I was a TV presenter, I was travelling the world interviewing pop stars and movie stars, living by the beach, who didn’t want that life? So I started training friends on the side and organizing run clubs, for fun, putting people through their paces and helping them to achieve their goals without quite realising I was on the way to achieving mine.
Sometimes life forces us to Make. A. Decision. Finally this year, I moved back to London, and was desperately looking for TV work in all the wrong places. I was broke, I was miserable, and it was time. In June I scraped together what money I had left and threw it all at a six week course to gain my PT qualifications. I had nothing left to lose. I lived in the spare room at my friend’s mum’s house, I studied constantly, I trained constantly, I took on all the clients I could charging them next to nothing while I learnt my craft, and I hustled.
Head down, gloves up. That’s what they tell you in boxing. And that’s what I did. I got my head down, I pushed the doubt away. I learnt to box, I learnt to train people, I passed all my exams, applied for jobs in London’s very best gyms and trained and trained ‘til I got them.
When you notice that storm in your heart, if there’s something you really want- go after it. Now. Today. Don’t let it go out. Fuel it, feed it, let that storm overtake everything. Make sacrifices. Commit. If you can’t do it all the time, make it your side hustle. Explore it. It might just be the thing you were born to do or at the very least it might be the one thing that makes you happier than anything on earth.
The biggest risk I ever took, my all or nothing gamble, turned into the best decision I ever made. And next month when I’m standing in the snow, in the dark, at 5am, demonstrating burpees for the millionth time, that storm will keep me warm from the inside out.
