In 2014, my life changed in an instant. One moment, I was serving in the British Army, fit, focused, part of a team. Next, I was lying in a hospital bed, having suffered a catastrophic brain haemorrhage. I couldn’t move the left side of my body. From the neck down, it was as if someone had turned the lights off. I had identified as a British Army officer and an ultramarathon runner, and in the space of 15 minutes, that identity had been stripped away from me.
It wasn’t a clean break or some dramatic turning point; it was more like being backed into a corner. And when you’re in that place, you’ve only got two choices: give up, or start rebuilding from where you are. That binary choice makes things simpler. That mindset, of relentless forward progress, one step at a time, wasn’t new to me. It was the same approach I’d used in ultramarathons: don’t look at the full distance, focus on the next step, the next checkpoint. That thinking became the foundation. And it’s what eventually carried me, slowly, continuously, over 900 kilometres of Antarctic ice, alone and unsupported, to the South Pole.
When something pulls the rug from under you, when everything you’ve built your identity around disappears, you’re not really making bold decisions. You’re just trying to find something solid to stand on. For me, it wasn’t about instantly reframing the situation or seeing the silver lining. It was more like: Right, this is where I am. What can I do with it? That question: what now? became the start of something new. Not because I had a plan, but because doing nothing wasn’t an option.
I didn’t suddenly see things clearly or have some lightning-bolt moment of acceptance. The early days were messy, confusing, exhausting, full of frustration. But bit by bit, I found myself coming back to something familiar: focus on what you can control. It’s the same thinking you rely on in endurance sport or in the military; you can’t always control the situation, but you can choose how you respond to it. That shift didn’t make things easier, but it gave me something to work with.
Over the years, I came to rely on a few core mental processes. I didn’t think of them as ‘strategies’ at the time; they came through trial and error, by testing what worked and what didn’t. These weren’t lofty concepts; they were practical, repeatable tools that helped me move forward, even when progress felt painfully slow.
1. Micro-goals over big wins
I stopped thinking about the end result, whether I’d walk again, run again, ski again, and brought it right back to the present. What do I need to do today? Some days it was as simple as sitting up straighter, lifting a finger, or getting through a physio session without losing focus. It didn’t feel like much in the moment, but day after day, that approach started to build momentum. Progress didn’t come in leaps. It came unevenly, some days forward, some days back, and plenty where nothing seemed to change at all. But the one constant was showing up. That, more than anything else, was what moved the needle over time.
2. Acceptance without resignation
There came a point where I had to stop fighting the reality of my situation. That didn’t mean giving in; it meant being honest about where I was so I could start working from there. I wasn’t pretending things were fine. The paralysis, the fatigue, the frustration—none of it was easy to live with. But spending energy wishing it was different didn’t help. I couldn’t change the whole picture, but I could start by controlling the controllables, and that’s what I focused on.
3. Rediscovering your motivation
In the early days, the hardest part wasn’t the pain or the effort; it was not knowing what the end state would look like. Recovery didn’t come with a roadmap, and that made it difficult to stay focused on where I was heading. But I’ve always been motivated by progress, by the sense that I’m moving forward, however slowly. So I leaned into that. I started reading again, studying sports science, setting small training goals. I didn’t know exactly where it would lead, but doing those things gave me a sense of structure. Eventually, that led me to para-Nordic skiing; it gave me a new way to push myself and test what I could do physically, and it helped me reconnect with what purpose could look like in this new chapter.
Key Takeaway
Having a clear end goal can help, but it’s not essential to getting started. Whether you’re recovering from injury, rebuilding after a setback, or facing something that’s stripped away who you thought you were, what matters most is finding something to work on, and showing up for it each day. Progress might be slow, uneven, or frustrating. But with the right mindset, even the smallest steps can take you somewhere extraordinary.
24 July 2025
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