You Have to Let Go of What You Want

There’s something I’ve slowly started to understand about achieving things.

Sometimes the thing stopping you from getting where you want to go is how badly you want to get there.

I know that sounds ridiculous.

Surely if you want something badly enough, you should work harder. Be more disciplined. Sacrifice more. Push yourself further.

That’s what I believed for a long time.

And it took me years to realise that sometimes wanting something desperately makes you completely incapable of seeing what you actually need to do.

Because when you become emotionally attached to an outcome, everything starts to revolve around protecting it.

You stop asking:

“What is actually working?”

And start asking:

“What do I need to do to make this work?”

There’s a subtle difference.

One allows you to look at the evidence.

The other makes you desperately search for a way to preserve the future you’ve already imagined.

I know this because I did it myself.

I wanted to be an athlete

For years, I wanted to be a professional athlete.

Not casually.

I wanted it badly.

Football was the dream.

Then Olympic weightlifting.

Then American football.

Then bobsleigh.

I was constantly chasing the next version of myself.

I thought I was progressing because I was always doing more.

Training six times a week.

Working.

Training again.

Trying to optimise everything.

Trying to find the perfect programme, the perfect rep ranges, the perfect exercises, the perfect recovery strategy.

And my body kept giving me information.

I was injured constantly.

I wasn’t sleeping enough.

My mind was cloudy.

I was trying to balance work with ridiculous amounts of training.

And eventually I had to turn down my first professional contract because I was injured just before COVID.

I never really recovered enough to get that opportunity again.

But even then, I didn’t immediately let go.

I kept trying to find the answer.

Maybe I needed to recover harder.

Maybe I needed to change my programming.

Maybe I needed to train differently.

Maybe I just needed to get everything perfectly right.

I treated myself like an equation.

Input the correct training.

Input the correct nutrition.

Input the correct recovery.

Get the desired output.

Except I’m not an equation.

I’m a human being.

And eventually, something changed.

I started to wonder whether I might never get there.

And strangely, that was when things started getting better.

When the pressure disappeared, I could finally see

I stopped training because I had to become an athlete.

I started training because I enjoyed training.

I stopped worrying so much about whether I was following the perfect programme.

Sometimes I don’t even write one.

I’ll train once or twice a week.

I’ll do exercises I enjoy.

I’ll adjust things when I notice I’m not progressing.

And when I don’t get stronger, I don’t immediately panic.

I ask myself:

Am I actually recovered?

Did I train hard enough last time?

How has my sleep been?

Has my nutrition been shit?

Am I expecting too much too quickly?

What does the evidence actually tell me?

And weirdly, I’m making progress.

More progress in some ways than I was when I was trying desperately to make progress.

Because I’m finally able to think critically.

I’m not trying to force reality to fit the future I imagined.

I’m looking at what is actually happening and responding to it.

That’s what letting go gave me.

Not the thing I wanted.

Clarity.

We hold onto the future

I think a lot of people do this without realising it.

They hold onto a particular goal.

A particular body.

A particular timeline.

A particular training method.

A particular feeling they think they’ll have once they finally achieve it.

And because they are so attached to it, they stop questioning whether the path they’re on actually makes sense.

You see it in fitness constantly.

Someone decides they need to lose 10kg.

So suddenly they’re terrified of eating anything that isn’t in their plan.

They won’t go out for dinner because they’re worried it’ll set them back.

They weigh themselves and feel like shit when the number goes up.

They obsess over calories.

They jump onto the newest diet because someone on Instagram got the body they want doing it.

They follow a programme religiously even when it’s clearly not working.

And every piece of feedback becomes criticism.

Because they’re not just trying to improve anymore.

They need it to work.

That’s when things become dangerous.

Because now the goal has become emotionally loaded.

And when something becomes emotionally loaded, you stop seeing it clearly.

You start doing things that don’t make sense

I’ve done this myself.

I wanted to become an athlete so badly that I’d sometimes train outside the weights and rep ranges I actually needed because I wanted to progress faster.

I would train after 3-4 hours sleep or after a night out when I wasn't recovered.

I wasn’t making decisions based on what my body was telling me.

I was making decisions based on how badly I wanted the outcome.

There’s a difference between commitment and attachment.

Commitment says:

“I’m going to do what is necessary.”

Attachment says:

“This has to happen.”

And when you believe it has to happen, you’ll do some strange things.

You’ll sacrifice your relationships.

You’ll sacrifice sleep.

You’ll sacrifice experiences.

You’ll become obsessed with people who are achieving what you want and start wondering what they’re doing differently.

You’ll become jealous.

You’ll constantly compare yourself.

You’ll chase every new strategy.

You’ll convince yourself that if you just work harder, everything will eventually fall into place.

And sometimes the thing you actually need to change isn’t your training.

It’s your life.

Your sleep.

Your job.

Your routine.

Your relationship with food.

Your relationship with yourself.

Or maybe even your reason for wanting the goal in the first place.

Because sometimes the goal isn’t really the goal

This is probably the hardest thing I’ve had to realise.

For a long time, I thought I wanted to be an athlete because I wanted to achieve something extraordinary.

And I did.

But I also wanted to make an impact.

I wanted to become somebody capable of doing something meaningful.

And somewhere along the way, I think sport became a way of running from parts of myself that I didn’t want to face.

Because as long as I had something to chase, I didn’t have to stop.

I could just keep moving.

Football.

Weightlifting.

American football.

Bobsleigh.

The next competition.

The next goal.

The next version of me.

But eventually you run out of things to chase.

And when you have nothing left to run towards, you turn around.

And sometimes you realise you weren’t actually chasing something.

You were being chased.

And now you have to face whatever caught you.

It's really painful.

And I think this is why people can spend their entire lives moving from one goal to another without ever really feeling satisfied.

The future disappears.

So they create another one.

Then another.

Then another.

Because they never stop long enough to ask themselves what they’re actually running from.

Letting go hurts

This is the part I think gets missed.

Letting go isn’t some peaceful decision where you suddenly feel enlightened.

Sometimes letting go means grieving a future you desperately wanted.

I had to grieve the athlete I thought I was going to become.

The career I thought I would have.

The opportunities I thought were waiting for me.

And I don’t think you can pretend that doesn’t hurt.

But eventually, you realise something.

The future you were holding onto wasn’t real.

It was an idea.

And once you let go of it, you get something back.

The present.

And when you’re actually present, you can think.

You can look at your life without constantly asking whether it is taking you towards the future you’ve decided you need.

You can ask:

What do I actually enjoy?

What am I actually good at?

What is actually working?

What isn’t?

What do I genuinely want?

And perhaps most importantly:

Do I even still want this?

The tree doesn’t care how badly you want it to grow

I always tell my clients:

How fast does a tree grow?

If you water it twice as much, does it suddenly grow twice as fast?

If you throw more dirt at it, does it shoot upwards?

No.

You give it what it needs.

Then you give it time.

And eventually, you find out how big your tree is going to become.

That’s how I think about progress now.

I still want things.

I’m still ambitious.

I’m still training.

I’m still trying to build businesses.

I’m still trying to become better.

Letting go hasn’t made me less driven.

It’s actually made me more capable of doing what is necessary.

Because now, if something isn’t working, I can change it.

If I need more rest, I can rest.

If I need to eat differently, I can eat differently.

If I need to work harder, I can work harder.

If something feels good and doesn’t perfectly fit the plan, I can do it anyway.

I don’t have to panic.

I don’t have to force everything.

I don’t have to make today prove that I’m going to become the person I want to be.

I can just do what makes sense today.

And then do it again tomorrow.

Maybe you don’t have to give up what you want

This is where I think letting go gets misunderstood.

You don’t necessarily have to give up your dream.

You have to give up your need for the dream to happen in the way you’ve imagined.

Maybe you still want the body.

Maybe you still want the career.

Maybe you still want the relationship.

Maybe you still want to become incredibly successful.

You can still go after it.

But you don’t have to make your happiness dependent upon it.

You don’t have to destroy your life trying to force it into existence.

And you don’t have to be terrified of changing direction.

Because the future doesn’t actually exist.

It’s something we’ve created in our heads.

And sometimes you let go of one path and end up somewhere else entirely.

Then you realise that somehow, you’ve arrived at the thing you wanted anyway.

Only now you’re not anxious about getting it.

You’re actually able to enjoy having it.

So ask yourself the question

If you’re not getting the result you want, maybe you don’t need to try harder.

Maybe you need to stop.

Stop chasing for a minute.

Stop protecting the future you’ve imagined.

And look at your life honestly.

What is actually working?

What isn’t?

What are you doing because it works?

And what are you doing because you believe you should be doing it?

But there’s one question I’d put above all of them.

Do I actually want this?

Because accepting that you might need to change is hard.

And sometimes the change isn’t your body.

It’s your mind.

Your habits.

Your relationships.

Your priorities.

Your identity.

The way you’ve been living.

And you might not be ready to let go yet.

That’s okay.

I wasn’t either.

Sometimes life has a strange way of making the decision for you.

It rarely happens when you want it to.

It usually feels too late.

But eventually, something gives.

And you let go.

And then you realise something strange.

You haven’t necessarily lost what you wanted.

You’ve lost the anxiety surrounding it.

You’ve stopped forcing it.

You’ve stopped needing it.

And suddenly, you’re free to do the things that actually move you forward.

Maybe that’s the real point of letting go.

You don’t let go so that you can stop wanting.

You let go so that you can finally see clearly enough to move.

And trust me that what you want will come back to you calmly.