Becoming Savage

The contrast between my old self and new self is the thinest of vails... Because going back to the old me is only a feeling of giving up away. or not doing the things scheduled in my diary... or worse, letting a negative comment derail me. Like when I first started writing. I didn't get any negative comments externally, but the biggest critic wasn't a keyboard warrior, but the voice in my head. and that voice hated the fact I was trying to better myself. Over and over and over again it...

Most of us go to pretty great lengths to grow, to expand, to become better. We challenge ourselves. We spend money to attend learning events... We read book after book..? We innovate what we've made to improve the entity...? We're already doing too much. So why do you keep pushing...? You may have a full time job, so why are you taking on more? What people don't understand, they don't appreciate. And, if they don't appreciate what you do, why you do it, the risks you take, the...

Not because I'm self conscious, but because I didn't know my numbers. Had I actually put weight on like my mirror told me or was Char right? I didn't know... So sitting in the Doctors surgery getting Logan a routine check up yesterday, I jumped on the scales... www.johnsavage.co.uk

Standing at the entrance to our garden. A wonderful place. I'm agreeing with Kai. The sky blue and the temperature perfect to kick a ball around with him and Logan. As he's standing there telling me I'm the worse Dad in the world because I won't play. That other dads take their sons to the park more than just a Thursday after school. Monday after school, the boys have football practice and Amelie has gymnastics. Tuesday after school, the boys and Amelie have football practice. Wednesday...

Whether you voted for Brexit or remain, we can all agree, everyone wants to wake up safe. All remainers and brexiteers all want to know they're not going to be attacked in the street. All of us want to be financially safe. and all of us want to know our children have a future... www.johnsavage.co.uk

I jumped out my skin as Char wasn't laying beside me this morning! Reaching over to grab my iPhone it was 06:54am. She went out with the girls last, but where was she? www.johnsavage.co.uk

But notice, I didn’t complete the 100th workout I was meant to have achieved by the end of last year. For whatever reason, no big deal. I’ll do the workout tomorrow. Tomorrow came and went. No work out. I said to myself, ‘As long as I get 3 in this week, that’ll do.’ Which of course I was doing well if I did just one. Then the Christmas period came. I don’t eat meat so that wasn’t gonna be sitting on my stomach, but a thousand mince pies were!! Which led to what I was trying get rid...

Since leaving the army in 2005, I had never really known who I was. All I had was a moral compass yet didn’t know where north was. In the army where 'always doing the right thing even if it hurts' was par for the course. The opposite of doing the right thing, your jaw became a legitimate target. I thrived in this environment. I loved it because I knew where I stood. In civvi street I soon found that doing the right thing wasn’t par for the course. In fact, doing what was right had a...

‘Save a soldiers life…’ So straight after the in-laws left, I banged out my first CrossFit workout of the year. I gave myself 15 minutes to complete 45 pull ups, 45 press ups and 45 squat jumps... 21 reps of each. 15 reps of each. 9 of each… I was in bits, made worse by the Christmas diet weighing me down and the fact that I hadn’t workout for the entire festive period… With each rep my ego was shouting at me, ‘Enough…’ I thought I was gonna collapse but willed myself to finish the...

I’m ashamed to admit it but I chose not to stick by the person who stuck by me through thick and thin. As shocking as this is, I chose instead to find solace in someone else and that wasn't my wife...

'Jumping into the Unknown...' In a Hercules C130 aircraft, there’s no Aircon or inflight entertainment and certainly no cute stewardesses serving Tea’s and Coffee’s. Only the putrid smell of paratroopers breakfast in discarded sick bags and diesel fumes filling the fuselage. Looking at the back of Freddie’s helmet as we were about to jump, I was panicking. Telling myself, “If he can jump, I can jump! If he can jump, I can jump! If he can do it, I can do it!” Whilst trying to suppress...