Hi!
For those who are new here, I’m Simon and I’m a personal trainer at the Leicester based studio, Body Development Centre. And today I wanted to talk about my journey through lifestyle change, hopefully giving you some insights on how you can achieve your goals too.
I’ve had a strong desire for self-improvement since my mid-teens. At first, it came from a lack of confidence—and honestly, that’s still part of it today. But now, my motivation for change runs deeper. I want to live the best life I can, for as long as I can—not just in terms of years, but also in physical health, mental resilience and genuine happiness.
When I started, the odds weren’t in my favour. I was obese, unfit, depressed, quick to anger, addicted (cannabis was my vice), broke and struggling with insomnia. Not exactly the blueprint for “living my best life.”
Fast-forward to today, and I can’t say I’ve completely become the version of myself I want to be—but I’m getting close.
In my pursuit, I’ve tried countless approaches, with the main two being becaming a personal trainer (a surprisingly common move for people obsessed with self-improvement) and completing a Master’s degree in behaviour change. And through my career, education and lived experience, I’ve discovered five key elements that drive long-term change.
1. A Clear Focus on the Ultimate Goal
Change is hard. Emotions, habits, and social situations will constantly try to pull you back to the old version of yourself. That’s why you need absolute clarity on why you’re changing.
For me, one of my biggest goals is building Lifestyler—an online platform dedicated to helping people achieve long-term lifestyle change. I would love more than anything to be a successful online guru in the space of long-term change and helping people become the happiest version of themselves.
This stems from many desires I have. A feeling of being truly successful in my career. The satisfaction you get when someone tells you that you changed their life. And the freedom it would give me in life to have the time and income to do all the things I want to do.
But to pursue it, I had to face a keystone barrier: my cannabis addiction. Every time I smoked, my motivation dropped, my productivity crashed, I skipped exercise and I spiralled. Quitting wasn’t just about health—it was about protecting my bigger mission.
So now, when I focus on not falling into smoking when I shouldn’t, I keep in mind that letting my addiction flare up again will put me into a high stupor again, leaving me feeling like I’m failing on making an effort to build Lifestyler.
👉 Ask yourself: Why is this change important to me? What’s the bigger vision that depends on it?
Additional Reading: Read more about finding your Why? by clicking here!
2. Clean Plans
Once you know your “why,” you need a clear “how.” Ambiguity is your temptations best friend—it gives your excuses room to breathe.
Take my insomnia, for example. To make sure I give myself the best chance of staying on top of it, my rules are simple:
-
On weekdays: lights out at 10:00 p.m.
-
On weekends: 10:30 p.m.
-
As I wind down, I play a 10-minute Headspace session to calm my thoughts.
It’s straightforward and doesn’t leave room for ambiguity. I know when I’m sticking to it and when I’m not. And when I follow it, my sleep improves.
👉 Your move: Write out your plan for change. Then look for loopholes the tempted Gremlin in your mind might exploit—and close them.
Additional Reading: Read about what to do when you have plans but keep falling off by clicking here!
3. Balance
Long-term change isn’t about perfection. It’s about balance. If you never let yourself indulge, life becomes miserable—and miserable plans don’t last.
Here’s how I handle it in my nutritional approach:
-
Day-to-day, I eat 2,300 calories, using very well considered plans that contain a good mix of my macro and micronutrients.
-
Every two weeks, my wife (Demi) and I have an “indulgence night.” We offset calories earlier in the day, and then in the evening we do whatever we want—no rules, no guilt. Pure indulgence.
This structure means I never feel deprived. Instead of saying “I can never go to that restaurant,” I just think, “We’ll book it for our indulgence nights and really experience it!”
👉 Your move: Decide where balance fits in for you. Plan your indulgences so they’re guilt-free, controlled, and sustainable.
Additional Reading: Read more about the importance of balance in lifestyle change here!
4. Eat the Frog
This is an old concept in behaviour change, which basically means “if you have to do something you aren’t motivated for, you’re best off doing it early and releasing the pressure on your mind, rather than repeatedly putting it off, leaving it bugging you all day”.
For me, that’s training. Most mornings, I don’t feel like it. (If you’re waiting for motivation to appear first, spoiler: it won’t. Motivation comes after action).
So I “eat the frog.” I wake up, train immediately, and get it done. Because if I didn’t, it would be bugging me all day that at some point I’m going to need to do a workout. But if I clock it at the earliest opportunity, then I can forget about it, which leaves me in a much happier place overall.
👉 Your move: Schedule your new behaviours to be done at their earliest possible opportunity. That way they’re done and you can get on with your day!
5. Obvious Tracking
The final key to long-term lifestyle change is having a clear and obvious way to keep yourself accountable.
For myself I use an app. This has all my behaviours in for the relevant days. And each morning I open the app whilst I’m still in bed, skip back to the previous day, read through my behaviours and tick off any that I got done.
And that’s all you need to do. Tracking in this way gives you that little reminder of what you’re meant to be doing, so that forgetting your new behaviours doesn’t creep in as a reason your adherence is poor.
👉 Your move: Find a system that works for you—a journal, an app, a whiteboard. The format doesn’t matter. What matters is consistency.
Final Thoughts
After years of education, 25+ years of lived trial and error, and 45,000+ hours working with clients, I can say this: long-term change isn’t about willpower. It’s about structure.
With:
-
A clear focus on your ultimate goal
-
Clean, loophole-free plans
-
A sense of balance
-
A habit of eating the frog
-
And obvious tracking
…you give yourself the best possible chance to build lasting change.
I’ll be sharing more of these self-reflections over time, so follow me on Facebook or Instagram if you’d like to see new articles. And keep an eye out for my upcoming Lifestyler video, where I’ll dive into this same topic in more depth.
And if you’re Leicester or Leicestershire based and are looking for a personal trainer then why not get in touch!
I offer personal training services for both one-to-one and couples sessions 