Home. Its different for each of us- but it’s our safe space, a place we can unwind, be ourselves, our escape. Have you ever escaped from daily routine, the hustle and bustle and just switched off? My escape is to be surrounded in inches of snow, a bitterly cold breeze chilling by face, my eyes scanning the white moorlands expanding for miles, and a perpetual blue sky. At times I’ve stumbled across a person or two, but usually it’s a solitary path of freedom- simply zoning into myself, my feet wandering in the snow and my thoughts slipping away with each step.
Its therapeutic and exceptionally good for our mental headspace to be able to step away and give ourselves space to mentally zone out. I’ve added walking into my mental headspace routine for just under 2 years now, and nearly this whole time, four pocket-sized prints follow mine. Annie, my 2-year-old black Labrador, my shadow. Bringing laughter, a purpose and a best friend to my life and to these walks.
Welcome to the Armoured Mindset, thanks for taking the time out to read my first blog. This week’s blog will be my opportunity to introduce myself, who I am, what I do and why I’m doing this.
So, my name is Ben, originally from greater Manchester but currently living near the midlands. I can honestly say I’ve had 32 amazing years, I’ve been lucky to have a great family, unbelievable life experiences, rewarding jobs but I’ve had some tough challenges along the way like anyone else I’m sure. This is my opportunity to share those challenges and how I’ve dealt with them which will hopefully reflect onto any issue/challenges you’re facing or about to face.
So, what am I doing now? Well I’m currently serving in the Royal Air Force and this is my first year however it’s taken 5 long years to get to this position I’m in now and I’m nowhere near where I want to be. Over the coming weeks I will share all my experiences and challenges I’ve faced from living in the middle east to heart breaking failures and how I’ve got to where I am today which hopefully will give you the belief that things do work out for the best and sometimes better. I will be divulging into other topics such as:
- Failures or lessons
- Judging others
- How to stay true to your goals
- How to have a stronger mindset in difficult situations
- Why winging it can work out
- The good, the bad and the ugly routines
- & much more
Why am I taking time away from my own life, my career and training? Its simple for me, I love helping others. I’m fully aware of what its like to hit rock bottom, work incredibly hard for no end result, to be heart broken, dreams smashed. I only ever try to help one person, that doesn’t mean once I’ve helped one person that’s it I’ve done my bit. I believe if you help just one person, that one person could help another and so on. If I’m able to reach out to more than one then they’re my bonuses so to speak.
Over the last 8 years this willingness to help others has persistently grown from teaching swimming, seeing a child or an adult be petrified of water to jumping into the deep end of a swimming pool or consistently swimming length after length a few weeks later. This is one of the best feelings anyone can have, you can feel incredibly proud that you’ve guided that child or adult to achieving a life skill. Recently I’ve been given recognition for this attitude, during my Military basic training I was awarded the best trophy a Royal Air Force trainee can receive which is the Recruits Recruit award, this award isn’t given by the instructors but by my fellow trainees. The award symbolises the willingness to help others. Winning this award was a complete shock for me. I never intended on being awarded anything, it wasn’t motivated to finished basic training with an award, I honestly just wanted to pass my training since it has taken me 5 long years. However, helping others through their training helped me because this gave me that proud feeling, the feeling that I’m making a positive difference and this is something I would like to highlight throughout this blog. If you want to achieve your goals, feel happier, become more confident then helping someone else will create a stronger mindset for yourself to achieve your own goals.
Using this platform with Sizu I can carry on this persistence to help others, to help you which in return helps me because I love doing this.
Stay tuned for next Friday when I will be talking about Failures or Lessons.
Thank you for your time, have a great day.