#37: The Battle Against Overthinking: A Personal Confession
For six months, I disappeared.
Not because I didn’t care, but because I was trapped in my own head.
In this raw episode of The High Performance Gym, I confess the truth about why I stopped podcasting: overthinking, procrastination, burnout, and losing my identity as a dad, coach, and business owner.
But this isn’t just my story—it’s yours too. Because whether you’re a parent juggling family and work, or a young person trying to figure out your future, chances are you’ve felt stuck, overwhelmed, or like you’ve lost your way.
This episode is about coming back. About why this podcast exists. And about how we can use strength, health, and the science of neuroplasticity to reset, rebuild, and find direction when life feels like it’s falling apart.
I share:
◼️ How overthinking turned into paralysis (and what pulled me out)
◼️ Why burnout nearly destroyed my love for health and fitness
◼️ The lesson lockdown taught me about identity, purpose, and family
◼️ Why your brain’s ability to change is the greatest hope we have
◼️ What this podcast will give you—and why it might be exactly what you need.
Follow Keir -
Companies & people mentioned in this episode:
- Lift Performance Academy
- Stress Ed
- Bernadette Dancy (CEO Stress Ed)
- Andrew Huberman
Transcript
Welcome back to the high performance gym.
Speaker A:I know, I know I have been missing for quite a while, probably for about six months, and I did promise that I was going to do episodes consistently, and that has fell by the wayside.
Speaker A:And for that, I do want to apologize.
Speaker A:I really do.
Speaker A:But I do have a confession.
Speaker A:And my confession is I'm a huge overthinker.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:I really do struggle with overthinking.
Speaker A:And when I started this podcast, it was kind of, why am I doing this?
Speaker A:And I didn't really know why I was doing it, and because I didn't really know why I was doing it.
Speaker A:Apart from that, I wanted just to deliver loads of cool information and interview loads of really great guests to, you know, to share the things that I was learning.
Speaker A:There wasn't any real reason behind it.
Speaker A:I did have angles that I wanted to go down and I was discussing.
Speaker A:But then again, I overthought these things.
Speaker A:And because I overthought them, I start procrastinating.
Speaker A:I start getting overwhelmed with it.
Speaker A:The business was going in different directions, and everything just became a little bit too much.
Speaker A:So I basically stopped the podcast.
Speaker A:I'm going to stop it for a couple of weeks.
Speaker A:And it's actually been about, what, six months now.
Speaker A:A lot of people listen to this, also struggle with overthinking, procrastinating, and all that type of thing.
Speaker A:So what I've actually done is with this podcast, I want to explain how we're going to move forward with it, because I've just interviewed a couple of cool guests.
Speaker A:I want to bring them on, but I want to tell you exactly why the podcast exists.
Speaker A:But because I'm an overthinker.
Speaker A:And this is the thing, what I've been doing with the podcast in the past, I have actually scripted it sometimes, like, not scripted, as scripting is in, like, word for word.
Speaker A:But I've had, like, bullet points and parrot, like, things to follow.
Speaker A:And when I do that, I find that I really do switch off a little bit.
Speaker A:Not switch off, but I get confused with what I'm doing.
Speaker A:I'm better when I go free flow.
Speaker A:Now, the back end of that is when I do go free flow, I can jump down rabbit holes and that type of thing.
Speaker A:But I've come to accept that's just kind of who I am.
Speaker A:And if anyone listens to the podcast is like, well, that's not for me.
Speaker A:That's cool.
Speaker A:This podcast isn't for you.
Speaker A:I do have a tendency to run down rabbit holes, and I'm going to Embrace that sort of.
Speaker A:Let's call it.
Speaker A:Let's call it a uniqueness.
Speaker A:Because that's what it's all about, right?
Speaker A:It's all about finding your uniqueness.
Speaker A:And why I actually started the podcast in the first place.
Speaker A:I called it your genius podcast was because that's what it was about.
Speaker A:It was about finding your uniqueness and, you know, finding your genius.
Speaker A:I do believe we all have a genius inside of us.
Speaker A:When I say genius, that's not like levels of intelligence.
Speaker A:It's just something inside of us that's unique to us that we can leverage and use that to help other people be creative.
Speaker A:Just find some joy in the world.
Speaker A:Because I think that's what's sorely missing at the minute is people finding joy and happiness.
Speaker A:And I think that's a huge part of life.
Speaker A:We've got into this sort of hedonic treadmill where we just always trying to achieve, achieve, achieve, achieve, and we're trying to get somewhere.
Speaker A:But actually, like, that's not what life's about because there is nowhere to go.
Speaker A:Only death.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So why are we racing towards death?
Speaker A:It sounds absolutely insane when you actually think about it.
Speaker A:So, yeah, again, running down rabbit holes.
Speaker A:Told you so.
Speaker A:So basically what I've done is I'm going to come back, I'm going to pull myself back now.
Speaker A:I'm going to pull myself back out of this hole.
Speaker A:And what I'm going to do, I've wrote down, because I know everything.
Speaker A:I've wrote down three questions, right?
Speaker A:That's what I've done.
Speaker A:There's no scripts, there's no nothing.
Speaker A:It's three questions I've wrote down.
Speaker A:Hopefully you can.
Speaker A:I can answer these questions and you go, yes, that is for me, or no, that is not for me.
Speaker A:And I can disappear and I can go and find some other cool podcasts or YouTube videos or whatever it is.
Speaker A:But these questions get me to think.
Speaker A:So I've wrote them down and I'm going to answer them and just let's see where it goes with it.
Speaker A:Right, so why does this podcast exist?
Speaker A:I think I've kind of already started to explain that, but let's just give you some context to why it actually does exist.
Speaker A: big change of career back in: Speaker A:I was doing a job that I hated.
Speaker A:Ended up going on to do university, end up being a personal trainer or my own job.
Speaker A:Basically, what I did, I found some joy in life.
Speaker A:I found my path in life.
Speaker A:That is kind of what happened.
Speaker A:And that's always Been a big part of what I'm trying to achieve and to help people do is because a lot of people do do work, they hear they're doing jobs that they hit or they have no career direction.
Speaker A:You'll know if you've listened back on previous podcasts with Aaron Kendall.
Speaker A:Aaron's a young guy who's now doing his PhD in psychology.
Speaker A:But we spoke a lot about like, direction in life.
Speaker A:And I think that is a big part of people's happiness.
Speaker A:It's a big part of what gets us up, gets us fired up.
Speaker A:And yeah, that, that's kind of the beginning of sort of my story.
Speaker A:And I went into health and fitness, started becoming a personal trainer, working with a lot of young athletes, a lot of women, helping them to lose weight.
Speaker A:And, you know, I was loving the work that I was doing.
Speaker A:Opened a gym.
Speaker A:Gym became very, very stressful.
Speaker A:Took us away from the thing.
Speaker A:I actually looked, I did get burnt out in the gym and it was a very difficult time.
Speaker A:And I lost my love and I lost my passion for health and fitness.
Speaker A:That's kind of what happened.
Speaker A:And I was becoming very cynical about everything and it was just a very awful time.
Speaker A:And then lockdown happened and closed the gym.
Speaker A:I then became a full time dad to my kids and that was a really difficult struggle for me.
Speaker A:I then I lost my identity.
Speaker A:I didn't, you know, I had this gym, I had this career, and all of a sudden I was a full time dad to my kids, which, by the way, I absolutely loved.
Speaker A:You know what I mean?
Speaker A:I built such a good bond with my kids, my two boys, Arlo and Kobe, and I would never change that.
Speaker A:But it was a very, very difficult and stressful time.
Speaker A:And I did struggle.
Speaker A:I struggled mentally, I struggled to make money.
Speaker A:I struggled to find out where I was going to go in life, where I was, which direction I was going.
Speaker A: lace, originally back in two,: Speaker A:And I did call it your genius Academy.
Speaker A:It was a way for me to try and find direction in life and to find out where I belong, because I didn't feel like I belonged anywhere.
Speaker A:And yeah, it was, it was a very, very hard time.
Speaker A:And from there I just built, I've started to build up lift.
Speaker A:So I've got Lift Performance Academy now.
Speaker A:And basically.
Speaker A:Well, I'll come, I'll come to that in just a second.
Speaker A:But basically what I'm trying to kind of say is here.
Speaker A:So why does this exist?
Speaker A:It exists for a lot of reasons, but it's down to sort of mainly to help people to just realize how bloody great they are, how powerful it can be.
Speaker A:You know, health and fitness is a big part of.
Speaker A:When I say health and fitness, that just sounds really commercially.
Speaker A:But when you, when you focus on your health and you focus on like getting yourself fit and active and it just changes your brain state.
Speaker A:And I am very much about brain state now.
Speaker A:Do have a healthy obsession.
Speaker A:It is a healthy obsession with neuroplasticity.
Speaker A:Again in lockdown.
Speaker A:This is some of the things I started to study.
Speaker A:I started to study a little bit of psychology, but mainly about neuroplasticity.
Speaker A:I came across this concept of neuroplasticity about how your brain can change at any age.
Speaker A:And it was just fascinating.
Speaker A:I found that absolutely, truly fascinating.
Speaker A:It's one of the things that actually gave me hope when I was in my dark place because it was like, oh, this is kind of it for me.
Speaker A:But actually it's, it's down to me to change this.
Speaker A:And I knew from, you know, it's good when people say, yeah, but something you change and you can change and you can do all that jazz.
Speaker A:When you understand the science behind us, this is science.
Speaker A:Your brain can do this.
Speaker A:It's like, oh, wow, this is, this is hopeful.
Speaker A:Like, this is hope.
Speaker A:So yeah, it's that kind of why this podcast exists.
Speaker A:I want to give people that hope because we all do.
Speaker A:We are challenged.
Speaker A:We're all challenged with problems.
Speaker A:We all have our own struggles, we all have our on issues that we're kind of dealing with in life.
Speaker A:But ultimately it comes down to our health and well being.
Speaker A:And if we can get strong in our health and wellness, then we see the world differently, we can approach it differently.
Speaker A:And I do have lots of ways that I can help people in that, but just not just for me, but also bring other guests in as well that they have expert advice and they can give for all of this cool information that, you know, that maybe I just know on a surface level there and go into depth with that.
Speaker A:So, yeah, that's kind of why it does exist.
Speaker A:I don't know whether that was a bit abstract or if that was actually clear, but that's kind of where we're at with it.
Speaker A:So who's it for?
Speaker A:Well, this is who it's for, really.
Speaker A:I mean, if we think about my situation and the guy in 43, I have three kids, have a very stressful life, I build a business, I'm on a podcast, I have a lot of these stresses in Life.
Speaker A:I'm also somebody who has come from being in a job I absolutely detested.
Speaker A:And it made me depressed to the point I was just drinking all the time.
Speaker A:And I wasn't taking drugs on, but I was drinking all the time.
Speaker A:I was partying all the time just to kind of as a way to escape.
Speaker A:But since I actually found my direction in life, or certainly the path.
Speaker A:Let's call it's.
Speaker A:Yeah, let's call it direction, because it does change as you kind of go along.
Speaker A:I want to kind of help share that with people in all respects, or if I had to say it was just for.
Speaker A:It's for parents.
Speaker A:It's people, you know, who have had a lot of challenges in life who are maybe at that transition part of the life, and they want to change their life, whether it's a health, whether it's a career, whatever that is.
Speaker A:I would say it's mainly for them, mainly for parents, but also for young people as well.
Speaker A:Because I think there's a very strong connection between people our age who are in our 40s and young kids who were maybe in the 20s.
Speaker A:It's very confusing time.
Speaker A:And this is what I'm from lots of reading, talking to people.
Speaker A:This is what I'm kind of discovering now.
Speaker A:You got kids who were maybe just coming out of college or university, or maybe they don't even know where they want to go in life.
Speaker A:A very confusing and hard time.
Speaker A:And then you've also got that transition in life where people are in the 40s that do have those epiphanies and they have those, you know, insights of like, is this what my life's about?
Speaker A:And it can become almost a depressing time.
Speaker A:You know, I think, you know, suicide, guys, is.
Speaker A:Is.
Speaker A:Is most prevalent in between the ages of.
Speaker A:I think it's 44, 55, which is that sort of transitional time of life or realization where your life isn't going where it's going.
Speaker A:Or maybe there's a big trauma in life, like a relationship breakdown or a career.
Speaker A:You've just lost a job or the something, you know, like that.
Speaker A:And again, we bring it all back down to our health.
Speaker A:Because when we think about what can just focus internally and we can just focus on ourselves and put ourselves first, everything becomes a lot easier.
Speaker A:And this is the one thing that I want to try and that people don't understand that health is the foundation.
Speaker A:Health is wealth.
Speaker A:That is kind of it.
Speaker A:But it's not just a case of, oh, let's go and lose some weight.
Speaker A:That's Like a minute part of it, right?
Speaker A:There's so much more to it.
Speaker A:And this is why I kind of really struggled with the podcast.
Speaker A:Where do I kind of go with this?
Speaker A:So there's lots of directions that we can go in, but hopefully that kind of clear that up to you, who this is for.
Speaker A:But I'm also going to give it to a voice to young people as well, because let's say, if we've got kids, maybe we don't understand what our kids are thinking, maybe we don't understand what our kids are going through.
Speaker A:We may understand what we went through as kids, but we don't understand what our kids are going through.
Speaker A:And this brings us back to.
Speaker A:I want to bring some young people on here so we can talk about the struggles that they're going through.
Speaker A:So as mentors and parents, we can then help them.
Speaker A:So, for example, and now I kind of touch on to what I do as a business with Lyft.
Speaker A:So at Lyft, we coach young athletes.
Speaker A:I say young athletes.
Speaker A:Some of them play sports, some of them don't.
Speaker A:Majority do play sports.
Speaker A:But it's a place where we can get kids strong.
Speaker A:We're all physically strong.
Speaker A:You get physically strong, you get mentally strong.
Speaker A:That's kind of why it started.
Speaker A:But we have sort of gravitated and turned our direction a lot to young female athletes.
Speaker A:We have a lot of young girls in the gym who play football.
Speaker A:And one of our athletes is actually in the gym now, helping me as an assistant coach.
Speaker A:Again, she didn't know what to do with her GCs, no GCSEs, but she had her choices to make.
Speaker A:She was in year eight, she was going to year nine or year nine, year ten.
Speaker A:I can't remember where to make the choices.
Speaker A:And she was quite overwhelmed, like, do I take pe?
Speaker A:Do I do business?
Speaker A:Like, what do I do?
Speaker A:So how to chat with her and says, look, like, why don't you just come into the gym, do some work, we'll have a bit chat about it.
Speaker A:And she's ended up taking pa. She absolutely loves it.
Speaker A:She's an element.
Speaker A:I've also said, look, these are the kind of career options that you can go into.
Speaker A:Like, if you are interested in sport, like, these are all the things that are available to you.
Speaker A:Not kind of overwhelming, but just to give her that understanding that, you know, you don't have to choose a direction.
Speaker A:It sort of 13 year old, which is absolutely crazy.
Speaker A:It's just about finding that interest that leads you down a certain path which might potentially Change down the line.
Speaker A:But what I'm kind of trying to say is here is a big part of what we do at LIFT is to help young people to be strong in life.
Speaker A:Like physically, yes, mentally, yes, but just to feel strong within themselves.
Speaker A:And we'll bring people on the podcast to.
Speaker A:To discuss all of those.
Speaker A:All of those things.
Speaker A:That's two questions answered.
Speaker A:Question three, what's in it for you?
Speaker A:Okay, what's in it for you?
Speaker A:I'm going to give you basically anything you need to get you through certain struggles that you could be dealing with now.
Speaker A:Now, for me to do that, I need you to be able to interact.
Speaker A:I need you to be able to send me a question or even a story that you may be struggling with.
Speaker A:You don't have me have to give me a.
Speaker A:A question that you're studying with, but it could just be.
Speaker A:You might just want to send me an email and say, look, this is my kind of life at the minute, and blah, blah, blah, tell me what it's about.
Speaker A:Because that alone helps you.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:But then I can talk about those things on the podcast, or I could bring an expert in and talk about that, because I am starting to learn a lot of really cool things myself, and I feel almost selfish for not sharing these things.
Speaker A:And the reason I'm not sharing, because I don't know how to share it.
Speaker A:To me, it's just picking a.
Speaker A:Picking the camera and talking about it on social media just doesn't work for me.
Speaker A:That's just.
Speaker A:I can do it, but it has to be about a certain thing, and, you know, about all the algorithms and all that jazz, and it becomes really sort of like.
Speaker A:But with podcasts, I find podcasts differently because you can actually have an open conversation.
Speaker A:You can talk about things in depth.
Speaker A:People who listen to podcasts like context, and they like depth, and they like to learn things on a deeper level.
Speaker A:And if that's for you, then that's how I am.
Speaker A:And if that's for you, then this is going to work for you.
Speaker A:And I do like to dive deep into certain things that I'm learning.
Speaker A:So, for example, like neuroplasticity.
Speaker A:I love neuroplasticity.
Speaker A:I can talk about all day.
Speaker A:Am I an expert in it?
Speaker A:Absolutely not.
Speaker A:I would love to bring somebody in who is Andrew Huberman, by the way.
Speaker A:I would love to bring Andrew Huberman on the podcast and talk about neuroplasticity.
Speaker A:I've got so many questions to ask him, but I know enough about it to have a conversation to open Conversations, adhd, for example.
Speaker A:That's something I'm really learning about now.
Speaker A:And again, I find it absolutely fascinating.
Speaker A:Am I an expert in that?
Speaker A:No, I'm not.
Speaker A:But what it does is when I'm talking about, it opens conversations up and it gets you to think about it as well.
Speaker A:Maybe you, you struggle with adhd, or you have a kid who struggles with ADHD, or you work with people who struggle with adhd.
Speaker A:What I'm kind of saying is there's so many topics that we can talk about, and I feel almost selfish for not sharing them.
Speaker A:And that's kind of what I want up to do.
Speaker A:What that could be an open place where we can talk about things and accept the fact that we're not expert.
Speaker A:I'm an expert in mindset or all of those types of neuroscience and anything like that.
Speaker A:But there's no reason why we can't talk about it.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:You know, like, mental health is a really big thing, and people don't talk about it because they think they're not qualified to talk about it.
Speaker A:It's like, you have a brain, you have mental health, you are qualified to talk about those things.
Speaker A:You don't have to be an expert in it, but you can open up conversations.
Speaker A:And I think that's the biggest part of it is let's just open up conversations.
Speaker A:Let's talk about our stories, let's tell people how we're feeling.
Speaker A:Because even if you just tell someone the struggles that you're going through, the challenges you're dealing with, it helps them to deal with their struggles as well.
Speaker A:So, like, why should we not make it a place where it can be just natural and open and.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's probably kind of what's in this for you.
Speaker A:And I am going to cut that there because again, I could probably sit here all day and talk.
Speaker A:And that's my fair view.
Speaker A:It's probably not fair my kids either, because I will have to go and pick them up from school soon.
Speaker A:And if I'm sat on the computer not talking to them, not talking to them, not picking them up, then that's not fair on them.
Speaker A:Can't leave them just hanging around all day anyway.
Speaker A:Yes, that's kind of what it's about.
Speaker A:That's what it's for.
Speaker A:And I'm going to bring some guests down.
Speaker A:We do have an amazing guest coming on who I've actually interviewed already.
Speaker A:She's a stress expert.
Speaker A:Bernadette Dancey Bernie, we call her Bernie because we can go on first name terms now, but she's incredible.
Speaker A:She's a Ph.D. graduate.
Speaker A:She's basically, she's a super smart lady.
Speaker A:She used to be a university lecturer.
Speaker A:Now she has her own business called Stress Ed.
Speaker A:We're going to be talking about that in the next episode.
Speaker A:I'm going to bring.
Speaker A:I'm going to bring that episode up to the next podcast episode.
Speaker A:So yeah, and as for like other things that happens on podcasts, like advertisements or all that type of jazz, like, yes, those things are going to happen and I will bring some things in there, but only things that are helpful to you.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:That is one of my promises I want to do with this podcast is to have this things that are actually relatable to you.
Speaker A:I listen to podcasts and one of the things I hate about podcasts now is you have all of these advertisements on.
Speaker A:I want my listening to someone if they really believe in a product.
Speaker A:Like I've been using this product for like 20 years.
Speaker A:I really believe in this product sponsoring the podcast.
Speaker A:Brilliant.
Speaker A:I'm all for that.
Speaker A:I'm great for that.
Speaker A:Or look, this is something I'm doing myself because they generally want to do it or they're generally trying it or whatever it is.
Speaker A:If there's genuinity behind it, that's great.
Speaker A:I love that.
Speaker A:And I think that's fair because you know, running a podcast, it is free and you do have to generate income somewhere because it's time, it's energy and it also costs you money as well to actually run a podcast.
Speaker A:So I do believe in ads.
Speaker A:I think the work and I think it's fair that if you are listening to something for free, you do have some ads in there, but also for respect you as a listener, there have to be something that's beneficial to you.
Speaker A:Again, these ads, which are just chuck loads of random ads.
Speaker A:I just that I stopped listening to podcasts.
Speaker A:I used to listen to a lot of really great podcasts and I've stopped listening just simply because of that.
Speaker A:I think you don't respect me as a listener because you're just trying to make money as opposed to you trying to help me.
Speaker A:And that might be a selfish thing.
Speaker A:I might be thinking that completely wrong.
Speaker A:I don't know.
Speaker A:But that's just kind of my values.
Speaker A:So I'm going to leave it there.
Speaker A:Any links that I have, I will put them in the show notes.
Speaker A:You can connect with me on Instagram and all that jazz and I'll put my email on that and you could get free downloads.
Speaker A:I've got a free download for girls and sports.
Speaker A:It's to help you build some strong knees.
Speaker A:It's five reasons your daughter's knees hurt.
Speaker A:So that's something.
Speaker A:And how to fix it fast.
Speaker A:That's something that I've got at the moment.
Speaker A:You can download that if you've got a daughter in sport.
Speaker A:She's struggling with knee pain.
Speaker A:Even if she's not struggling with knee pain, please download it, because strength training for girls is absolutely vital.
Speaker A:And again, we'll get into this in a different podcast.
Speaker A:But please, please, if you do have a daughter and she is playing sport, get her to do some strength work.
Speaker A:Download the free guide and get her do those exercises.
Speaker A:Encourage her to do those exercises, please.
Speaker A:So thank you for listening and I will catch up with you on the next up.
Speaker A:So.
