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5 Life Changing Lessons This Year

5 Life Changing Lessons This Year

Jack Salmon
December 22, 2025

Become the best you

Welcome to this weeks newsletter - 5 Life Changing Lessons This Year

5 Life Changing Lessons

This year has been one of the best years I’ve had.
Don’t get me wrong, it comes with a lot of down moments, mental battles, and challenges but I’ve achieved some amazing things that I’m proud of.

This year I:

Completed my first 108-mile ultra in 23:30
Brought my dream to life and built the Be app
Hosted my first paid public speaking event abroad in Dubai
Hit my biggest financial year
Directly changed 60 more lives and grew the community to 140+ people
Reached over 4 years sober from drink and drugs

I’ve achieved a lot this year, and as great as these things are… they’re not my biggest wins.

My biggest wins didn’t come from external success or achievements.
They came from an internal shift in my beliefs and how I view life.

These 5 lessons have been key in helping me become a better version of myself in all aspects of my life.

Limit The Ego

Up until around July this year, all I did was live from my ego.

I spent years trying to seek validation,
achieving goals to prove myself,
and chasing success so I could stand out and feel significant.

Listen, living from my ego did allow me to achieve great things in my life.
But the problem was, even though I was achieving all these things, afterwards I always felt unfulfilled.

Why?

Because chasing significance, proving yourself to others, and seeking validation is a deadly trap. You will always return to a place of unfulfilment, because you can never win or prove enough.

Without realizing it, everything I was doing came from the wrong intentions.
Every action. Every decision.
It was all to prove that I am who I say I am.

“Jack Salmon, high performer and high-performance coach. Mentally resilient. Strong.”

As I write this, it sounds pathetic… but it’s the truth.
For years, all I did was achieve, achieve, achieve just to feel worthy or validated.
And the more I think about it, the more pathetic it sounds.

But thankfully, after the 100-mile ultra, those chains broke.

I felt like I had proven enough.
I stopped caring about validation from others and realised something important, validating myself is all that matters.

By no means am I saying I’m free from my ego. In fact, having a healthy ego is good for you.
But if you’re constantly chasing approval, significance, and validation from others, you’ll keep chasing and never feel satisfied.

So how did I overcome this?

First, I started self-validating through praise and recognition.
Every morning and evening, I wrote down what I was proud of and the wins I had that day.

Second, I realised that I’m not as significant as I think and that I’m no one.
This isn’t putting myself down. It simply removed the importance I placed on myself.

Third, I started questioning my intentions.
Every time I set a goal, posted on social media, or did something, I asked myself:
What is my intention behind this?

If my intention wasn’t good, I didn’t do the action.
If it was, I did.

Even if you implemented just one of these, you’d make a massive shift in your life.

Let’s dive into lesson number two.

Becoming is more important than the goal

I am BIG on goals, but the problem in the past was that I would get so attached to the goal that I forgot what it actually takes to achieve it. I was always focused on arriving at the goal.

By constantly focusing on how far away the goal was, I’d feel disheartened, or I’d end up rushing the process just to try and achieve it quicker.

The mad thing was, I’d be so attached to the goal that when I finally achieved it, I never felt that satisfied anyway, I’d just move the goalposts to the next one.

Then it struck me one day.

It’s not actually the goal I want.
I want to become the person who can achieve the goal.

Because growth is what I value most, not achievement.

What do I mean?

It’s not the 100-mile ultra I want. I want to become the person who can run 100 miles.
That person is disciplined, consistent, resilient, mentally strong, healthy, athletic, confident, and a strong runner.

That person isn’t formed just because a goal exists.
That person is formed through the process.

So instead of attaching myself to the goal, I got hooked on enjoying the process and executing it to the best of my ability. Because if I wake up every single day and work on becoming the person I want to be, the goal will one day take care of itself.

This simple shift in perspective allowed me not only to achieve my goals to their full capacity, but also to enjoy each day working towards them.

Having a goal is important but the goal should be nothing more than an aiming point that excites and challenges you.

The real work, and the real fun, is in becoming the person who can achieve the goal, not the goal itself.

What helped me was:

Setting a big goal that’s both challenging and rewarding
Putting a plan in place that forces growth
Counting my wins and progress each day
Welcoming challenge and looking for growth in every challenge I face

Let’s dive into lesson number three.

Gratitude is key

The more I practice gratitude, the more I realise how blessed I am.

I have everything I once dreamed of and more — how can I not feel grateful?

I have:

A successful business
A beautiful family
A loving home
A healthy body
I am sober
And much more

But even beyond these things, how can I not be grateful for the problems in my life?

Sometimes I moan that my daughter kept me up and didn’t sleep well. I should be grateful I have a healthy daughter and a warm bed to sleep in.

I moan that I eat too much, I should be grateful I have food to eat when some people starve.

I moan that my body is injured, some people don’t have a healthy body at all.

I moan that my business causes me stress, I asked for these problems, and some people don’t even have a business to run.

I still have a long way to go, and there are many days I forget how lucky I am. But the more I change my perspective and tap into deeper layers of gratitude, the more I realise just how blessed I am.

Gratitude is the key to everything. Anytime you feel stressed, feel like you’re lacking something, or feel like you’re not where you want to be in life, take a step back, reflect, and remind yourself just how lucky you are.

One thing that’s massively helped me is this:
Every morning and night, I close my eyes and visualise and feel three things I’m grateful for. I step into the experience and FEEL the emotion of gratitude. This could be the house I live in, my daughter’s smile, the money I earn, or anything that reminds me just how lucky I am.

The key here is not to write or just to say but to feel exactly what it is you're grateful for

Give it a try!

Moving onto lesson number four!

Live the life you want to live

Coming into 2025, I realised I wasn’t living the life I wanted to live.

I was coaching every hour under the sun, which stopped me from feeling free.
Working late nights.
Not seeing my daughter as much.
And not spending my time how I wanted to.

Why?

Because I was caught up in living someone else’s values and definition of success.

I was doing things I thought I should do, had to do, or needed to do.

I have to take on all these clients.
I have to work late to be successful.
I can’t pick my daughter up on a Friday evening because I need to work late.
I shouldn’t go away because I’m not at that stage in my career yet.

But whenever you catch yourself saying “need to”, “have to”, or “should do”, it’s usually coming from someone else's values.

A breakthrough happened for me when I asked myself:
What does success mean to me?
And what do I value?

Success, to me, means waking up each day living in alignment with my purpose.

And what do I value?
Growth. Freedom. Family. Learning. Achievement. Contribution.

So why was I coaching all these clients if it didn’t make me feel free?
Why was I working late nights if it affected my growth the next day?
Why wasn’t I seeing my daughter if I value family?
And why wasn’t I travelling with clients if I value contribution and freedom?

It made no sense.

As soon as I started living in alignment with what I value and what success means to me, I started waking up each day feeling like I had already achieved, instead of waiting for a future day where I’d finally feel successful.

You only get one life, and I wanted to live it the way I want to live it.

There will be times when you have to sacrifice, struggle, and work more hours than you want to. But once you reach a certain point, I believe enough is enough and you can start living the life you want to live.

It doesn’t have to be in some distant future.
It can be right now.

Two things that helped me here:

Knowing exactly what success means to you, and aiming to live your life aligned with that
Understanding your values and spending your time in alignment with them

If you’d like to learn more about values, watch this video here:
https://becomethebestyou.mykajabi.com/pl/2148710792

The final lesson — lesson number five.

The most important relationship you can have is with yourself

I spent years of my life not feeling proud of myself — and I did have a valid reason.

I was drinking and doing drugs all the time.
Letting myself down.
Not being a great person.
And not growing in my life.

But even after I changed my life — when I was
sober,
keeping my word,
being a better person,
and growing and achieving my dreams

I still didn’t feel proud of myself.

This year, that all changed for me.

I started praising and recognising myself — not only for how far I’ve come, but for the improvements I was making and the things I was achieving along the way.

The most important relationship you can have is with yourself.
When you improve the relationship with yourself, everything else improves too:

Your confidence
Your self-belief
Your self-esteem
Your energy
And your mental wellbeing

I think men struggle with this the most. For some reason, we struggle to recognise our own growth and success — and that was me for a long time. Even when I was doing well, I didn’t want to recognise myself.

Why?

First, I thought recognising myself would stop me from wanting more — that being satisfied would make me less hungry. That was a lie.

Second, I thought if I recognised myself, I’d boost my ego too much. But unless your intention is to inflate your ego, this isn’t true.

The truth is, when I praise and recognise myself from a healthy place, it allows me to enjoy the process, trust myself, and feel good as I move towards the life I want.

If you have a great relationship with yourself, everyone else and everything else in your life, gets the best of you.

Three things that have helped me feel proud of myself:

Every day, I write down three things I’m proud of,either from that day or from my past.
Every time I do something positive for myself, I praise myself in that moment.
I keep a wins list — a list of everything I’ve overcome and achieved in my life. Every time I do something I’m proud of, I add it to the list and recognise myself for it.
Give them a try.

Onto the next

All in all, it’s been an eventful year full of highs and lows.

I’m incredibly grateful for all the highs and the goals achieved, but I’m even more grateful for the low moments this year.

The challenges and struggles are what have taught me the most lessons and allowed me to grow into a wiser and better version of myself.

It can be hard to see what lessons need to be learned when you’re facing challenges in your life. But if you keep pushing through and overcome them, there is always something to learn on the other side.

Going into 2026, I’m sure it will be the same.

I’ll achieve a lot but I’m also looking to overcome even more challenges.

Bring it on.

Also, a HUGE THANK YOU for keeping up to date with and reading my blog’s this year. It’s been something I randomly decided to do but love making them. Thank you for being apart of this journey with me.

All the best

Jack

Become the best you.