I didn’t have a good childhood. Being bullied and having no friends led me to feel less than human for the first decade or so of my life.

But in hindsight, this was both a blessing and a curse.
It was a blessing because it forced me to make a drastic change in my life.
I didn’t want to end up being the same person forever.

Because of the bullying, I developed many insecurities.
Back then, my biggest insecurity was my social skills.

Combining the bullying with the fact that I didn’t speak Dutch (even though I’m from the Netherlands) for the first five years of my life, I developed severe social anxiety.
I didn’t speak a word, even to my family. There were only a select few people I could muster the courage to speak to.

Imagine being 12 years old and unable to communicate purely because of fear. I’m not asking for pity here, just trying to paint a picture of how I was back then.

When I finished primary school, I made a promise to myself that I would be a different person once I entered high school.

And that’s exactly what I did.

Self-Improvement

High school marked the start of my self-improvement journey.
At first, I hadn’t a clue how to achieve this, so I turned to YouTube for answers. Back then, YouTube was still in its infancy, but somehow I came across the concept of self-improvement.

For those who don’t know, self-improvement is exactly what it says: improving yourself, whether in fitness or social skills.
That blew my mind. I didn’t know there was such a thing as improving yourself to become the person you want to be.
I always thought people were either born introverted or extroverted and that there was nothing you could do to change that.
But self-improvement opened up a world of possibilities for me and gave me hope that I could change my situation.

So I started with my biggest insecurity back then: my social skills.

Social Skills

Nowadays, people don’t believe me when I tell them I used to have massive social anxiety.
They now see me as this very extroverted person who talks to everybody.
But little do they know how tough it was and how long it took to get to where I am now.

As I mentioned, I started tackling my social anxiety by following tips and tricks on YouTube.
I learned all kinds of social techniques from a YouTuber called Charisma on Command.

At first, it was very awkward, and I hated the whole process.
I had to force myself to talk to strangers and take the first step.
I had so many awkward situations that I’ve lost count.

But forcing myself to step out of my comfort zone built a belief in me that I could change my situation, no matter how hard it might seem.
Before I knew it, I had flipped my whole social life upside down—from being someone who was afraid to even talk to family or friends to someone who seems like he knows everybody and comes across as extroverted.

The next thing on my self-improvement bucket list was fitness.

Fitness

My next insecurity was my body. I was super skinny in my teenage years.
So I began the same process I used to improve my social skills—by researching online.

This time, I came across SixPackShortcuts and Athlean X. I binge-watched countless hours of fitness content and took notes on every bit of information I could find related to fitness.
But the most important part of the fitness journey, of course, is the implementation.
Just like with social skills, you can watch all the videos on the planet, but if you don’t implement what you learn, you will not grow as a person.

In the beginning, everyone told me I couldn’t do it, that it was impossible to build muscle when you’re skinny, and that genetics would prevent me from ever building muscle.
Luckily, I didn’t care about what they said—I had prior success and had built up the inner belief that I could change it.

So I did just that.
Fast forward 14 years later, and I have achieved my dream physique.

I’ve unlocked my potential in social skills and fitness.

Unlocking Your Potential

I’ve ventured into more skills and hobbies and tried to unlock my potential in those areas too.
Another one of these is coding.
I’ve ventured into the field of coding and brute-forced my way to unlocking my potential there.
I’m not saying that I’ve fully unlocked my potential in any of these skills, but I think I’m getting pretty close with coding and fitness.

When you look around, there aren’t many people who fully unlock their potential in anything in life or push themselves in their chosen field.
Most people are mediocre at everything, which, in my honest opinion, is unthinkable—I don’t understand it at all.

I know that not everyone’s the same and that everyone has different goals and ambitions in life.
But for me personally, I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t unlock my full potential in the fields of my choice, especially in fitness.
I want to know just how far I can push my body.

What Is My Motivation?

My motivation is knowing that I only have one life, and I remind myself of this fact every day.
Therefore, it is my duty to unlock the fullest potential of the one life I have on this earth—not just for myself but for the others around me.

It sounds super obvious and straightforward. And it is! Yet, the majority of people live their lives without knowing what they could actually achieve.

I would much rather be the football player than the person watching the football player.

I remind myself every day that I only have one life. One shot at life, and I better make sure that I will do everything in my power to be everything that I could be.

To unlock my full potential. Sorry for the cringe.