Guest blogger Felicity

June 9, 2019

I’m so pleased to introduce my next guest blogger Felicity. Despite working at a Law Firm, Feli found time to pursue her passion and is an inspiration for me. I'm grateful she allowed me to share her with you too....

I’m so pleased to introduce my next guest to the blog Felicity. I wanted to feature Feli because she embodies all of what we all aspire to be – she’s multi-talented, focused, hardworking and incredibly kind. I was immediately drawn to Felicity when we met. She was volunteering her resources and time to film sermons for our church and thus helping spread the gospel message to a wider audience online. She also helped me film some videos for the blog and that’s when I found out about her passion for fitness. Despite working at a Law Firm, Feli found time to pursue what sets her soul on fire and serves as a brilliant source of inspiration for me. I’m grateful she allowed me to share her with you too. Thank you Feli x

1. Tell us about you

Hey! My name is Felicity but people call me Feli for short. I am 23 years old and I currently live in Leeds, UK.

2. How did we meet?

Metiya and I met in church! Her bright, outgoing spirit is what actually brought us together and I’m so grateful to know such a beautiful soul.

3. What sets your soul on fire aka what do you love to do?

So I am really passionate about health and fitness and over the past couple of years my interest has definitely grown along with the knowledge I have gained. The thought that I have the option to work towards taking care of my body; the food choices I make and how much exercise I do is something so incredible and I want to be able to make better choices and hopefully inspire and encourage others to do the same. I try to work out a minimum of 3-4 times a week and have naturally started to focus on eating more healthily too.

4. What inspired you to do what you do?

I would say I have always been an avid yet sporadic gym goer however my inspiration to actually start taking fitness seriously came from points in my life where I felt a lot of emptiness and dissatisfaction which started to take a toll on my mental health and my physical health likewise. Going to the gym became an outlet for these negative feelings and I realised that I started to feel better through my increase in strength and being able to challenge myself. What I initially had a mere interest in has now become a significant part of my lifestyle.

5. What challenges did you face and how did you overcome them?

The challenges that I have faced during my fitness journey have both been external and internal. From being skinny shamed to simply lacking personal motivation. With personal growth I have been able to tackle this by growing in self love and by accepting myself as I am and not being deterred by opinions based on my outward appearance. I place more emphasis on whether I feel healthy, increasing my physical strength and being able to simply perform functional exercises. Creating a plan and setting myself goals has undoubtedly helped during times where I lack motivation as I can think back and remind myself why I enjoy training and what I want to gain from it.

6. What is success to you?

Success to me is being able do something that you don’t feel like doing in the moment but knowing that it will benefit you later. Particularly with fitness, motivation fluctuates but if you remind yourself of the goal in mind and can push past the feeling of sometimes not being in the mood to train and still show up each time, that is success to me.

7. What advice would you give to someone trying to do what you do?

I would definitely say to just start! No matter how unfit you think you are, whether it’s a Thursday and not a Monday, just start, because once you can get the ball rolling you can sort everything else out along the way

8. What is the biggest lesson you’ve learnt on your journey so far?

The biggest lesson I have learnt on my journey so far is that you are capable of more than what you really think. I say this because for example, for a very long time I have always wanted to be able to do chin ups/pull ups but I was always too afraid to even give it go incase I couldn’t do it. However I eventually decided to just challenge myself to try them and I soon realised that I was actually capable with just a little work and now I can’t stop doing them!

9. What would you tell your younger self if you could go back in time?

If I could go back in time I would tell my younger self to work on self love as it has a significant impact on how you are able to treat yourself first which also reflects on how you treat others. I would also tell my younger self that it is okay to be true to yourself because you are simply enough just the way you are.