Ant Middleton - The Wall

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First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2022

FIRST EDITION

Ant Middleton 2022

Cover design by Claire Ward HarperCollinsPublishers 2022

Cover photograph Andrew Brown

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

Ant Middleton asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

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Source ISBN: 9780008472351

Ebook Edition September 2022 ISBN: 9780008472375

Version: 2022-09-05

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• Page numbers taken from the following print edition: ISBN 9780008472351

To my cousin George.

Keep flying high, knowing that youre in a

place where you belong and where no

judgement is passed!

INTRODUCTION

The wall. Sooner or later we all hit it. The wall might be anything. It might be your lack of motivation, it might be that you have no self-belief, it might be your fear of leaving your comfort zone, it might be that youre struggling to get over the loss of a loved one, it might be that you spend too much time with people who undermine you, or it might be a relationship that you need to get out of.

What all these things have in common is that theyre holding you back. Theyre the things that seem as if theyre stopping you from reaching your true potential, from getting the most you can out of your life.

Thats where this book comes in. I want to share with you my strategies and techniques for smashing through the things that are standing between you and the best version of yourself.

One of the most amazing things about what I do these days is the interactions I have with people from every walk of life. I get to talk to them about what theyre going through. Sometimes Im even able to help them. I feel brilliant and really lucky when that happens.

People turn to me because I think differently. I give them different ways of looking at the world and their own place in it. They know that Im not happy to accept the norm quietly if the norm doesnt work. Im not interested in the generic, in the off-the-peg. Whatever it is Im faced by, I want to work out the solution for myself.

They also know that I can speak from experience. My failure to fully confront the fact of my fathers death held me back for years. It left me lost in the void; I sabotaged my life over and over again. Ive experienced this in my working life too. Because Im obsessed with what I do, I hit a wall every five or six years. At the beginning of a new project, Im full of energy and drive, and I push and push until Im operating at the upper limit of what Im capable of. And then, at some point, all the positivity starts to give way to resentment and frustration. I snap at people and feel angry without every really understanding why.

The wall!

In those cases, the wall becomes something I just need to get rid of. Once its been brought down, I can then feel all the tension thats been building up inside me flood away. I breathe easier, my enthusiasm returns. Its like getting a second wind.

And thats the thing. Hitting the wall isnt as bad as it appears at first. Yes, it feels frustrating and uncomfortable, but its a sign that youve already evolved to the point where youve outgrown your current circumstances. The person youre with in that relationship isnt moving with you anymore. You feel stagnant in your career because it no longer challenges you. Youre not happy with your body and want to lose weight. You hate the fact that you cant seem to make decisions. You want to change but you cant break old habits.

Life is all about finding out who you are, where you fit in. Youll hit many walls along the way. The truth is, sometimes youll outgrow people and places and jobs.

So, if youre angry with yourself because you struggle to find motivation, then good! This is a positive outcome. Youve recognised something about yourself that needs to change if youre to keep moving forward in your life. Your frustration at discovering that you cant motivate yourself is also the first step towards grabbing that momentum.

Deep down, you know that you can do better than this. You know that you need to change, that you need to do things differently, go in a different direction. You need to focus on yourself. The friction is just a sign that while the situation youre in at the moment might be about to end, something new is ready to start.

This is where you get to make a choice. Either you complain about how stuck you feel and sit there, hoping someone or something will change things for you. Or you realise that its up to you, and only you, to get through it.

I hope that this book is something youll be able to draw on as you go on that journey. The Wall is going to be a bit different to my previous books. As always, itll contain hard-won lessons from my own life. But there will also be examples taken from my encounters with people who I like to think Ive helped. Im so inspired by seeing their resilience and strength, their own iron-clad determination to overcome tough times and challenges.

There will be activities and exercises for reflection to help you really absorb and engage with the ideas contained within these pages. This is the first time Ive done anything like this in my adult books and youll find them scattered through the text. Ive included them because I want you to see The Wall as a collaboration between me and you. Every single reader will see the same words, but every single reader will also make something different of them. A book is a brilliant start, but thats all it is. Its a jumping-off point. Youve got to go out there and discover what works in your life. Make every idea in here your own. Break things. Make mistakes. Find out who you really are.

Because until you do that, there will always be a wall standing in your way.

CHAPTER 1

I once read something that has stuck with me ever since. A flea can jump approximately 300 times its height. If you put a flea into a closed box, it will carry on jumping. For the first fifteen or twenty times it will try to propel itself into the air as high as it possibly can. And every time the poor creature will smash into the boxs lid. After that it will learn. From then on, its jumps will be perfectly calibrated to just skim the top of its new home.

What I find saddest is that if, after a certain amount of time has elapsed, you set that flea free, it will carry on jumping as if its still in the box. This always comes to mind when I think about ways in which our desire to please and to conform can become a massive obstacle on our way to achieving our true potential. Too many of us are far too worried about what other human beings think or say about us. Its paralysing. And to a certain extent thats not surprising. Those in power, society, negative people all want to suppress us. All of them are threatened by our freedom. So they force us to act like those fleas.