For those who follow me on social media or know me to say hi, you’ll probably know I’ve recently broken my foot playing football - three weeks after recovering from a broken hand playing rugby.

I’m looking at about eight weeks total in my leg cast, after about seven weeks in my wrist cast. I’m sure you can only begin to imagine how lovely my hand smelt on the day the cast was finally removed.

It’s safe to say that my bones haven’t had the best of luck recently.

The point of this article isn’t a ’look at me I’ve broken another bone’, neither is it me looking for any sympathy.

I’m writing this article so that you, as the reader, can learn to take positives from potentially negative situations.

Yes, I would much prefer to have been injury-free over the past four months, but it’s something I cannot change, and I’ve actually found some really positive situations have come from it.

Firstly I’ve become a lot more grateful for the times that I could write freely (I broke my writing hand), and walk without crutches.

Ever get a blocked nose and dream about the times you could breathe freely, but when your nose becomes unblocked again you forgot it ever happened?

This time has made me really appreciate what I have, and think about people who are living with chronic illness, or dealing with longer term injuries.

Take time daily to actively look for things you’re grateful for.

If you struggle with this, try and imagine things being taken away, and think how it would make you feel.

Secondly I’ve actually been able to turn my focus to other areas.

A good example of this is I’m now focussing on developing some upper body strength while I can’t squat or do anything lower body.

Hopefully when I’m out of this cast I’ll have gained some nice muscle mass to my arms and shoulders, something I have lacked previously. I’m hoping I’ll break my pull-up personal best too.

Without breaking my foot, I probably wouldn’t have allocated extra time to my upper body work. Every cloud, eh?

I’ve also been doing a lot of reading recently, and more specifically I’ve been reading about ancient philosophy and stoicism.

Something that a lot of the ancient and modern philosophers agreed on is that there’s no point wasting energy worrying about what you cannot change. That energy is only going to negatively affect you and be absolutely no help to fixing the situation.

Is getting upset you’ve missed your bus going to make the bus come back? Probably not.

Focus on what you CAN change, and be at peace with what you cannot.

Also something I’m a big advocate of is that real growth comes from stress and hardship.

This is the same with weight training - you put muscles through stress, they will grow and be stronger.

You put a human through tough times, they will grow and be stronger. A quote I absolutely love is ’smooth seas never made a good sailor’.

I’d like you to remember this when things aren’t necessarily going your way.

If you’re never tested, how will you know how strong and resilient you actually are?

To summarise this piece, try and see positives from every situation.

Lost the use of a leg? Work on your upper body.

Has your car broken down? See it as a nice chance to take yourself for a long walk.

Is life hard at the moment? See it as your time to grow.

When one door closes, another one opens.

As always, thanks for reading