The meaning behind the name - Fortitude.

Fortitude means strength of mind, and I’ve often said that a prep, off season, or big health and lifestyle change the struggles come in the mind more than the body, think about it the practice of bodybuilding is easy, eat x food do y training repeat. The hard bit is showing resilience when your too tired to train, you fancy pizza instead of chicken and veg and you want a lie in instead of do your cardio.

It’s very easy to go back to the old habits, not fuelling your body or taking care of it. It’s easy to sack off the gym and get a take away but we all know reading this that its not going to serve you in the long run. having the mental fortitude to stick to your goals, to think what the “best version of you” would do and following that is whats truly strength.

“The best version of you” I’m sure a few of you will have heard this concept before as it’s really nothing new, but have you ever tried it? I know I have and I know it works. ask yourself who the best version of you is? Is she an IFBB pro? is she a successful business owner? is she a fantastic mum? is she a leader? is she the manager at her place of work? whatever she looks like to you ask yourself what her day looks like? and how she would react in a situation, for example you don’t want to get out if bed and do cardio at 4am before work, what would IFBB pro you do? she would be getting out of bed at 4am to get on that stair master because thats just what she does because she’s a pro and thats how a pro acts. So you act like her and get out of bed. whatever your next goal is you put the actions in place like its already done belive in yourself and great things will happen.

Understanding delayed gratification is a key to any bodybuilding or lifestyle change. Pizza after a stressful day at work is easy it makes you feel great for that 5 mins your eating it and thats about it, you wake up the next day feeling crap and potentially not looking how you want to is hard. Going to the gym after a hard day at work coming home to your prep food and getting up at 4am the following day for cardio is hard but you choose your hard. you know that although its hard in the moment that delayed gratification of getting on stage and the feeling when your up there and taking home trophies will beat the feeling of giving it all in just because of one hard day. That’s strength of mind, fortitude.

When I decided on a rebrand I had no idea of the name I knew I wanted to take my name out of it incase I wanted to expand in the future, and I also wanted something that reflected my coaching more. I was told to write down a list of words that represented my brand and resinated with me, Resilience, optimal, female lead, strength, power, dynamic, strong, Fortitude.

Strength of mind.

Should put that on a tee…