The Identity Shift That Made Drinking Less and Running More So Much Easier

For years, I said things like:

“I’m going to try to drink less.”

“I’m going to try to do more cardio.”

“I’m going to try to get back into a better routine.”

And perhaps you’ve said similar things.

It sounds perfectly reasonable. Responsible, even.

You’ve identified something you would like to change. You have good intentions. You are going to give it a try.

But that word, try, leaves the door slightly ajar.

You can try and succeed.

But you can also try and fail.

You can try again next Monday.

And because you haven’t fully committed to a decision, other people can quite easily steer you away from it.

“Oh go on, have one drink.”

“Stay for another.”

“You can always go for a run tomorrow.”

When your own resolve is still a little bit wishy-washy, you are much more open to persuasion.

I know this because I spent the best part of a decade doing exactly that.

The difference between changing a habit and changing your identity

Over the past 15 months, I have successfully stopped drinking for two extended periods.

The biggest difference wasn’t greater willpower.

It wasn’t that I suddenly became more disciplined, more mature or more enlightened.

I changed my language.

Instead of saying: “I’m trying not to drink.”

I started saying: “I don’t drink.”

It was a small change in wording, but it created a much bigger shift in how I saw myself.

I wasn’t constantly deciding whether or not to drink.

I had already made the decision.

And when you say, “I don’t drink,” people tend to accept it far more readily than, “I’m trying to drink less.”

There is less negotiation.

Less encouragement to make an exception.

Less internal debate about whether tonight counts.

You have given yourself a clear boundary.

There is also something powerful about wanting your actions to match the person you have said you are.

That doesn’t mean pretending to be somebody you’re not. It means choosing the version of yourself you want to practise becoming, and then beginning to act in line with that choice.

My relationship with alcohol

I want to be clear that I have never been dependent on alcohol, and I am not a sobriety coach.

But I can openly admit that my relationship with alcohol wasn’t especially healthy.

I drank to celebrate.

I drank to commiserate.

I drank after a brilliant week.

I drank after a terrible week.

Sometimes I drank more than I had planned.

In my twenties, it didn’t feel particularly consequential. Youth blessed me with relatively minor hangovers and what seemed like endless stamina.

Then I reached my thirties.

The hangovers became less minor.

My sleep would be affected.

My mood and energy could feel off for days afterwards.

A night out stopped being just one night. It began taking up a much bigger portion of the following week.

Gradually, the negatives started to outweigh the positives.

The first time I became “a non-drinker”

I first stopped drinking in April 2025, around three and a half months before my wedding.

I was running my business while also trying to plan a wedding, and I was stressed.

After a rather boozy Easter weekend, I decided I needed a break.

But this time, I didn’t tell people I was going to try to drink less.

I told my friends, family and fiancé that I wasn’t drinking anymore.

I didn’t attach an end date to it.

I didn’t announce a challenge.

I simply said: “I’m not a drinker right now.”

And, genuinely, it was one of the easiest things I have ever done.

As the months passed, people would congratulate me on my resolve.

But I would usually reply: “It’s quite easy not to do something when you don’t actually want to do it.”

I completed four hen dos sober. Yes, four.

I had my wedding sober.

And I continued for another three and a half months afterwards.

For seven months, not drinking felt completely aligned with who I was.

Until it didn’t.

When the shine wore off

By the end of November, I had started to lose sight of why I was doing it.

The shine had rubbed off.

It began to feel as though I was maintaining it for other people rather than for myself.

So, while travelling to Weymouth for a weekend away with my husband, I consciously decided I was going to dip my toe back into the water.

That decision began a five-month return to drinking.

Initially, it was fine.

I drank less often than I had before.

I drank smaller amounts.

I felt more conscious and in control.

But gradually, it crept back towards where it had previously been.

The difference this time was that I had something to compare it with.

I knew how I felt without alcohol.

I knew how well I slept.

I knew how much steadier my mood and energy felt.

And I began to feel pulled back towards what I knew, in my gut, was a truer identity for me.

A non-drinker.

Sick of my own nonsense

Three days before my 35th birthday, I woke up hungover and thoroughly sick of my own nonsense.

So I did two things.

I signed up for a half-marathon.

And I decided I was a non-drinker again.

Not someone who was going to try to stop drinking.

Not someone who was going to try to start running.

A non-drinker.

And a runner.

I downloaded a running app and took myself out for a hungover run there and then.

Within about two hours, I had gone from seeing myself as a non-running drinker to seeing myself as a running non-drinker.

Had I earned the title of runner? I could barely run a kilometre.

Had I completed months of alcohol-free living again? No.

But that is the interesting thing about identity.

You don’t need to wait until you have completed a certain number of runs before you are allowed to call yourself a runner.

You don’t need to reach a particular streak before you can decide that you don’t drink.

You can choose the identity first.

Then you practise living in line with it.

Identity isn’t magic, but it can make decisions easier

I don’t want to suggest that changing your language magically removes every temptation or makes difficult habits effortless.

It doesn’t.

But it can reduce the number of decisions you have to make.

When you are “trying to exercise more”, every workout is open to negotiation.

Will I go today?

Do I feel like it?

Does a walk count?

Could I start next week?

When you see yourself as someone who moves their body regularly, the question changes.

It becomes: “What kind of movement fits today?”

That might be a run.

It might be a gym session.

It might be a twenty-minute walk because your day has been chaotic and that is what you have capacity for.

The identity provides direction, but there is still room for real life.

That is important.

This isn’t about creating another rigid rule you can use to criticise yourself.

It is about making the next helpful action feel more natural.

What happened next

It has now been three months since I last drank.

In that time, I have built myself up from struggling to run a kilometre to running 12 kilometres without stopping.

From an alcohol perspective, it has felt easy again.

I know there might be another point in the future when I temporarily lose sight of why I am doing it.

That happened last time.

But I also know something now that I didn’t know before.

Going back to drinking wasn’t a failure.

It gave me information.

It allowed me to compare the two versions of my life.

And ultimately, it pulled me back towards the one that felt more aligned with my values.

That five-month period was not evidence that I couldn’t do it.

It was a lesson I can now draw upon.

Progress is not always a perfectly straight line.

Sometimes you have to experience what no longer works before you can recommit to what does.

Why this makes me a better coach

I am not sharing this story because I have everything figured out.

I don’t.

I am an imperfect human being with habits, emotions, blind spots and a tendency to occasionally become fed up with my own behaviour.

I have had periods when my routines have been excellent.

I have also had periods when life has felt overwhelming and those routines have slipped.

I know what it is like to make promises to yourself and not quite follow through.

I know what it is like to understand the theory while struggling with the implementation.

And I know what it is like to find your way back without turning the detour into evidence that you have failed.

That lived experience makes me a more compassionate and well-rounded coach.

It means I don’t sit opposite a client expecting perfect compliance.

I don’t believe that one difficult week means you are unmotivated.

I don’t think you need to be shamed, frightened or lectured into changing.

My role is often to provide compassion when a client cannot find it for themselves.

To help them understand what happened without making excuses or attacking themselves.

To help them identify the all-or-nothing thinking that keeps pulling them off course.

And then to gradually help them build enough trust and self-compassion that they can begin offering that support to themselves.

Because health coaching is not simply about telling someone to eat more fibre, exercise or drink less.

Most people already know the general idea.

The real work is helping somebody become the person who can follow through, even when life is busy, motivation dips and things don’t go perfectly.

Who are you practising becoming?

Perhaps “I don’t drink” isn’t relevant to you.

But the same principle can be applied elsewhere.

Instead of: “I’m trying to eat better.”

You might say: “I’m someone who includes something supportive for my heart at most meals.”

Instead of: “I’m trying to exercise.”

You might say: “I’m someone who moves my body regularly, even if some days that movement is gentle.”

Instead of: “I’m trying to stop starting again every Monday.”

You might say: “I’m someone who gets back on track with the next decision.”

You do not need to become a completely different person overnight.

You are simply choosing the identity you want to strengthen.

Then, one small decision at a time, you provide yourself with evidence that this is who you are becoming.

Not perfectly.

Just consistently enough.

Looking for support with your own change?

I am not a coach who will expect you to have everything figured out.

I am a coach who will help you understand why you keep getting stuck, work through the messy middle and build realistic habits that fit your actual life.

My one-to-one coaching combines evidence-based heart-health guidance with mindset work, practical planning, accountability and compassionate behaviour change support.

We work on the science, but we also work on the human being who has to implement it.

I currently have a small number of one-to-one coaching spaces available for August.

If you are ready to stop guessing, step away from all-or-nothing thinking and have an experienced, imperfect but deeply supportive coach in your corner, you can apply below.

Apply Here