To Goggins It — Train Your Mind. Don't Just Build a Stronger Body.

After my concussion and the accumulation of major sporting and personal setbacks, there were moments when my own thoughts told me I could not continue.

I was watching many videos of David Goggins. His uncompromising approach to adversity and inner resistance became an important source of inspiration. I remember a particularly intense moment in the car when I confronted the voice telling me that continuing was impossible.

What Would Goggins Do? was one of my early proposed chapter titles. It stood for the struggle with my inner voice and the determination I was trying to recover.

Looking back, I can see that I could feel empty while a lot of success was visible from the outside: being number one in the world with the national team, having won silver and playing for Bloemendaal.

There were many things I could be proud of. Yet I did not automatically feel fulfilled by what I had achieved.

I began to understand that I was searching for a feeling. I wanted to be able to respect myself. I wanted to experience that I was using my possibilities and building a life that had meaning for me.

Hockey was a big part of that. But there were questions that a next victory could not fully answer.

This is my retrospective view. It does not mean those achievements were worthless or not real — they were meaningful. They simply could not answer everything I was looking for.

I knew how to train hard. But my discipline on the pitch did not mean I was equally willing to face discomfort everywhere.

Sometimes I could keep proving myself in what I was already good at, while I kept postponing a difficult conversation, an unfamiliar skill or a painful question.

That touched me in Goggins' message. Where did I still need to train my mind? Where was I using my familiar strength so I would not have to examine something else?

A stronger body did not automatically resolve how I dealt with disappointment, uncertainty, conflict or unfamiliar tasks.

For me, going back into the dungeon became a personal image: returning to the subjects I had been avoiding and examining them honestly. For me, these included self-doubt, fear of failure, uncertainty about my sporting future, personal regrets and difficult questions about my identity.

In practice, that can mean: having a difficult conversation; seriously examining feedforward; starting a subject in which you have little confidence; taking responsibility for a decision; asking for help; exploring what lies beneath your need for recognition.

It is not an instruction to punish yourself, to relive painful memories over and over or to seek ever greater hardship. The practical lesson is to distinguish between challenges you can constructively face and circumstances that require support, recovery or protection. Never return to an unsafe or abusive situation.

Hockey remained important to me. I wanted to return to an exceptional sporting level. But the meaning of my development became broader: I was also searching for accomplishment, self-respect, identity and meaning in my studies, relationships, family and work.

I went back to studying and wanted to develop myself in subjects such as philosophy, logic, financial accounting, management and work discipline — far outside the familiar environment of elite sport.

The exercise was also learning to begin, to keep thinking, to tolerate mistakes and to develop skills in which I was not an experienced elite athlete. That does not mean deliberately overloading yourself with endless commitments.

'Stay hard' and 'callousing the mind' are concepts from David Goggins: deliberately undertaking difficult but meaningful tasks, developing consistency and learning not to avoid all discomfort.

But there is a critical distinction between ordinary resistance that can be constructively challenged, and injury, severe exhaustion, significant distress or unsafe circumstances that call for a different response.

Goggins' underdog mentality strongly resonated with my extremely small perceived opportunity to return to the national team. I wanted to keep believing in my own potential when the people around me were uncertain — in sport, in my studies, in my professional ambitions and in the family business.

But self-belief is not the same as isolation.

After my concussion and the accumulation of sporting and personal setbacks, I sometimes felt that my life had become defined by everything that had happened to me. My body was no longer performing as I wanted. My sporting future was uncertain. I had experienced disappointments and circumstances I could not control, and at times I felt that other people could not fully understand what I was experiencing — as if everything was against me and my circumstances would decide my future.

David Goggins' message confronted me with an uncomfortable question: was I allowing the difficulties I had experienced to become the explanation for everything I could no longer do?

Acknowledging that something difficult happened to me is not the same as being stuck in a story in which I no longer see any influence. My pain did not have to be denied for me to take responsibility for a next step.

Being a victim of difficult circumstances is not the same as having a victim mentality. Someone can experience serious injury, mistreatment, injustice or extraordinary hardship without being responsible for what happened. Some limitations are real, and some circumstances do not change through willpower.

Personal responsibility begins with exploring what remains within your influence — not with blaming yourself for circumstances beyond your control. Taking ownership can mean changing a habit, having a difficult conversation, setting a boundary, asking for help, resting, recovering or leaving an unhealthy environment.

This lesson stays compatible with everything else in this book: love, friendship, asking for help and sustainable excellence. Owning your response never means carrying everything alone.

My need to become someone also had a difficult side. My self-worth could become strongly tied to achieving something. I wanted to prevent my life from passing by unused. That drive influenced my choices and my relationships.

In Spain I stepped away from the national team myself, and I see my wounded ego as an important factor in that. I also ended the relationship with the woman I describe as the love of my life. At the time I thought such sacrifices were necessary for exceptional greatness.

That was my interpretation of Whiplash, Goggins and other examples — not something they told me to do.

Looking back, I see it differently. Hockey is a team sport: cooperating, listening and taking others into account were also part of getting better. And love and hockey were both important parts of the life I wanted to develop myself for.

I can honestly write that I felt worthless when I was not making something of myself. That was my conviction at the time. It is not a message for you: nobody only has value after exceptional achievements.

My desire for self-respect gradually became linked to concrete values: character, honesty, discipline, responsibility, humility, love and reliability.

These values give direction. They do not guarantee a selection, a relationship or any other desired outcome.

Anger, dissatisfaction and the urge to prove others wrong could give me energy. But wanting to prove other people wrong is different from wanting to build a life that reflects your values.

I also want love, friendship, self-respect, meaningful work and the ability to enjoy life. The point is not to deny difficult emotions, but to examine what I want my long-term motivation to become — in sport, in my family and in my work.

Moving beyond a sense of powerlessness did not apply only to hockey. It also became relevant to my relationships with my family, my father and the family business.

My father and I can approach problems differently. He can be more methodical and patient; I can be more intense and focused on people, team culture and change. The challenge is to understand each other's approaches and find better ways to work together — asking what I can personally contribute, instead of letting earlier difficulties define every response.

Imagine that an angel appears and tells you that your life will end in fifteen minutes. Which three things would you regret never having pursued?

My three answers were: finish my book, pursue my hockey dream, experience true love. These longings became important drivers of my choices.

You may skip this question. A meaningful life does not depend on extraordinary achievement. If you prefer a gentler version, ask: if I look back ten years from now, what would I wish I had begun today? And: what can I already live or do today that fits what I find important?

I want to keep the intensity of my inspiration: being willing to make an effort, to start again and to keep learning when something gets hard.

For me that means going through a difficult attempt, evaluating, recovering and starting again with more insight.

It helps to distinguish between the normal discomfort of learning, an obstacle that asks for a different strategy, and a situation in which rest, help or stopping is the responsible choice.

My own history also includes choices where continuing to push took too little account of relationships and cooperation.

I wanted to become someone. But I gradually discovered that the more important question was what kind of person I wanted to become.

The goal is not to abandon extraordinary ambition. It is to combine that ambition with character, humility, emotional maturity, love, cooperation and a healthy relationship with myself.