How losing my identity as a triathlete taught me that yesterday’s achievements should never determine tomorrow’s possibilities.
Rottnest Island, 2014 — The Photograph
There’s a photograph of me lying flat on my back on Rottnest Island, just off the coast of Western Australia. I’m not recovering from an Ironman or celebrating some extraordinary sporting achievement. I’m recovering from a leisurely bike ride with my wife.
Or, more accurately, from being completely dropped by her.
Rachel and I had hired bicycles to explore the island. She’s always been fit, a strong runner and someone who looks after herself. But cycling has never particularly interested her, and swimming freestyle isn’t her thing either. Two of the three disciplines in triathlon simply aren’t her forte.
I, meanwhile, had completed an Ironman. At my peak, a typical weekend involved riding 100 miles on Saturday and another 60 on Sunday (and that was just the weekend, I’d also do miles during the week plus running and swimming). I could comfortably cover distances most people wouldn’t contemplate attempting. I was super fit.
Yet here we were, perhaps four or five kilometres into a tourist ride, and Rachel had ridden away from me. I was exhausted, flat on my back, and we both thought it was hilarious.
I’ve always enjoyed a laugh, particularly at my own expense. But behind that photograph sits a story about identity, ambition and the expectations we create through our previous achievements.
The Athlete I Used to Be
In 2010, a car accident changed my life. I’d been an aspiring Ironman athlete, getting faster, training regularly and planning to compete internationally. Triathlon wasn’t simply something I did. It had become an enormous part of who I was.
The accident brought that progression to an end. There were a few small operations, attempts to return and a gradual recognition that things weren’t going to be the same. By the summer of 2011, I was having to accept a future that looked very different from the one I’d imagined. By late 2011 I was booked to go under the knife again but this time on my back. As I walked into the surgeons room for the last assessment he said ‘you walked in then as though nothing is wrong with you. Most my patients are unable to do that’. Those few words really struck me, and it was there and then that I realised I was risking too much just so I could race Ironman again. I decided I wasn’t going to take that risk and declined the procedure.
Rachel, who is a doctor, gently pointed out that I appeared to be experiencing a low mood. I hadn’t really understood what that meant. Looking back, though, I recognise just how much I’d lost psychologically, not merely physically. It’s not that long ago yet it was still a bit of a taboo to have a form of depression and at first I was defensive.
A systematic review published in BMC Psychology examined 24 qualitative studies and identified two recurring experiences among injured athletes: disruption of athletic identity and its subsequent reconstruction.[1] A 2026 review in the British Journal of Sports Medicine also found associations between sports injuries and mental health symptoms, although the evidence could not establish a simple causal relationship.[2]
I recognise that loss of identity. I had spent years becoming an endurance athlete, and suddenly I couldn’t live that life.
But something unexpected happened afterwards. Without those enormous training commitments, I had more time with Rachel. We travelled, enjoyed different experiences, and I could have a beer or a piece of cake without planning everything around the next six-hour training session.
I also decided to study for my MBA. For someone who is not academic, this was a huge success.
What initially felt like losing something important eventually created room for other things that mattered just as much; as one door closed, another opened.
The Most Difficult Part Wasn’t the Cycling
I didn’t grow up believing I was competitive. Quite the opposite. I didn’t learn to speak until I was four (Einstein was five!) and needed additional help with reading and writing throughout primary school. For a long time, I simply assumed I wasn’t particularly clever.
A friend at secondary school helped me recognise that I might learn differently rather than lack ability. As I grew older, surrounded by friends who were progressing academically and professionally, something began to change.
Then I met Rachel, an aspiring doctor with considerable ambition. In my mid-twenties, I discovered a competitive side that had been largely dormant.
Triathlon gave that competitiveness somewhere to go. Being exceptionally fit gave me an extraordinary sense of confidence. I could walk into a room feeling fantastic, knowing what my body was capable of achieving.
Research in The Lancet Psychiatry, examining more than 1.2 million American adults, found an association between exercise and fewer self-reported days of poor mental health, although its observational design could not prove causation.[3] For me personally, the relationship between physical fitness and confidence has always been powerful.
But here’s the contradiction. I can laugh about Rachel dropping me, yet I’ve sometimes avoided sporting events because I knew I wouldn’t perform to my previous standards.
I don’t necessarily like that about myself. Equally, I recognise that those same standards have helped me achieve things I might otherwise never have attempted.
The difficulty comes when our standards stop encouraging participation and start preventing it.
The Ride I Couldn’t Finish
Later in 2014, the Tour de France came to Yorkshire. I wanted to experience it, so I set off on my bicycle towards Harrogate, somewhere that would once have represented a relatively straightforward ride.
It wasn’t straightforward anymore.
I remember getting to the point where I knew I would have to turn back. It felt as though I was riding a bicycle with square wheels. I could push through discomfort, and I knew from experience that I was mentally capable of doing so, but the fitness simply wasn’t there.
Rottnest had been funny. I was on holiday, Rachel had dropped me, and tomorrow was another day. Yorkshire felt different. It made me confront something I’d been largely ignoring.
I was no longer anywhere near the fitness level I wanted to maintain.
That wasn’t a devastating revelation. It was a useful one. The Tour de France had reminded me how much I loved cycling, and the failed ride made it clear that wanting to be fit wasn’t going to make me fit.
I needed to do something about it.
Rebuilding Without Turning Back the Clock
In 2015, I completed L’Étape du Tour, an enormously demanding cycling event in the French Alps, following a mountain stage of the Tour de France.
I rode with friends, surrounded by spectacular scenery and astonishing heat. At times, the road surface appeared to be melting beneath our tyres. Whether the bitumen was genuinely slowing us down or our tired minds simply believed it was, I certainly remember the sensation.
I wasn’t particularly fast, but I completed it. And the satisfaction was tremendous. I finished in the top 50% (I used to aim for the top 10%) and was content and just super pleased I’d finished and not been ‘swept up’ by the broom wagon.
It wasn’t an Ironman comeback. My running limitations hadn’t simply disappeared. But I’d found a way to return to something I loved without having to recreate my previous life exactly as it had been.
That process continues today.
I’m 50 now, with two young children and a growing executive coaching business. I still love being fit, and I still enjoy pushing myself physically. But my priorities have changed.
Ten years ago, Saturday morning would probably have meant a long bike ride. Today, both children attend ballet, and I genuinely love taking them. Their childhood isn’t something I want to miss because I’m determined to maintain an old training schedule.
In When the Old Measures Stop Working, I explored how the benchmarks that once defined success can become increasingly irrelevant as our circumstances change.
I haven’t become less ambitious. I’ve become more selective about where that ambition belongs.
When Successful Leaders Become Prisoners of Previous Success
I see a similar pattern among the doctors, lawyers, founders and CEOs I coach. These are exceptionally capable people, often with impressive careers built on intelligence, hard work and demanding personal standards.
But what happens when the qualities that brought someone success are no longer enough to take them forward?
A technically brilliant lawyer may discover that becoming an effective partner requires a different set of capabilities. A doctor may reach the career destination they’ve pursued for years and discover it doesn’t deliver the satisfaction they expected. A founder may struggle to stop making every decision because personal control was essential during the company’s early development.
Forbes has examined how behaviours that help professionals gain promotion can later restrict their effectiveness at executive level.[4] Herminia Ibarra, writing for Harvard Business Review, has also explored how successful professionals can become stuck when their careers, relationships and established identities keep drawing them towards their past.[5]
I recognise a version of this in my own career.
For years, I aspired to become CEO of a major organisation, leading large numbers of people and making a meaningful difference. That ambition hasn’t entirely disappeared, but my experience of corporate politics gradually changed how attractive that destination felt.
I worked alongside a fellow director who was exceptionally good at managing upwards. They understood how to operate politically and offered me advice that, in hindsight, was probably very sound. I chose not to follow it. They progressed more successfully within that particular organisation.
I’m not suggesting that managing upwards is inherently wrong. Communicating effectively with senior stakeholders is important. But I wanted my progression to be driven primarily by results, leadership and the teams I developed, rather than my ability to navigate internal politics.
Unfortunately, that’s not how it works.
Eventually, I recognised that the career I’d once imagined might not deliver the professional satisfaction I actually wanted.
In When Growth Turns Into Protection, I explored how success can change our relationship with risk, ambition and what we’re prepared to lose.
The Financial Times has similarly explored the evolving nature of ambition and the importance of questioning what we are ambitious for.[6]
Sometimes continuing to climb is exactly right. Sometimes the more courageous decision is to question whether you’re climbing the right mountain.
The Value of Being Challenged
One of the most useful things executive coaching can do is help someone recognise when the assumptions supporting their identity no longer serve their ambitions.
Not every high achiever needs a completely different career, a new business or a dramatic reinvention. Often, they need an opportunity to examine the expectations they have been carrying without questioning.
A 2023 meta-analysis published in the Academy of Management Learning & Education reviewed 37 randomised controlled trials involving 2,528 participants and found a statistically significant positive effect of workplace coaching across leadership and personal outcomes.[7]
In What High Performers Need Most Is Not More Advice: It’s Better Challenge, I explained why the most valuable coaching conversations often challenge what someone believes rather than simply provide another solution.
This sits at the heart of my Elevation Model™. Awareness helps us recognise where our current reality differs from our assumptions. Breakthrough creates the opportunity to see things differently, while Pathways, Commitment and Embodiment turn those discoveries into meaningful change.
For me, the question is rarely whether somebody has the intelligence, determination or experience to succeed.
It’s whether they’re still measuring success against something that belongs to an earlier chapter of their life.
Twenty-Four Years Later
Now it’s time for a celebration….. Today, 10 October 2026, marks exactly 24 years since Rachel and I first met.
We’re still competitive with one another, still challenging each other and still having a laugh. We even achieved identical IQ scores (138) on formal Mensa tests, although we approach problems in completely different ways. Our relationship has always been a partnership of equals, with neither of us needing to be the one in charge.
That photograph on Rottnest Island captures something of that relationship rather well. Rachel had absolutely dropped me, I was exhausted, and neither of us cared about anything other than how funny it was.
These days, I probably have more conventional measures of success than I did when I was competing in Ironman. Yet I sometimes look back and remember how extraordinarily successful I felt simply because I was so physically capable.
I may complete another Ironman one day. Equally, I may not. The desire is still there, but so are different priorities, new ambitions and a life that I wouldn’t exchange for my old training schedule.
Completing an Ironman proved what I was capable of doing then. It didn’t guarantee what I’d be capable of doing four years later. And it certainly doesn’t determine what I’m capable of becoming next.
Perhaps the greatest challenge isn’t accepting that we’re no longer the person we used to be. It’s recognising that we don’t have to be.
Are your standards stretching you, or have they quietly started restricting you?
References
- Liu, S., Noh, Y.-E. & Kim, J. (2026). Athletic Identity and Sport Injury: A Systematic Review and Meta-Aggregation. BMC Psychology.
https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-025-03902-7 - British Journal of Sports Medicine (2026). Bidirectional Association Between Injuries and Mental Health Symptoms Among Elite Athletes: A Systematic Review.
https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2026-111569 - Chekroud, S. R., et al. (2018). Association Between Physical Exercise and Mental Health in 1.2 Million Individuals in the USA Between 2011 and 2015: A Cross-Sectional Study. The Lancet Psychiatry.
https://doi.org/10.1016/S2215-0366(18)30227-X - Forbes (2026). Executive Promotion: Why Decision Velocity Matters Most.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/markmurphy/2026/05/17/want-that-executive-promotion-this-is-the-missing-skill-youll-need/ - Ibarra, H. (2013). How to Break Through a Career Impasse. Harvard Business Review.
https://hbr.org/2013/10/how-to-break-through-a-career-impasse - Financial Times. How Much Ambition Is Too Much? Working It podcast.
https://www.ft.com/content/c4d6839c-e846-4b69-bea5-a74419b7cd5b - de Haan, E. & Nilsson, V. O. (2023). What Can We Know About the Effectiveness of Coaching? A Meta-Analysis Based Only on Randomized Controlled Trials. Academy of Management Learning & Education.
https://journals.aom.org/doi/10.5465/amle.2022.0107
About Laurence Loxam
I’m Laurence Loxam. I’ve pushed limits in business, on mountains and at the finish line.
Now I help high achievers do the same, pushing past the point most people stop. I coach CEOs, doctors, lawyers and founders who have achieved a lot, but still feel there is more.
Together, we unlock clarity, sharpen confidence and lead with conviction.
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