I Turned 40 Last Week. Here's What Nearly Two Decades of 5AM Alarms Taught Me.

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I recently turned 40. And honestly? I've never felt better.

I know that's not how this story is supposed to go. Forty is supposed to be the moment you look back and wonder where it all went. The

slower recovery. The dad bod. The quiet panic. But I think 40 hits differently depending on the choices you made at 25. At 30. At 35.

This is mine.

The slow burn

The decision to change my life didn't arrive dramatically. No single moment, no blazing row, no breakdown in a car park. It was a slow accumulation, a growing awareness that recruitment, despite the years invested, wasn't where I was supposed to end up.

I could envision other corporate roles. Product management, something in Edtech or Health tech. I knew I wanted to do something that improved lives. But it wasn't until I had the opportunity to leave with enough money to survive for a few months that I gave myself permission to ask an honest question.

What do I actually care about?

The answer, once I had the space to hear it, was obvious. I'd been training since I was 21. Through every job, every life change, every difficult season, the gym had been the constant. Qualifying as a personal trainer wasn't a leap into the unknown. It was, in hindsight, the most logical destination I'd ever had.

The 5AM alarm

Every morning during those corporate years, my alarm went off somewhere between 5 and 6am. Not because anyone told me to. Not because a programme demanded it. Because I learned early that if I didn't get my workout in before the day started, the day would take it from me.

I fiercely protected that time. Even on the days I didn't fancy it. Even when I wasn't training as hard or as structured as I should have been. It was non-negotiable, because I knew, even then, that it was vital for my mental wellbeing.

The times it was taken away made the stakes plain. Injury would sideline me and almost immediately my anxiety spiked. My OCD tendencies got worse. My performance at work suffered. The gym wasn't a hobby or a lifestyle choice. It was load-bearing infrastructure for everything else in my life.

What I didn't have was direction. I had an idea of what I was doing, but I was largely lost chasing whatever the latest programme, influencer, or magazine was pushing that month. I needed someone to give me structure. I needed, as it turns out, exactly the service I now provide.

What 40 actually looks like

The cultural narrative around men and forty tends toward one of two extremes, crisis or redemption arc. I don't fit neatly into either.

Yes, I'm more tired if I don't sleep well. Recovery takes a little more attention than it used to. But two decades of consistent training has meant that 40 feels far less significant than it might for someone arriving at it differently. The body I have now is the compounded result of thousands of 5am decisions. That's not me boasting… it’s the point.

The best thing you can do at 40 is the thing you should have started at 20.

At home, the change has rippled outward in ways I didn't expect. My wife has gone deeper into her own fitness journey since I qualified, understanding the science, the reasoning, and the why behind the work. It's become a shared language between us, which I didn't anticipate but wouldn't trade.

The liberation

A year into running AC Personal Training, I'm working in a way that suits me. My own clients, my own targets, my own direction. I underestimated the self-discipline it would take (nobody tells you that freedom has its own demands). But I'm building the relationships I want, running the business the way I want, and working on my own terms rather than someone else's agenda.

It's exactly as liberating as I hoped it would be.

The alarm still goes off between 5 and 6. The career has changed. The business is mine. The knowledge is deeper. But the habit that held everything together through two decades of corporate life is the same one anchoring this new chapter.

What I'd tell my 21-year-old self

You're going to build something great. You're going to stay fit and active with the right level of consistency. And you're going to hit 100kg for 2.

But more importantly it's going to take time. You're going to have to work for it. You're not always going to feel great. There will be steps backwards, injuries that slow you down. But you'll get there.

Just don't try to do everything at once. Keep it consistent. Keep it structured. Ignore the noise.

Oh and DOMS is a bitch. Nobody warns you about that.