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Jeff Berry | Identity & Transformation

@jeff.berry.coaching

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✝️ Disciple of Christ • Coach
⚔️ Be the hero of your story, not the audience
🧠 Honest thoughts on love, discipline, and becoming a man you respect

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Things I wish I knew when I started training.

I wasted my first months doing what most beginners do. Program hopping. Planning five-day splits I never survived. Reading everything, doing almost nothing.

None of it was a work ethic problem. I just thought complicated meant serious.

It doesn't. Consistency is the whole game at the start. Three days you actually show up to will outbuild any perfect program you quit.

If you're starting now, you don't need more research. You need reps.

Save this for when you doubt the simple approach.

#gymbeginner #mensfitness #beginnerworkout #gymtips #howtostartworkingout by @jeff.berry.coaching

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3 months ago

I absolutely love the opportunity to reach people, to connect and to share everything I've learned in my life - but, it requires me to not be as engaged in my life as I can be.

I want to be able to put out my thoughts, my ideas and my experience for you to hear it, but I understand that you need more.

I used to need to be seen just to feel like I was enough - like my existence required observation of another to validate it. A lot has changed since then.

I'm reminded of a verse in the new testament, but its depiction in "The Chosen" is what really strikes me.
John 1:48 ESV:
"...Jesus answered him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.”

We're made to live and experience life. Not to be seen by others - for we're already seen by the one who loves us beyond measure and we don't need to post or photograph to be validated or worthy to Him by @jeff.berry.coaching

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4 months ago

For years I hid from life...

Not in obvious ways. I showed up to work. I paid my bills. I went through the motions.
But behind closed doors I was living through screens, games, anime and costumes.
I literally dressed as a hero ... because being one felt too scary.

At 28 I had nothing. Not in any way that mattered.
A job I didn't care about. A degree I didn't want. A life I never chose.
Nobody worried about me. Nobody expected anything either.
And their silence confirmed what I already believed ... I didn't matter.
When COVID hit, rage hit with it. Not fear of the virus🙄
Fury at the man I'd let myself become.
So I made a decision.
I destroyed the false identities I'd been hiding behind.🎭
The Stoic. The Lone Wolf. The Victim. The Spectator. The Optimizer.🛡️
Roles that made me feel safer than being open.
And in the cleared ground ... God reached me.

For the first time, love actually landed.
The man I was had to die.
Not improve.
Not adjust.
Die.
🐦‍🔥
My story isn't finished. Neither is yours.
If you're tired of being you — you're in the right place.
Follow along.
#identity #transformation #faith #men #selfimprovement mentalhealth coaching purpose masculinity christianmen growthmindset vulnerability authenticity by @jeff.berry.coaching

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4 months ago

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20 days ago

Did you miss me?

I took some time off to realign myself and my page with my heart and my mission.

I realized I'd been shifting from the path I'd begun - explore and share ideas, speak to people about things that matter to me and lead others into making better choices

I got so caught up thinking about posting schedules, optimizing hooks, utilizing psychological hooks to hold people's attention and audience building that stopped thinking about what mattered most- sharing information I felt was helpful.

I was receiving direction from multiple sources to build a business and make money, but my mission was always ministry, not business.
This is nobody's fault but my own.

My oldest wound was pressed on - "you're not enough" and it caused me to act like a boy and not a man. A boy who was looking for someone else to tell him what to do and who to be.
Nobody can tell you who to be, or who you are. I was expecting someone else to understand my vision, my mission and to lead me.

The reality is, God who gave me the mission also gave me the guide and focusing on social media was actually separating me from both.

So, I'm back
I'll be trying this again God's way, or at least my way.

Might not make a lot of dough, I'ma have to try it though by @jeff.berry.coaching

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24 days ago

If you keep calling yourself lazy and nothing changes, it's probably because lazy was never the right word.

Five lenses nobody taught you to see the world through

1- Narrative lens
I didn't realize it, but there's a script - a story running in my mind and deep down, I knew it. I tell myself stories about myself, often based on what others wrote into me.
Once I learned that I had that story, I began to look at the story and rewrite the parts that I could.

2- psychological lens
I learned that games were meeting a real psychological need. Clear goals. Visible progress. Effort that actually paid off. Nowhere else in my life gave me that, so of course I kept going back. I was not weak. I was going to the only place that was paying off for me. I wasn't exactly hooked on games, I was hooked on winning... and games were the only place I felt any wins.

3- Evolutionary lens
The human brain evolved over millions of years. It was developed around small tribes, in a world full of predators. Solitude meant death. Rejection hurts, but it's no longer a death sentence

4- Trauma informed lens
I learned to understand how events and experiences impacted my behaviors and how I think. Growing up, I learned that being seen was dangerous, that a negative experience was likely to follow. I learned to hide, to camouflage and to become invisible so that nobody would ever see me. I hid myself emotionally so that I'd never feel the sting of another seeing me.
Once I understood what I'd learned, I was able to begin unlearning

5- Protein vision 🥩 by @jeff.berry.coaching

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2 months ago

I've had so many people tell me they watch TV or they play games or scroll on their phone in order to wind down and rest. If there's one thing I've learned it's that there's a difference between the position of the body and the position of the mind.

If you've spent the day working and thinking and performing mentalprocessing, it may -feel- restful to sit and "turn your brain off" and watch something/scroll/game, but that does not mean that it's genuine rest.

Genuine rest requires stillness. Not just stillness of the body but trying to find and achieve stillness of the mind. 5 minutes of breath work does way more for rest than 2 hours of watching a movie or 10 minutes of scrolling. That's why once you start a game or doom scrolling it's difficult to stop because you're in searching mode. You're seeking something and if you're seeking you're not resting.

This isn't to say you should never scroll or play games or watch TV, but stop calling it something that it's not. by @jeff.berry.coaching

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2 months ago

Ten things I had to stop holding onto:

1. My thoughts and feelings.
Keeping them to myself and leaving in was never strength. It was just quieter.
I had to learn to actually express them, to let them out and to let others in

2. The fear of what everyone would think.
It never stopped anyone from judging me.
It only stopped me from doing anything worth judging. It kept the real me locked inside and hidden away from the world.

3.The part I played to fit what people thought I should be.
It helped me survive. That's why it took so long to put down, but in the end it was a role - a character. I gave people what I thought they wanted, made decisions on what I thought they could handle...all while erasing myself

4.People who didn't respect me
I accepted disrespect because I didn't think I was worthy of respect. Once that changed, I recognized where I needed to draw boundaries and who needed their access to me restricted

5. Relationships that weren't built on values.
Shared time isn't the same as shared direction. Time spent together isn't always time well spent.
6. Other people's opinions of my worth.
I was handing out a vote on myself to anyone who chimed in. Once I understood that not everyone was going to understand me, their votes got thrown out

7.Comfort as the goal.
Everything I actually wanted was on the other side of something uncomfortable. Chasing comfort, rather than growth kept me stuck for years. Once I stopped holding onto comfort and reached for improvement, everything started improving

8. My weakness, fears and anxieties.
I stopped treating them as facts about me and started treating them as things to train. Weakness can never be a strength, but they can become one if they're improved.

9.The need for permission.
Nobody was ever going to tell me I was allowed. I had to seize the wheel and take action

10. The approval of people who don't know me.
Strangers had more say over how I saw myself than I did. The fear of their rejection kept me frozen in my tracks..

What are you still holding onto that you need to let go of? by @jeff.berry.coaching

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2 months ago

5 things that change in your first year of lifting

Strength: you can lift, carry, help.
Competence you can point at.

Confidence: from proof, not from deciding to feel better about yourself. As you demonstrate a growing capability, your doubts begin to dissolve.

Posture: shoulders sit better, you stand taller.
If you're training smart, aches and pains will decrease too

Mindset: a year of proving that change is possible changes how you view change itself. Once you know that change is possible, what's stopping you?

Mental health: the sum of the other four.
You begin by feeling like you're less than you should be. As you build yourself up, you become more than you were.
Each one feeds the next and then feeds back into the previous

What was the biggest change you noticed in your first year? by @jeff.berry.coaching

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2 months ago

5 things nobody warned me about when I tried to quit gaming

Some fiendships drifted and others were lost.
I've not always been good at keeping up with people, and there were people I mostly talked to at night while we played. When I stopped logging in and started focusing on what was best for me, distance grew.
My cousin and I were born four days apart. We grew up close. We kept up by playing games.
I wasn't invited to his bachelor party.

The regret wasn't about hours.
When I stopped and looked at how many evenings went to it, the measurement wasn't the real issue. It was the evenings I could have spent on something that would have fulfilled me more... Classes. Courses. Social events.
The relationships that could have come with them. The bonds that could have grown.

The dopamine readjustment, and what came with it.
I was used to being rewarded for sitting, pressing keys, clicking a mouse. It gave me a sense of victory I had to find somewhere else. With the freed up time came the discomfort of finding something to fill it. Most options don't pay out that fast. So you reach for a different screen, a different habit, the scroll, the binge watch. Something to quiet the emptiness the gaming was filling.

Recognizing it had power over me.
It could grab me and pull me in, and the pull was strong. That made me feel weak.

The loss of identity.
Like a lot of people, I called myself a gamer. It was a community I found familiarity in. Some kind of belonging. Looking back, it was just a place I went because I didn't feel like I belonged anywhere else. And the belonging I found there was not that bad. But it was not good enough. by @jeff.berry.coaching

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2 months ago

I couldn't rewrite my story surrounded by the people who wrote it.

Six things I changed to stop escaping my life:

I couldn't change who I am while in a place that was reminding me of who I was. So I moved away to a new city where I could start to understand myself more deeply.
I changed my location.

I dismantled my room from one that centered around escape into one that focused on my growth. By removing the visual cues that signaled me to seek comfort and escape, I made it easier to make better choices.
I changed my environment.

Low nutrient density foods.
Irrelevant information. Brain rot content.
Soulless music.
I sought to avoid it all.
I changed what I consumed.

Discomfort was the weakness in me complaining. It was the old me resisting the change.
Once I understood that discomfort was the cost of growth, it made paying it that much easier.
I changed how I see discomfort.

It used to be impulses, fears and anxieties. Instead, I let my goals and values guide me.
My decisions were based on a desired future, not an immediate whim.
I changed what was guiding me.

I stopped letting other people decide who I was and what I was capable of.
I began rewriting my own programming, and story.
I changed who was holding the pen.

Who's holding yours? 🖋️ by @jeff.berry.coaching

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2 months ago

The word sin means to miss the mark.
That's not a metaphor someone added later.

In Hebrew and in Greek it's an archery term.
You drew, you aimed, the arrow landed somewhere other than the target.
Which means the whole idea assumes you were aiming at something.

Most men never get that far...

You never draw the bow.
You talk about the thing. You research it.
You tell people you'd probably be good at it.
Being around archers doesn't make you an archer.

You aim at the closer target.
You pick the goal you already know you'll hit, then call it discipline. Nothing was ever at risk.

You're not really seeing your target.
You said you wanted it, but you're not really trying.
You have a rough idea of what it is, but you're blind to what it means.

You're completely ignoring your target.
You're pretending that you don't know it's there.
Head in the clouds, not paying attention.

You aim true and fall short.
This is the only miss that isn't really failing.
Nobody is perfect every time. We miss the mark, we recalibrate and we shoot again.

Missing the mark is acceptable.
Never really trying isn't.

You don't have a failure problem.
You have a courage problem.
You've never been brave enough to aim at something you might not hit. by @jeff.berry.coaching

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2 months ago