The five principles of taekwondo have been a source of strength and guidance for me at the most difficult times of my life.

Courtesy

It’s important to accept that other people are where they are and that their personal journey is what it is. That’s showing them courtesy. You can’t always understand why they do what they do or what their reasons are, or the way things look to them from their perspective.  Most people are doing what they feel they need to do to get by and sometimes you might be the person who takes a fall as a result of that.

Integrity

Integrity helps a person behave with consistency – and it does get noticed. I believe that the way I have always tried to display personal integrity has helped me. It’s meant that friends and supporters could see what I was about, and helped create loyalty in difficult times.

Perseverance

The ability to persevere is like training a muscle; it gets stronger and can take more pressure being applied to it. The more you persevere, the more able you are to persevere.

Self-control

Blaming and dwelling on grievances is a road to nowhere.  Self-control helps us manage our most difficult feelings, not just vent on the people around us or look for someone to blame.

Indomitable spirit

In big things and in small things, it’s very important to never give up – but indomitable spirit means more than that. It means believing in yourself and in the possible of turning a situation round, even when things are very difficult and it’s hard to know what the answers might be. If you give up mentally, if you start to feel hopeless inside – the way forward won’t be visible to you.  Indomitable spirit is about continuing to have hope and positivity. When you have that mental attitude, things become possible for you which would not have been possible otherwise.