Jonny Wilkinson on finding happiness in who we really are

At the height of his international career, you might think that Jonny Wilkinson, a former fly-half and England’s 2003 World Cup hero, had it all.

But his mental health suffered devastatingly from his high-pressure role as rugby’s greatest ever player. And achieving a rugby career fit for the history books hasn’t stopped him from searching for his happiness.

“I think that happiness is an exploration of what it means to be alive, not what it means to be winning at life,” he explains. “Society is so driven towards this idea of that we will all find ever-lasting happiness when we have ‘this’.

According to Wilkinson, happiness is sacrificed when feelings of insufficiency and a lack of self-worth take over in the pursuit of an idealised version of what we think we want.

He says: “We get that short, truncated version, which plays to our sense of insufficiency that we are lacking or not enough.

“The actual opportunity here, is to explore the truth of the fact that we are enough, and ultimately, when we start to recognise that, disappointment can’t touch your self-worth.”

He adds: “Losing or feeling sometimes weak or vulnerable has got nothing to do with self-worth, your actual self-worth.

“Neither has winning or being recognised by everyone, or feeling powerful, the self-worth part is on a deeper more subtle level and it’s available right here, right now.”

But trying to find self-worth and trying to believe that we are each enough is easier said than done.

Moving from survival to ‘create’ state

Survival mode - sometimes referred as ‘fight or flight’ - occurs when our bodies are activated by stress, releasing hormones, such as cortisol, into our body that activate our stress response systems.

While stress was something that originally evolved to help us handle threats, consistent stress can become emotionally harmful and trigger us into prolonged survival mode.

“Survival mode just means, for me, that if I can get through this situation, unharmed, unchanged, then that’s a good thing,” says Wilkinson.

“That desire for freedom to feel good about myself, that relationship with myself, my self-worth, all that disappears as soon as I go into survival mode.”

The experts say that connection is key to removing yourself from consistent stresses is learning how to live, not just survive in a situation. When in survival mode, we often overlook what it is that we need, and instead focus just on getting by. Something he knows all too well.

“I think there’s a misrepresentation that winning will bring you ultimate joy”

Jonny Wilkinson, Vitality Ambassador

“Undoubtedly my journey was about a disconnection with myself,” he admits. 

But learning how to move into a more creative state - what he calls his “create state” - was what helped him reconnect and find self-awareness.

“As you move into the create state, it completely redefines the situation,” he notes.

“One of the biggest things I do, even throughout my day, to help me with things I find more challenging, is to be aware of relaxing; and whether that’s physically, letting go of my shoulders, or feeling the floor when I walk, it’s also hugely to do with my breathing rhythms.”

He adds: “Hugely, another one is to do with self-compassion and self-love, and to explore those as often as you can throughout your day.

“We can’t often realise how often we are triggered into survival mode, how often we are holding our breath, how often we are trying to get jobs done around the house.

“But we need to challenge that idea that we can’t be at ease when doing anything throughout our life. “And whenever you do feel yourself opening up, even just for a minute, just breathe and relax, and allow your whole system, essentially, embrace it, explore and engage with it.”

The power of goal setting

Goal setting is also a powerful way of giving us a sense of meaning and purpose to life.

For Wilkinson, achieving relaxation is part of his small set of goals that he wants to achieve every day – not just as a coping mechanism, but as a growth mechanism.

“I think there’s a misrepresentation that winning will bring you ultimate joy or ecstasy, but it doesn’t compare to the depths of absolute relaxation.

“One of them is a fleeting moment, but there is something so much deeper about being able to connect to yourself.”

He continues: “It could be a moment where I find myself tensing and I catch it and I breathe into it, that’s a small goal won.

Jonny’s check-list to finding happiness:

“Whenever we win enough of those little goals that can keep us on the path and as we start to gain momentum and feel good about ourselves, things start to unfold more effortlessly.”

Wilkinson acknowledges, though, it’s not just about the goals we set ourselves, but it’s about how we get them done. “And this idea of once you get something done then you can be you and then you can relax, that shouldn’t be the case.

“You should ask yourself if you can get all the things you need to get done in the way you want to do it.

“And that there in itself is a beautiful thing, because everyone can get through stuff and get stuff done but can you do it in a way that connects you to you, because it will connect you to everyone else in the same way.”

So, whatever your route to finding your purpose might be, be it to reconnect with yourself, like Wilkinson continues to do on a daily basis, goal setting can have a powerful and profound impact on finding a deeper sense of happiness.

Related: Jonny Wilkinson talks joy and his mental health journey