MY STORY

On the inside, however, I was struggling.

I found life overwhelming and never felt like I was good enough. I carried the weight of the world on my shoulders and found pretty much everything scary. I’d run out of food rather than go to the supermarket by myself and constructive feedback from a colleague would leave me crying in the toilets.

My coping strategies were lacking, to say the least, and one night a phone conversation with my dad sent me over the edge. I burst into tears, drank a bottle of wine in place of dinner and found myself holding a kitchen knife over my wrist. At that moment I realized I couldn’t do this on my own and I finally sought help. Initially resistant, I had no way of knowing if the therapy my doctor advised would actually work. But doing nothing no longer felt like an option either, so I took a leap of faith.

But success didn’t feel like I thought it would. After more than a decade of working hard, working late and ‘always being on’ my life had become a performance. I would push down my sensitivity, my introversion and my fear in the pursuit of the next goal, never satisfied with my previous achievements. Continually tired and stressed, at times I neglected my relationships and knew this wasn’t who I was deep down, I’d always prided myself on my caring nature.  I began to question whether this idea of success was worth what it was costing me and my purpose became to eventually build a calmer life with space to truly feel like myself.

It was exactly 12 months before my fiance and I were due to marry in an expensive London ceremony which was yet to be paid for and fears about having to cancel it and even fears about losing our flat raced through my mind. But as I had all those years ago, I leaned into the fear, used the wedding date as a deadline to earn as much as I could and began working for myself. Within 12 months I generated 6 figures in revenue, even more than when I’d been working a full-time job.

I was amazed. I hadn’t just survived, I’d thrived.

I wanted a career that meant I could finally embrace all of my personality. I wanted to control when, where and how I worked. And I wanted to have a positive impact on the world. In 2017 I trained as a transformational coach to help others appreciate and harness the power of their thoughts in determining their reality. This decision was heavily influenced by my own experience of receiving coaching during my career and the therapy that had been pivotal in helping me overcome depression.  

Are you ready to take control of your life and business and want to live more purposely?