My self-leadership story

I’ve spent most of my life getting things done.

As a teenager, I balanced studying, household chores, volunteering, and babysitting.

Then, after starting university, I became a young mum, left university, and began building a career while bringing up our first child.

I returned to work around our daughter. With this, I volunteered in an Early Years setting while studying for a Montessori Teaching Diploma. I kept learning, gained qualifications, and took on more responsibility.

Then came our twin boys. A few years later, we welcomed our second daughter. It was full on!

Alongside being a mum of four, I developed a career which eventually led to me becoming a Childcare Director for a successful chain of privately owned nurseries.

Looking back, I was good at leading myself. Organised and dependable, I took responsibility, and I worked hard.

I could juggle a lot, and people even called me ‘Superwoman’.

But over time, beneath the surface, I wasn’t coping because there was something I hadn’t yet learned to do particularly well…

Look after myself.

I was good at putting myself last

For years, I could keep all the plates spinning.

Work, family, church. And on top of that, other people’s needs and expectations. I kept going because I could.

But my own needs were often at the bottom of the to-do list. And with time, I started to see the impact on my mental and physical health.

Besides the grief of miscarriages and the effects of suicide, alongside the pressures of work and family life, I lived with Trigeminal neuralgia for years.

It was a wake-up call that helped me realise that keeping everything going, though I was good at it, was coming at the expense of my wellbeing.

Though good at looking after others, I wasn’t good at taking care of myself.

Something needed to change. And it did.

A different chapter

After around eighteen months of thinking, conversations, and planning, my husband and I relocated from London to the Southwest of England.

We hoped it would give us a better quality of life and reduce some of the pressures we’d been living with.

It wasn’t an easy decision.

We left behind family, friends, and everything we’d always known to arrive at a new home that needed plenty of work.

After our move, I continued to commute, supporting business owners and leadership teams through coaching, mentoring, and training.

Life was still busy, and I still had plenty of plates to spin.

That’s when I started to look at things differently.

Learning to lead myself differently

Over the years, I’ve kept learning, studying, and developing.

I took on local, term-time-only roles for a while, which gave me more flexibility for our children and helped me become part of our new community.

Then, during the pandemic, I finally found a way to complete the ILM Level 5 in Coaching and Mentoring, something I’d wanted to do for several years.

And I loved it!

I’ve always enjoyed seeing people grow, develop, and make progress, and coaching gave me the opportunity to support people differently.

Helping them think things through, understand themselves better, and take their next steps.

While studying, completing my coaching qualification, and continuing to work four days a week, I also started my own business again.

This time around, the difference was that I became more aware of how I was doing it.

I started paying attention to my patterns, my thinking, my boundaries, my time and energy, and the things I had previously pushed to the bottom of the list.

And I was more deliberate about how I led myself.

Life still has demands, but it looks very different

Our four children are now adults.

I’m “Grammy” to our four granddaughters. I’ve been a wife for over thirty years, I’m a mother-in-law, and I’m a business owner.

Demands and busy seasons still happen. Sometimes I still take on too much or forget to make space for myself. The difference now is that it happens less often, and I notice it sooner.

I’ve learned that self-leadership isn’t about becoming someone who has everything under control or finding the perfect way to balance everything. It’s about being intentional about how you lead yourself.

It’s knowing when to keep going and when to stop, what matters and what doesn’t need your attention. It’s about being able to say yes and being willing to say no.

Recognising what you need and giving yourself permission to make space for it. And, perhaps most importantly, not putting myself at the bottom of the list.

Why this matters to my coaching

Self-leadership has become an important part of my work because I understand what it’s like to be capable, responsible, and relied upon while quietly running on empty.

I know what it’s like to keep thinking, “I’ll make time for myself when things calm down.”

I also know that things often don’t, which is why we need to make different choices within the life we already have.

And that’s what I help women do through coaching. To pause, think and be honest about what’s really going on.

Not so you can fit more into your life, but so you can lead yourself well while looking after yourself, too.

Ready to take the first step?

I believe in keeping things simple and saving time, and working with me is no different. Book a complimentary Exploration Call, and let’s talk about the challenges you’re facing and how coaching could help.

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