I became a mother at 21. In my twenties, I moved from retail sales into corporate life and started to see that I was capable of far more than I had given myself credit for.
Early in my career, I was offered an opportunity to relocate to Melbourne.
My ex-husband’s response was immediate:
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not moving for your career.”
He didn’t believe I would build the career I believed I could.
And at the time, I stayed.
In 2000, while I was living in Brisbane, I was given the opportunity to work at the Sydney Olympic and Paralympic Games in the Main Press Centre.
It was a big decision.
I was a young mum. I would be away from my son for several months. And I was stepping into a Team Leader role, leading around 50 people and representing Telstra.
I remember wondering whether I could actually do it.
But I said yes.
And that decision opened the next door.
The experience stretched me, gave me confidence and allowed other people to see what I was capable of.
When I returned to Brisbane, I was offered a promotion that meant relocating to Sydney.
This time, I said yes again.
Three months later, in January 2001, I moved to Sydney with my eight-year-old son and started again as a solo mum.
The opportunity wasn’t what had changed. I had.
Looking back, I can see a pattern that has repeated throughout my life:
I made the decision. I stretched myself. And my world got bigger.
I moved to New Zealand with my partner. I stepped into increasingly senior leadership roles. I moved halfway across the world to work on a remote construction development in the Maldives. I travelled solo through Europe and Asia.
I kept putting myself into environments that challenged what I thought I was capable of.
Each time I backed myself, my world got bigger.
But that isn’t the whole story.
There were periods in my career when I pushed relentlessly, worked too hard to prove myself, stayed too long in situations that weren’t right for me, and attached too much of my worth to achievement.
I kept performing, pushing and pleasing, all while becoming increasingly exhausted and disconnected from myself.
I know what it’s like to become so focused on achieving that you stop listening to yourself.
That is why this work matters to me.
They can come from:
Hear those messages often enough and eventually they start to sound like your own voice.
Most of us don’t realise how much fear, expectation, habit and inherited beliefs can shape our decisions, or how easily other people’s ideas about who we are, what we should do and what is possible can become our own.
And sometimes we know exactly what we want and still don’t choose it.
Because knowing what you want and actually choosing it are two very different things.
My work is about recognising those influences, reconnecting with what you genuinely want, and creating enough awareness to choose differently.
Awareness creates choice. Choice creates change.
Through all of these chapters, that thought has kept returning.
For a long time, I didn’t know exactly what it meant.
And I don’t look back now and wonder why I didn’t act on it sooner.
I wasn’t ready sooner.
Everything has its own time and place.
This chapter of my life has brought me to the Sunshine Coast, where I’ve deliberately created space to learn, grow and build what comes next, while continuing a career I’m incredibly proud of.
Living Consciously is part of that next chapter.
I’m still learning. Still stretching myself. Still making decisions without knowing exactly where every one of them will lead.
But I’ve learned to recognise when something matters enough to move toward it.
And I believe that when people find their way to this work, there’s usually a reason they’re here now.
Maybe you’ve known for some time that something needs to change.
Maybe now you’re ready to choose it.
Certified Neuro Transformation Therapy™ practitioner. My work is coaching. It is not clinical therapy or medical care, and I do not diagnose or treat mental illness.