Letting Go of the Life That No Longer Fits
My body knew years before I was ready to listen.
Over eight months ago, I retired as a coach, after almost 25 years in the profession.
And honestly, I’m still in that strange in-between space. That messy middle. Where a chapter in your life has ended — but you’re not 100% sure of what’s next.
It’s really fucking uncomfortable.
And yet, I know this is where I am supposed to be. Right here. Right now.
This isn’t an announcement post by the way. I’ve already written that.
But I wanted to write about the moment I knew that I was done. When my body told me more than my plans did. And how I’m figuring out what’s next.
Some background
I came into the health, wellness and fitness world when I was nineteen.
The day I quit university (where I was studying zoology) I signed up for a personal training course.
Once I qualified as a fitness instructor, I got my first job in a tiny hydraulic circuit gym called Curves. I was working on my personal training qualification at the same time.
From there, I moved into bigger local gyms and collected qualifications like my life depended on it.
Circuits, spinning, Pilates. Nutrition and weight management. GP referral. Sports injuries. Sports massage. Biomechanics coaching. Remedial therapy.
My direction naturally started shifting more into the therapy and biomechanics side, though it all still sat under coaching.
During COVID and the lockdowns, I stopped hands-on work. Instead I took the time to qualify in women’s health, focusing on menstrual cycle awareness, hormones and perimenopause. An area that I was passionate about due to the fact that I, myself, am a woman (I know, I know!). And hormones affect literally everything in my life.
Then I trained in Therapeutic Coaching for Women, knowing that biology is only one part of the equation. Plus I’ve never been a specialist. Always a generalist.
And I have to admit, I loved it all so much.
So then, why “retire”?
I’m getting to that…
Lockdown changes
Just after lockdown, like many coaches and therapists, my finances weren’t great.
And I was offered an admin role, working from home around the kids. Something totally new for me.
I accepted, and surprisingly, things clicked. Life felt easier. Calmer. The admin role became my financial stability.
It also meant I had more capacity to cope with the things life threw at me.
And so, as things returned to ‘normal’, I started taking on coaching clients again alongside my admin role, with the intention of one day returning to my coaching business fully.
But of course, I didn’t stop there. Once the drive to “do” kicked back in, I kept going.
I started creating workshops and courses. Adding more clients. Adding some writing into the equation.
But obviously, the reality of being a one-woman show meant I was doing everything. Content. Marketing. Admin. HR. All of it. And it was a lot.
Lockdown made me realise I was burned out.
As much as I loved what I did, I was tired. Resentful. Done. Lockdown made me realise this, and so I knew I wanted things to be different and to create a “new normal”.
And yet here I was, hustling once again. Just this time it had a hybrid flavour.
It was a different story, but the ending was the same.
And yet, I only realised this after I “retired” and reflected back on what had happened.
At least, that was case for the conscious part of my mind. The subconscious, well, she had a plan all along…
The workshop series that changed everything
The week I retired, I ran a five-day workshop series called Find Your Way Home.
It guided people through daily prompts to help them reconnect with what truly mattered and figure out their next right step.
But I made sure that I went through the workshop myself at the same time as the attendees.
Day 1: Check Your Compass
This is where it all began.
The intention for this day was not to create a plan or a list of goals, but to check in with what really mattered.
Now these were not the things that we thought should matter. Or something we should do. Or should have.
It wasn’t about what everyone else in the world, or on social media, was doing.
And it wasn’t what other people told us we should want.
It was about the things that mattered to us.
Anchors. Those things that brought us back to ourselves. The things that made us feel grounded. The things we wanted our lives to be built around.
For me, I wrote about my health, feeling strong, choosing ease, showing up as me (without masking), being present, connecting with people, learning and experiencing new things, writing, and sharing what I learn with the world.
All this — I knew already. There was nothing that surprised me.
But it was only after I had written it and started to really reflect on it — that the truth stood out.
Because it was less about what was on my page and more about what was missing.
My business wasn’t on there. Neither was my Facebook presence. Or even my professional career.
And yet, for almost two decades, that was all I ever focused on. That was where my attention was. What my mind worked on. What I thought I wanted.
Day 2: Find Your Bearings
Day 2 was all about finding our bearings. It was about noticing where our inner compass (what matters) and our outer life (how we’re living) were pointing in the same direction. But, more importantly, where they were not.
When our outer world matches our inner world there is a feeling of congruency. Alignment.
And when we’re living in alignment, we feel steady. At peace.
Even when life gets messy, there’s still a sense that we’re on the right path.
But when we’re out of alignment, things feel off. There is a tension, even if we can’t name it.
And that subtle restlessness — it’s the quiet voice that’s telling us something’s not quite right.
This is one of the main reasons that so many of us feel like there’s something wrong with our lives.
Not because we’re failing or lost. But because what matters to us isn’t being reflected in how we’re actually living our lives.
This could be because we’re still doing something that used to matter once, but doesn’t anymore.
Or because, even though we know what matters, something is stopping us from living out the life that we want.
Neither of these means we are broken. They just mean that it’s time for an honest check-in. And a recalibration.
For me, I asked whether I was living in alignment with the things I said mattered from Day 1.
And I realised that, in most of these areas, I wasn’t.
The life I was living was busy. And it was full of things that were not on my list from Day 1.
And those things that were on my list, they were getting left until last, squeezed into the spaces between the busyness.
I was starting to see that things needed to change.
Day 3: Lighten Your Load
Day 3 was all about realising that we can do anything. We can even do many things at the same time.
But — we cannot do everything all at once.
This was when we started to look at the things we said mattered to us, and understand that, if we didn’t have the time or energy to focus on these, then we had to take something off our back.
When we carry too much — emotionally, mentally, physically — we end up feeling stretched thin. Resentful. Stuck.
We lose energy for the things that actually light us up.
And the thing is, most of what fills up our “backpacks” we did not consciously choose.
Instead, we said yes because we felt we should, out of habit, or because we didn’t want to disappoint someone.
So many of us were raised to be capable. The reliable one. The strong one. The helper. The people-pleaser.
So even when our own load gets heavy, we just keep adjusting the straps and pushing through.
But that constant carrying — it comes at a cost.
When our backpack is full of everyone else’s needs, there’s no room left for our own.
And I wanted to show the women taking part in my workshop that they didn’t have to carry it all anymore.
Of course, it wasn’t just them I was telling. But myself too.
I wrote: “What am I carrying that I no longer need or want to?”
This was the moment everything landed for me.
I realised I was carrying the weight of being a coach. The pressure to constantly create Facebook posts. To run a website. To build courses and workshops. To promote my business. To further my career.
This was alongside being a mum, a wife, and working my admin role.
I realised, I needed to let it go. All of it.
Day 4: Choose Your Path
By Day 4, we had checked our compass, found our bearings, and lightened our backpack. Now here we were, looking at the paths opening out in front of us.
Because there wasn’t just one right path we could take. There never is. There are always many. That’s usually why we feel so overwhelmed.
But we were not looking for a five-year plan. Or a perfect destination. Or an end goal.
We were just looking for a direction that felt right — right now.
It was about this season of life.
Because things change. Energy shifts. Priorities move.
And every time they do, we could come back to this work. We could pause, recheck our compass, and choose our next right step.
This was not about figuring it all out in one day.
The intention was simply to tune in to what felt true in this season.
Personally, I wanted to reclaim the way I’d felt during lockdown.
I wanted more ease, more quiet, more spaciousness.
I wanted more pottering and play. More surrendering to life. More reading and writing for myself. To follow my curiosities. To be present. To take the time to connect with those around me, and meet new people.
I wanted less planning, organising, structure, proving, and chasing goals that no longer felt like mine.
I didn’t want long-term commitments anymore. I wanted something so very different from the life I had become accustomed to living over the last few years.
Now obviously I know I did that to myself. I had created the life I was living.
But as Shauna Niequist said,
“If the life you’ve crafted for yourself is too heavy, it’s too heavy, no matter if the people on either side of you are carrying more or less”
Day 5: Take the Next Right Step
The previous four days, we had figured out where we were right now in our lives. We knew where things felt off. We had figured out what we needed to let go of. And we had started to feel deeply what we wanted our lives to look like.
Now it was time to move forwards. Not with a sprint. Not with a grand plan. But with a single step.
It wasn’t about seeing the full picture. Or mapping out the entire route. And, as someone who loves planners and organisers, this step was not the easiest.
But it was a necessary one. Because, as I said, things change. We change. Life changes. What we want changes.
So we ask the question.
“What is my next right step?”
Then we drop down, into our being.
And we wait. And we listen.
We pay attention to what that quiet voice is telling us.
What it will have us do. Where it will have us go. What it will have us say, and to whom.
And take the step. Trusting that what we have heard is truly what matters.
And then?
Then we ask again.
And again.
And again.
We keep asking, we keep checking in. We move forward, one step at a time.
And so I asked my higher self to guide me. To let me know what my next right step should be. Then I got quiet. And I listened for the knowing.
After what I had been reflecting on all week, I knew my next right step was to retire from coaching and online work as I’d been doing it.
That meant deleting my website, stepping back from Facebook, and letting go of anything that I no longer needed at that point in my life.
My admin role meant I was financially stable, so I didn’t need the coaching income.
And holding onto it was because I was not sure who I was without it. I kept feeling like I had to make something of it, even though I no longer wanted to.
My heart knew way before my mind did
So this was the week I realised I was done.
Finished after twenty-four years.
But you want to know a secret?
My heart and my gut already knew it was time years before I my mind would admit it.
In my late thirties, I burned out more than once, even ending up in hospital. This should have told me something. But I ignored it.
Around my fortieth birthday, the unsettled feeling was constantly there. I just couldn’t bring myself to act on it.
I kept convincing myself that I just needed to gain more qualifications. That I needed to niche down. Change direction. Work harder (I know, I know!).
In August 2024, I wrote a journal entry about retiring from coaching and content work. And yet I held on and on.
So the truth was there long before I admitted it out loud.
Why?
Mostly because the feeling came from my gut and heart, not my head. I couldn’t rationalise it, so I ignored it.
This reminds me of a quote from The Desire Map by Danielle LaPorte.
She says that, in the midst of a messy business divorce, someone told her not to let her feelings get in the way.
She wrote that if she had let her feelings get in the way earlier, she wouldn’t have ended up in that mess at all.
Same.
My body knew long before my mind could explain any of it.
But I ignored it. And pushed it away.
That was until my subconscious created a whole fucking workshop series — helping me find my own way home.
What happened afterwards?
The first few weeks, things felt so good. It was a bit like lockdown, where I had time to potter and just be.
Then, a few weeks after that, I started to experience a “big sad”. I dropped into a depression.
I felt like I was grieving. And it was odd.
It wasn’t like I was grieving something I wanted but couldn’t have.
And it wasn’t like I had been made to stop.
I knew the decision was right, and yet I was still grieving.
Lately, I’ve felt myself coming out of that grief –– out of that big sad.
But things still feel off. Leaving my business behind wasn’t a mistake. It was simply the first right step.
Then I needed to let things settle. I needed my body and mind to catch up with the changes. To reset the equilibrium that had been my “normal” for so long.
And now?
And now, it’s time to go through the process all over again.
To ask my higher self, inner guide, whatever you want to call it, to help me identify what feels right — right now.
What it is I want. What I need to let go of. What my next right step is.
And so here I am, listening to the knowing, as Glennon Doyle calls it.
Writing this post to you as I have been guided to do.
And I’m letting go of the need for a five-year plan. Surrendering to just this moment.
Then the next.
Then the next.
One step at a time.