At the start of this year, I said I was going to share the lessons I’d been gathering after a slow, reflective Christmas. I thought I knew what shape those lessons would take.
Turns out, 2025 had other plans.
Instead of pouring out insights, I found myself turning inward. Questioning. Reassessing. Sitting with things that didn’t quite feel like mine anymore. And noticing the things that still did.
What unfolded wasn’t a neat personal development arc. It was a year that asked me to look closely, cut back what wasn’t working, and pay attention to what mattered.
The contract that cracked something open
Just before Christmas, as I sped down the M5 to Cornwall “skidding into Christmas on my ass,” an email landed telling me a contract had come to an end.
Six months ago, that would’ve sent me into panic mode.
But this contract? I felt relief.
I love the work I do, and I absolutely want to keep doing it. But this particular piece had become… a lot. Disorganisation, last-minute changes, poor communication, unreasonable expectations, the kind of job that makes you question not just what you do, but who you choose to do it with.
That unexpected relief was a wake-up call. A quiet, necessary reminder that I’d been tolerating things that didn’t align with the way I want to work or the experience I want for the people I support.
It nudged me into better questions about how I want to use my energy going forward.
A dog, some grounding and a reminder of joy
We got a dog in February. He arrived certain that the entire household revolves entirely around him. He was right, lol.
He sheds enough hair daily to knit a jumper and barks at every noise like he’s head of neighbourhood security. But in all that chaos, he also slowed me down.
Those daily walks became resets. His presence brought a softness I didn’t know I needed. Domestic life got messier, louder, furrier, and in a very real way, steadier.
The season that stripped everything back
Then summer arrived with a lesson I wasn’t prepared for.
My Grandma went into hospital unexpectedly in July. Five weeks later she was moved to palliative care. Two weeks after that, we said goodbye.
I’m still heartbroken. I still catch myself going to call her.
In the middle of all that, I felt profoundly grateful to be my own boss. I could rearrange work. I could be there – for the hospital visits, the long conversations, the quiet moments, the final ones. No asking permission. No performance. No pretending to be fine.
And it changed something in me about success.
We push ourselves to hit income goals and milestones. Yet when life does what life does, the thing that mattered most was time. Time with her. Time to say everything that needed saying. Time to just sit beside her.
Grief stripped everything back. It bought questions. It also delivered answers, clarity about what matters, what doesn’t, and what I want the next chapter of my work to be built on.
A nomination, a realisation, and a revelation
In the middle of all this, I found out I’d been nominated for Leadership Coach of the Year. WOW!
Then I made the finals. What the actual…?!
That nomination came from my very first Wing Woman client.
An amazing woman running her own coaching and training business.
No corporate machine behind her. No glossy façade. Just ambition, courage, ideas, and heart.
And it hit me:
Leadership doesn’t only live in boardrooms.
It lives in the women building businesses at their kitchen tables.
It lives in every decision they make about how they want to show up in the world.
Supporting them is leadership work.
It always has been.
And in that moment, something clicked.
For years, I’ve struggled to explain everything I do succinctly. I love the variety — the strategy, the coaching, the supervision, the thinking partnership — but it always felt clunky to talk about. Like I couldn’t quite capture the magic of it.
But her nomination made it clear: my work has always been about walking alongside women who are building something. Helping them lead on their own terms. Supporting the kind of leadership that happens at kitchen tables, in co-working spaces, on late-night thinking sessions.
That’s leadership too, maybe the most real kind.
That’s when Wing Woman stopped being an idea quietly tapping on my shoulder… and became the framework I’d been looking for all along.
Not a pivot. A naming. A claiming.
So here’s where I am now
I’m still a leadership coach.
I’m still a facilitator, supervisor, trainer and strategist.
I still love the work I do with brilliant organisations, leaders and teams.
But I’m also stepping more fully into something that feels like the next evolution of my work:
Supporting female solopreneurs (especially coaches and trainers) to build their business their way.
Not the prescribed way.
Not the “should-filled” way.
The grounded, empowered, sustainable way.
Wing Woman has become the heart of that: a true partnership. A blend of thinking, clarity, strategy, encouragement, challenge, accountability and space.
A place to build something brilliant… without doing it alone.
What this means for you
If you’re here for leadership content, it’s not going anywhere.
But you’ll also start seeing more about:
• the behind-the-scenes reality of building a values-led business
• the emotional landscape of leading yourself
• the truth about confidence, clarity and designing work that fits
• the support women actually need when building something of their own
• what real leadership looks like when there’s no rulebook
This year changed me. It softened and sharpened me. It clarified where I’m going and who I want to walk with.
And this next chapter?
It feels like the most honest one yet.
