Betting On Myself

There’s a version of this story that would be easier to tell.

It would start with something clean and confident like,
“I followed my passion and built my dream.”

But that’s not how it felt.

It felt like standing at the edge of something with £5 in my account and a lump in my throat, telling myself, you either trust this… or you don’t.

Last year changed me.

At the beginning of 2025, someone I love was battling terminal cancer. And when you’re that close to mortality, when you’re watching someone you care about fight for time, something in you shifts. The noise quiets. The pretending stops.

You start asking different questions.

Am I spending my time well?
Am I building something that matters?
If life is this fragile… what am I doing with mine?

I loved the sales industry. I still do. It stretched me. It sharpened me. It broke down insecurities I didn’t even know I had. I learned leadership. Emotional resilience. How to handle rejection without collapsing. How to regulate my nervous system in high-pressure environments. I was surrounded by people who thought bigger than average. Who expected more. Who held standards.

It was, in many ways, my school of entrepreneurship.

But grief has a way of clarifying things.

And underneath the targets, the coaching, the leadership, there was this quieter voice.

You’re meant to help women heal.

For years I told myself I needed to be more ready.

More qualified.
More healed.
More impressive.

As if service required perfection.

Watching someone you love confront the end of their life makes you realise how ridiculous that idea is.

You don’t need to be perfect to serve.
You just need to be willing.

By December 2024, I’d quietly set myself a goal: I was going to organise a women’s wellness day.

I didn’t have a huge audience.
I didn’t have some grand platform.
But I had conviction.

I wanted women to have access to healing modalities. To information. To spaces where their nervous systems could soften. Where their bodies weren’t in survival mode. Where they felt seen.

Because I kept thinking about my mum. About how different things might have been if access, education, and support had existed in a different way.

Then, while I was planning that wellness day, my dad became unwell.

And I won’t lie, that broke something open in me.

It pulled me straight back into childhood fears. Into the possibility of loss. Into memories I thought I’d already processed.

And yet somehow… I kept going.

I was coaching a sales team. Recruiting. Hitting targets. Taking on more responsibility in the office. Seeing more massage clients than before. Investing in private business coaching. Planning an event. Showing up publicly.

I was stretched so thin I could see through myself.

There’s this narrative online about “boss babe energy.”

But what it really looked like was me holding grief in one hand and ambition in the other, refusing to let either win.

I don’t even fully know how I did it.

I just know I was determined.

Not in a performative way.
In a survival way.
In a “I cannot let life pass me by” way.

By March, I knew I was leaving sales.

But I couldn’t just walk away.

I’d made commitments to my team. Especially one person I’d promised to help hit his goal. I couldn’t leave until I knew I’d done my job properly. That matters to me. Integrity matters to me.

So I replaced myself.
I stabilised things.
I made sure they were okay.

And then I jumped.

When I went fully full-time in the May, something else hit me hard:

Clients do not just appear because you believe in yourself.

There is no magic moment where the universe says, “Ah yes, she’s committed, let’s flood her diary.”

I went leafleting.

Actual leaflets. In hands. Through doors.

I went to networking events even when I felt awkward walking into rooms full of strangers.

I posted consistently on every platform I had access to.

I reached out to old clients.

I followed up.

I asked friends and family to share my work.

I created offers.
I tested pricing.
I adjusted.
I learned.

Some weeks were steady.

Some weeks were terrifying.

There were days where my bank account genuinely made me question my sanity.

And still, I chose it.

People sent me job adverts.

People asked if I was sure.

People suggested “just in case” options.

But I knew something they didn’t.

If I walked away now, I would always wonder what could have happened if I’d just been braver.

Entrepreneurship is not glamorous.

It is confronting.

It brings every insecurity to the surface. Every scarcity belief. Every fear of rejection. Every childhood wound about worthiness and safety.

It forces you to regulate your nervous system when everything in you wants to panic.

It teaches you that you are your greatest asset, and if you don’t invest in yourself, no one else will.

It teaches you that who you surround yourself with matters more than you think.

It teaches you that resilience isn’t loud, it’s quiet consistency.

And maybe the biggest lesson?

You only truly fail if you stop.

I am not where I want to be yet.

Not even close.

But I am so far from where I started.

And when I look back at last year, at the grief, the pressure, the stretching, the nights I questioned everything, I don’t see chaos anymore.

I see initiation.

I see the moment I stopped waiting to feel ready.

I see the moment I chose myself.

My long-term vision is still there.

One day, I will build a space where women can access multiple healing modalities under one roof. A place where nervous systems can soften. Where trauma-informed care isn’t an afterthought. Where women don’t have to piece together their healing alone.

But right now?

It’s one client.
One conversation.
One event.
One stall.
One brave decision at a time.

Four years ago this started as just massage.

Today it’s leadership, healing, resilience, entrepreneurship, and faith.

And if I’ve learned anything, it’s this:

Sometimes betting on yourself feels reckless.

Until one day you realise it was the most honest decision you ever made.