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Happy Lunar New Year! We are officially in the year of the Snake and I like to take the Lunar New Year as a great time to pause, reflect and reset.

You may be tuning into this episode and feeling like times are a little uncertain, there might be change happening within your life or your organisation, and it can feel a little overwhelming to navigate the uncertainty or feeling like you’re going backwards.

Managing uncertainty requires resilience, and resilience is a skill that you can build to become better equipped at facing challenges and changes. A great place to start is to hit pause and take some time to reflect about where you’re going, what changes are happening around you and the skills that can support you through this.

In this week’s episode of The Aligned Achiever Podcast I’m talking about embracing balance in leadership, navigating the changing DEI space in organisations and tools that can help you continue moving forward.

Have you been feeling the pressure to get things done this year? To “hit the ground running”?

I started this year in bed with the flu, and while that sounds terrible (and it was), it forced me to have a slower start to the year.

Instead of being in the energy of hurrying and getting as much done as possible, I was forced to slow down and settle into what to get intentionally focused on in 2025.

Now, I don’t want any of you to get sick and be stuck in bed to be able to be really intentional with the direction you’re heading this year, so instead that’s where we’re starting with our first episode back of the podcast.

I’ve been coaching career focused women for a decade now and the framework that I’m guiding you through to help you be really intentional is the culmination of the hundreds of women that I’ve worked with over those years.

In this week’s episode of The Aligned Achiever Podcast I’m introducing you to my aligned achievement framework. This three step methodology that will help you redesign your work and life, and to act as guideposts for what is important for you in 2025.

This is the last episode of The Aligned Achiever podcast for 2024, and you know what that means?

It’s time to close out 2024 in a way that is setting you up for success in 2025.

I strongly believe that before we set any intentions for the new year (or at any time really), it’s imperative that we take a moment to pause, and take stock of what’s been working for us and what hasn’t served us so well.

For this episode I recommend having a pen and paper at the ready and you can either press pause as we go through each of the 6 steps, or make a note of the questions to come back to later.

In this week’s episode of The Aligned Achiever Podcast I’m sharing with you the 6 steps that I’m taking to wrap up the last year and set myself up for goal setting in the new year to create aligned achievement.

A study published in the journal Cognition found that even short breaks can significantly improve concentration and performance. When we engage in prolonged periods of work without rest, our cognitive resources deplete, making us less effective and more prone to errors.

While micro-breaks are a great daily tool, it’s also important to plan. Knowing where to take action allows us to be intentional about what to do when we surface from a break!

That’s where The Pause Retreat comes in.

In a world that glorifies hustle, pausing can feel wrong.

How do you slow down when there’s a never-ending to-do list at work—and home?

Yet, here’s the paradox: making space to pause is often the very thing that creates clarity, energy, and momentum for what truly matters.

This is something I’ve seen transform the careers and lives of so many women I’ve worked with (myself included!) And something 40+ women experienced live with Elaine and I during last week’s webinar training on How To Figure Out Your Next Career Step where we paused together to reassess our priorities.

Pausing doesn’t have to mean a week-long retreat or a luxury spa day completely switched off from work (though of course that’s great if you can swing it!)

What does it take to transition out of corporate and into being a purposeful entrepreneur?

It’s no small feat to take the leap out of a stable, corporate role with career progression and move into entrepreneurship to find location and financial freedom, as well as your professional calling.

It takes determination, perseverance and a lot of commitment, so to answer this very important question, I sat down with Elaine Champion on this week’s podcast.

Elaine is an ex corporate girl turned entrepreneur. She’s an accredited coach, facilitator, mom and mentor who specialises in helping professional women who are feeling stuck get unstuck. She’s a seasoned corporate leader and has 25 years of experience spanning across communications, training, leadership, organisation development, DEI and before she exited the corporate world, she was at Cathay Pacific airways, as their head of leadership and organisational development, and also looked after their global DEI strategy.

In this week’s episode of The Aligned Achiever Podcast with Elaine Champion, we sit down to discuss her journey from corporate to entrepreneurship including transitioning out of full-time work, overcoming her fears and financial concerns, and the fulfilment that Elaine has found in following her purpose.

Do you feel like you’re bumping into challenge after challenge at work?

Perhaps you’re in a toxic workplace, working with people that you really don’t want to collaborate with?

Do you feel stuck and like you want to throw in the towel, but that’s just not an option for you right now?

Sometimes the answer to difficult situations is drastic change. A new job, a whole new career, a completely new environment. Other times it’s an opportunity to learn and grow in that difficult spot or it’s just not an option for you to make a drastic change.

It may feel like a difficult and uncomfortable place to be in and that everything is out of your control, but there are still things you can do to navigate this period.

In this week’s episode of The Aligned Achiever Podcast I’m sharing 5 steps to help you when you feel like you want to quit, but that’s not an option for you right now.

What’s the biggest challenge going on for you in your career right now?

A theme that I see come up time and time again for my clients is letting past setbacks determine what we are capable of now.

Most of us have had negative, hard or difficult experiences in our careers.

Now this in itself is completely normal, but what can happen is that we can make meaning from those past experiences that can either hinder us or support us.

When you experience something “negative” it’s easy to tell yourself a story about who you are and what you are and aren’t capable of. We can take those narratives with us even if we try to change our circumstances in new positions, new companies, even entirely new careers.

In this week’s episode of The Aligned Achiever Podcast I’m sharing how you can redefine a set back and turn the obstacles you perceive from it into opportunities that support your growth.

What does your nervous system have to do with your performance? With your well-being? With your ability to be resilient?

In short, everything.

We live in a very cognitive, cerebral, strategic world, which is an important part of your career strategy, but if you’re not feeling motivated, confident or in alignment, then it’s simply not enough to get the outcome that you desire.

This is where your nervous system comes in so that you can leverage the power of your thoughts and feelings to be able to perform and create change in your life and your work.

In this week’s episode of The Aligned Achiever Podcast I want to help you to begin building that relationship with your body and your nervous system by getting to know your arousal levels using the Yerkes-Dodson Curve.