Sometimes Success Looks Like Letting Go

At the end of last year, I made one of the hardest professional decisions I’ve ever had to make.

I closed my consultancy.

For years I’d poured my heart into equality, diversity and inclusion consultancy, leadership development and organisational change. I worked with organisations that genuinely wanted to become fairer, more inclusive places to work and access services. It was work I believed in deeply, and I still do.

Walking away wasn’t because I’d fallen out of love with it.

Life simply asked something different of me.

Almost overnight, my priorities changed. I became a kinship carer to my grandson, taking on a role that is both one of the greatest privileges and one of the biggest responsibilities I’ve ever known. At the same time, I was providing increasing support to my elderly mother.

Neither role fits neatly into a diary.

Children don’t work around meeting schedules, and older relatives certainly don’t book appointments weeks in advance before needing you. Both deserve time, patience and presence.

Something had to give.

For a while, I tried convincing myself I could continue doing everything. Like many people who work for themselves, I thought if I just worked a little harder, slept a little less or squeezed one more client into the week, I could make it all fit.

I couldn’t.

And eventually I realised that choosing my family wasn’t a failure of ambition. It was a different expression of it.

So rather than continuing to run a consultancy that demanded all of me, I chose something that gives me balance.

I’m now embracing what I call semi-retirement.

Not retirement in the traditional sense, because I still love working with people. I still love seeing someone discover their confidence, overcome barriers or realise they’re capable of far more than they believed.

That’s why coaching remains.

Today my focus is much more intentional.

I’m concentrating on working with LGBTQ+ people and those from marginalised communities; people who often find themselves navigating workplaces, leadership and life whilst carrying experiences of exclusion, discrimination or simply never quite feeling that they belong.

Coaching has always been about more than careers for me.

It’s about helping people build confidence that comes from within rather than relying on the approval of everyone around them.

It’s about finding your own voice.

Understanding your values.

Setting healthy boundaries.

Leading authentically.

And recognising that your lived experience is not something to overcome, but something that can become one of your greatest strengths.

In many ways, this feels like coming home.

The consultancy work was often about changing systems.

The coaching is about supporting the people living within those systems.

Both matter.

Both create change.

Just from different directions.

Do I miss consultancy?

Of course I do.

I miss the strategy discussions, the workshops, the excitement of helping organisations move forward and the brilliant people I worked alongside.

But I don’t miss constantly feeling stretched between competing responsibilities or worrying that I wasn’t fully present for the people who needed me most.

These days my success looks different.

It looks like being there for school runs.

Being available when my family need me.

Supporting my mum with dignity and compassion.

Helping a coaching client leave a session standing a little taller than when they arrived.

Walking my dogs on Hove seafront in the middle of the day because I finally have the freedom to do so.

And being happy to offer reciprocal mentoring programmes, where learning flows both ways and experience is shared rather than assumed to sit in one direction.

Life has seasons.

For years, my season was about building a business.

This season is about building a life that reflects what matters most.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that changing direction isn’t the same as giving up. Sometimes it’s the bravest and wisest decision we can make.

The work continues.

Just in a different way.

And honestly?

I think that’s exactly where I’m meant to be.