I still get overwhelmed

But it feels different now

Not going to lie, I was really successful as an academic! I was awarded a full Professorship in 2020, I'm a national award-winning lecturer, regular keynote speaker, and I have completed several senior management roles.

At the same time though, I spent much of my career in a whirlwind of procrastination and overwhelm. I had some great times, fun times, but when I was struggling, I made it mean something about me - that I wasn't good enough, that I was too lazy, that I just needed to work harder and get it together.

It wasn't fun and it wasn't what I signed up for.

When I first found coaching,  I thought I was going to "fix" myself but I learned something much more important.

My coach taught me that we don't need to fix ourselves. We're not broken.

We just need to learn to understand our minds and figure out how to support ourselves, instead of beating ourselves up.  Slowly, with the support of a few different coaches, I learned.

I reduced my negative self-talk, improved my ability to get things done with less drama and, in many ways, changed my life. 

I found myself telling more and more people about what I was learning and saw the techniques help them as well.

I knew how much all of academia needs this support.  It was with that realisation that I decided to train as a coach and launch the PhD Life Coach.

I love working with people like you because I've been where you are and I know it can be so much better than this. Let me help you!

My academic career

My PhD and early career focused on exploring how psychological stress and exercise affect immune function and health.  I loved learning about how our thoughts and feelings could influence our physiological function through neural and hormonal pathways. If you're interested in any of my research, you can find me on Google Scholar here.

As I progressed though, I became more teaching focused, specialising in helping students develop transferable skills through authentic assessments and extracurricular activities.  I also spent a lot of time supervising PhD students, designing and running skills-training programmes, and mentoring teaching-focused staff.

It always seemed like a random assortment of interests but when I put together my "inaugural" lecture, to celebrate getting my Professorship, I realised that they all connected together in ways that all contribute to The PhD Life Coach!