2024 in Review

I still love this time of year, and once again I’ve arrived here feeling more than a little beat up.

I knew there were going to be changes in 2024 but holy shit did things escalate. Lol at me saying a year ago how important my fulltime job was because ‘coaching ain’t paying the bills’, and now well… it does but also I’m broke AF again.

This year kind of feels like the year that needed to happen although I haven’t exactly loved how every element has played out. At the end of 2023 I had stability work wise, but it felt unsustainable if I wanted to continue progressing (i.e. coach more) and I was being pulled in too many directions at once. 2024 saw professional relationships implode, led me to completely step out of my comfort zone business wise and depart from everything ‘safe and secure’ in the pursuit of new opportunities that felt more aligned with where I hope to get to in the next few years.

The year really had three parts to it; Jan-March was business as per with some highlights; coaching at another international, getting stuck back into my own training properly for the first time in a couple of years, receiving regional recognition for my achievements in coaching… not bad. April through June my world blew up; complete change of circumstances work wise, ‘oh shit I’m going all in on coaching’, and a jaunt to Peru for Youth World Champs. July onwards things progressed to ‘oh shit I’m all in on coaching and now I’m also pregnant’ and the rest of it’s been a bit of blur to be honest…

I became Head Coach of Kotahi Barbell Club in April- in some ways starting from scratch although there has been a barbell club in the space before and that history definitely played a role in getting this one up and running. It felt like a move out of desperation at the time because staying where I was was no longer an option, and while undoubtedly something I was intending to do at some point, sure as shit not something I’d planned on right now. Regrets now though? Absolutely fucking not. Best gym environment I’ve ever been a part of. Best gym owners I’ve ever worked with/for. Forced me to step into my own as a leader and I am a far better coach for it. Gave me the opportunity to work on aspects of business management (because being a coach and running a business are not the same skillset) that are relatively new to me. And while there’s been many bumps, pivots, and realigned expectations throughout the last 9 months, a lot has been achieved and I am on the whole really proud of the space and team within it.

Further on the subject of business, a failed attempt to reduce my employment to parttime resulted in my leaving it completely at the end of May and becoming a ‘fulltime’ self employed coach (I’m not sure if it’s still considered fulltime when it’s fulltime hours with parttime income). In many ways this felt like deja vu with a side of insanity- I’ve done this before (self-employment) and the pattern is; scrape by for 6-18 months and then crawl back to a ‘real’ job. To attempt this again when my financial responsibilities (mortgage) are higher than ever, and I’m actively trying to get pregnant…. yeah smart. And don’t get me wrong I think the decision was even more stupid now knowing what I know happened next. I got pregnant at the end of June, and the absolute naivety of me. I genuinely held the belief that pregnancy just meant the start of an 8 monthish countdown to achieve as much as I could in business and coaching before stepping back (to a degree) for a period of time in order to start this new phase of life.

The reality of my experience? By the end of July, 2 months after going ‘out on my own’ and starting a business model that demanded extensive and ongoing energy to grow to the point of survival (let alone ‘thrive’; for reference I needed to more than double my coaching income from June by September in order to be minimally sustainable), I tanked. Every pregnancy experience is different and I am well aware that mine thus far has been on the gentle side of normal, and I acknowledge this is my own fault for simply having no idea what it was going to be like. This doesn’t change the reality of how blindsided I was in first trimester especially. Oh golly did I mourn the loss of the sick leave I gave up when I left my job. For about 5-6 weeks there through August and into September I barely functioned. Work output? Don’t know her. The best way to describe it for me was feeling hungover all the time… the absolute irony when I’m now stone cold sober. I was petrified about heading to Fiji in September to coach at Commonwealth Champs- it was right around when I was ‘supposedly’ going to start feeling better but you don’t know until it happens…. thankfully (and I’m still not sure if this was lucky timing or just happened out of necessity) the trip went fine and my body and brain came to the party enough to get through.

Since then life has been fairly manageable (although I now sleep surrounded by pillows, nap constantly and am dismayed on a daily basis at the rate my stomach is growing), but at no point has the mental or physical fire to relentlessly pursue the development of my business returned. Or at least the desire is there, I just don’t have the capacity to follow through. It’s been incredibly demoralising yet in some ways empowering, because I know if I was in employment I would have been half-assing since July just waiting it out until I went on leave. Desperation (and to be fair passion, this is still something I want to be doing) has ensured I have kept on going, even if it hasn’t been anywhere near what I hoped or felt like I could have achieved in the last 3-4 months. So I’ve continued to do hard things and to my credit, I am surviving (although I need to acknowledge my partner is contributing disproportionately to household costs and I have received some support from family). When you haven’t got where you hoped it can be very easy to view everything negatively, but honestly I’ve done bloody great and am incredibly grateful to every athlete who has chosen to invest in my services. Things might not be where they ultimately need to, yet I am aware 12 months ago I probably wouldn’t have thought what I doing now in terms of the number of athletes and service offerings I have was achievable.

I will hit 30 weeks this week, and am feeling what I suspect is a fairly normal duality of desperately looking forward to not being pregnant anymore, while not yet being ready for this baby to arrive. But I will survive financially until March, at which point the government will pay my half of the mortgage for 6 months. I am a long way away from having a business capable of supporting me long term, but I’ve hung in there and take comfort from the knowledge that in doing so, there’s a pretty good chance I will be able to continue figuring it out in the future, baby in tow.

Despite the fact that it was intentional and wanted, embarking on the journey of parenthood has also brought up a whole lot of uncomfortable things around my identity that I am yet to really work through. I have chosen to invest heavily in fostering the identity of ‘coach’, only to go and slap ‘mother’ on top, and right now I have no idea how the two of those are going to coexist. The physical changes associated with pregnancy are…. hectic, and while I know largely temporary, the sheer rate of change and feeling so unfamiliar in my own body is pretty confronting (can you picture me yet for the last 6 months just sitting there going ‘what the fuck’ over and over again).

2025 feels a bit out the gate because I don’t think I’ve ever entered a new year knowing exactly what’s on the table while having zero idea how it’s all going to play out. Foolish or not there’s still lots of coaching and business goals I intend to pursue, and I absolutely expect my business to ultimately grow in another year’s time.

Let’s see if I eat my words haha.