EP150: The Hardest Year of My Life... And Why I'd Do It Again

"This isn't the story of the year everything finally worked out. It's the story of the year I stopped waiting for it to"

A year ago, I thought I was redesigning my business.

I wasn't.

I was redesigning the woman leading it.

Over the last twelve months I've broken my arm, needed major surgery, battled a post-operative infection, left a job I'd spent years building, closed a community I absolutely loved, written my first book, published a journal, invested thousands into mentors, planned my biggest live event yet... and somehow still turned up here every single Friday.

This isn't an episode about having it all figured out.

It's about what reinvention really looks like when life refuses to stick to your plan.

Because the truth is, reinvention isn't glamorous.

It's f*cking messy.

It's uncomfortable.

It's full of waiting rooms, wobbling confidence and wondering whether you've completely lost the plot.

But it's also where the most extraordinary version of your life begins.

If you've ever found yourself saying...

"I'll do it when..."

...when work calms down.

...when the kids are older.

...when I have more money.

...when I feel more confident.

...when life gets easier.

This episode is for you.

Inside this episode, we explore:

✨ Why reinvention starts long before your circumstances change.

✨ The hardest thing I've had to let go of (and it wasn't my job).

✨ Why your Survival Self deserves gratitude... but shouldn't be running your life.

✨ What breaking my arm taught me about identity.

✨ Why certainty is overrated.

✨ The surprising gift hidden inside one of the hardest years of my life.

✨ The one question that completely changed how I make decisions.

Because maybe the question isn't...

"When can I start?"

Maybe it's...

Who's leading?

If this episode resonates with you, I'd love it if you'd share it with another woman who's standing at a crossroads right now.

And if you've been with me for one episode or all 150...

Thank you 

This really does feel like the beginning of something even bigger.

👑

🔥 DOWNLOAD FREEBIES TO FUEL YOUR REINVENTION

📲 FOLLOW on Instagram and Facebook

🩷

Transcript

Sarah Elizabeth  00:00

Hola, and welcome to episode 150 and I genuinely can't believe I'm saying that 150 freaking episode crazy. So, when I first started recording this podcast, when I started this podcast almost three years ago now, which is wild in itself, it was called the divorce chapter and was all around divorce and reinvention after divorce, and particularly after betrayal abuse and domestic abuse in its wider form, and yeah, that's how it was, and also within that we had the divorce book club, which was I actually fucking loved it, it was all about books and ideas and conversations, and then just I think slowly over that whole first two years without really noticing it started becoming about something a lot bigger and then came episode 100 which was where I officially said goodbye to the divorce chapter of my life over our lives, and hello to the Reinvention era, and I remember recording that episode, thinking, right, this is it, this is where everything changes, right, and I was right, I was right, it did all change, just not quite in the way that I imagined, because if you told me that over the next 12 months I would break my arm, need major surgery, develop a post op infection, have carers coming into my house, have bad Crohn's flare-ups, wash my bloody hair over the bath with bottled water, because I had no fucking water for however many days. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Southeast Water, I leave a career that had paid my rent and my bills without another job to go to, write a book, publish journal, close the book club, which I actually fucking loved, as I said, invest 1000s into mentors, and then start planning my huge live event, and somehow still keep showing up every Friday with a podcast every single fucking week, I'd have probably suggested you needed a lie down love, or maybe there's definitely been days where I fucking needed one, and you know what, it's been a lot, and I nearly called this episode what I've learned, but actually I don't think that's what it is. I think this is more of about what reinvention actually looks like in practice over an extended period of time, because if Instagram has taught us fucking anything, it's that reinvention looks really bloody glamorous, you know. Someone quits their job six months later, they're drinking cocktails in Bali with a seven figure business. Lovely, good for them. I'm really genuinely happy for them. That wasn't my year. That was not my year. My year looked more like antibiotics then hospital appointments, then NHS waiting lists, and taxis, and trains, and tears, and uncertainty, and fear, and trying to work out, oh, you wash your hair with one fucking arm, let alone do your makeup, and yet, because two things can always be true at once. It's been probably the most transformative year of my life, and that was because I kept making a decision about who was leading, because when I look back then, actually, and I think that's probably the first thing I kind of want to talk about, is that. Sorry. Welcome to episode 150 This is going to be a huge reflective episode, so lock yourselves in. I should have said that about five minutes ago, but anyway, when we often look back at events in our lives, all of us, we kind of think that the defining moment was the dramatic. Took one, you know, that was the the moment, whether that was the accident for my arm, the divorce, whether that's being made redundant, whether that's a diagnosis, or any kind of life-defining moment, right, but my reinvention started before any of that, because it started with a decision, actually, before I even broke my arm, right before the reinvention era went live, because over the two years of doing divorce, I actually loved it. If you listen back to episode 100 I'll explain a lot more there, but I'd reached a point where I realised that I couldn't keep talking about divorce forever. That chapter, the divorce chapter, that freaking mattered. It was massive, right? And it mattered, and it shaped me in so many ways, and hopefully it saved somebody else as well, right. But that wasn't where I was going anymore.

Sarah Elizabeth  06:07

I wanted to talk about the bigger matter of identity, about identity reinvention as a whole, and the woman underneath all of these roles that we've been chucking out for years and years and years for somebody else's script, right. It's almost like we've been acting in roles, performing in roles, that we've just got this script and we've gone, "Oh yeah, this is," but it's not actually our fucking life, right. And so I wanted to build something bigger, something that felt more like me. So that's why I pivoted, and I was in the the wormhole of doing that when I broke my arm, and regardless, we went on, we did episode 100 the reinvention era began, and I had a lot of ideas, and a lot of plans, and a lot of vision, you know, I was excited when you, you know, when you're really, really excited to finally see where you're going, that was me, that was me, and I sort of thought after I'd fallen over and broke the arm that it would be a few weeks, you know. You know what happened if you follow me for a while, you know the story, right? One stupid fall, one broken arm, and it should, should have been weeks, except it wasn't just a broken arm it, was a completely fucking shattered humerus, and at the time I thought this is bloody inconvenient, but I still thought it would just kind of be few weeks in a sling, bit of physio, crack on, how fucking wrong was I? That's another big lesson this year has been life does not give a shit about your timeline. It doesn't give a toss, you know. I kept saying to myself, once my arm's better, once my arm's better, I'll drive again. Once my arm's better, I'll get really stuck into the business. Once my arm's better, I'll launch this. Once my arm's better, I'll do that. Once my arm's better, everything will begin. And then weeks became months, and months became more scans, and scans became more consultants, and consultants became actually this bone isn't freaking healing, you need surgery, love. Okay, fine. Surgery, okay? They tell me that it'll happen within the month, by the end of January. I can do that. Give me my notice, I'll work my notice, add the surgery, recover, and off we go. Except January came, and another scan, and I realised the surgery was far more complicated than they'd expected, and so March everything moved again, life on hold again. Also, I thought, looking back now, it wasn't on hold at all. Life was not on hold, it was just different from how I'd planned it, and isn't that true for so many of us? You know, we spend years waiting when the kids are older, when the kids leave home, when work calms down, when I've got more money, when I lose the weight. Oh my god, how many times have we all said that one? When the menopause is over, when the timing's better, when, when, when, when, when, when, when, we're constantly postponing fucking lives, and this year was that taught me that I didn't particularly want to learn with this, but life. Doesn't wait until it's convenient, and neither can you, and you say it's so interesting, because people like, say to me, right now, when did you know that your work actually works, and you know what, honestly, it wasn't when someone bought something, or when I started writing the book, or when I started to get really nice feedback. I knew my work worked, because life tested every single bloody bit of it. There were so many opportunities this year to abandon the whole fucking lot, abandon the business, tell myself, you know, or maybe this is a sign, maybe now isn't the time, maybe I should wait, maybe I need another job, because the survival self loves certainty, she loves guarantees, she loves pensions, monthly salaries, predictable outcomes, she wants all the evidence before she'll fucking move, but the designed self is different. She doesn't ignore reality, and because two things can be true at once, she also refuses to let fear make that final decision, and that's when I realised every single day this year I had a choice, not what should I do, but who's leading today? Is it fear leading, or is it me?

Sarah Elizabeth  11:42

Is it frustration leading or is it me, is it self pity leading or is it me? And now, don't get me wrong, I had plenty of days in this last year where I felt fucking sorry for myself, actually, frankly, a bit worried if I hadn't. There were days when I was exhausted, absolutely exhausted. There were days when I cried. There were days when the hell I was doing. There were days where I looked at my bank account. This is terrifying, but you know what changed those feelings. feelings stopped making my decisions for me, and you know what? One of the hardest decisions, actually, I've made this year, in the middle of all of this, is closing something I absolutely bloody love. It is leaving a job that I've been in for years. It is writing a book while my body was falling apart, and that's why I now believe the hardest part of reinvention isn't starting, it's letting go, you know, because reinvention doesn't begin when life gets easier, it begins the minute you stop waiting for perfect conditions and start asking that different question, not when will my life change, but who's leading today, because that woman, the woman leading today, she's creating the life you're going to be living tomorrow, and that's where you have to let go of the person that was leading before. Sorry, this episode I should have warned you at the start. This was going to be a bit of a one reinvention. Isn't just about having the courage to start something new. Sometimes it is having the courage to let go of something that you still love, or even someone that we still love, and I don't think we talk about that enough, actually. You know, because we love a beginning, don't we? New business, new house, new baby, new relationship, new wardrobe, new chapter, but nobody ever really talks about the grief that comes with leaving something that was actually good. I would say one of the hardest decisions I've made over this last 50 episodes this last year wasn't really leaving my job, and it wasn't even surgery, it wasn't even breaking my arm. One of the.. I didn't decide to break the arm, that one of the hardest decisions was closing the book club, and if you've been around a while, you know how much I bloody love that community. Like, I adored it. I absolutely loved it. The books, how, how just step by step that compound effect of growth and development, like it never ever felt like work, it felt like just having amazing conversations about things that mattered, ideas that mattered. I loved every minute of it, and that's why closing it fucking hurt, but just because something is good. It doesn't mean it's where you're supposed to stay, and I think that's true of careers, relationships, of businesses, of friendships, of communities, a lot of things. Sometimes we cling on to shit because they're lovely, they're lovely, they feel good, but they're not aligned anymore, and those, those ones are the hardest things to leave, because there's no, there's no bad guy in this, there's no villain, nothing terrible happened, nobody fell out, nobody did anything wrong, just outgrown it, and was really uncomfortable to admit, and I remember thinking, I'm making a big mistake, am I going to regret this, should I just keep it going. Maybe I can make this work somehow, alongside everything else. Deep down, I already knew. I already knew that the woman who needed to lead my next chapter couldn't carry everything from the last one. And maybe you need to hear that today. Maybe you're just trying to carry a version of your life that's simply become too small. It's not bad. It's just finished. There's a difference. And then there was my job. I spent nearly eight years in a job, in a freaking high-profile job that I made a difference. I know that I made a big difference in that job, right? A huge difference to a lot of children, and the job was a huge part of my identity. It was a job I was proud of. It was a role I was proud of. It was an organisation I was proud of, and people respected me. I had a great team.

Sarah Elizabeth  16:35

I had a salary that paid the bills more than paid the bills, security, predictability, and if you'd asked me a couple of years earlier whether I'd leave, I totally laughed at you, quite honestly, because everyone was away from that. Who walks away from that kind of security, especially when you've got absolutely no guarantee the business is going to fucking work? It sounds reckless, quite frankly. If my dad was alive, he be'd like aaah, because it sounds so irresponsible. It sounds ridiculous. I know it sounds ridiculous, like leaving a job like that with nothing to go to, and yet by Christmas I knew I knew that my I had to resign, and it wasn't because I'd got another job or because my business was suddenly making a shit tonne of money. Actually, quite the opposite. The numbers didn't make sense, absolutely didn't make sense, but my identity did. I doubt grown there. I knew I'd reached a point where staying would cost me far more than leaving, and it wasn't financially, it was personally. Do you know when you can feel yourself shrinking, like when every Sunday night your shoulders start creeping up towards your ears, and you think, "Oh God, is this it? You know, and that's when you kind of know that you're not really living the life you're supposed to be living. It's that feeling that was me. I'd already left mentally, probably the paperwork just caught up a bit later, you know. And people ask me, like, weren't you terrified? Yes, God, yes, of course I was. I was fucking terrified. I'm not some fearless superhero. I had exactly the same thoughts that everyone else has. Well, if this doesn't work, what if I've got this completely wrong? What if I end up with nothing? What if everyone thinks I've just lost the block? Maybe I have all of it. Maybe all of that's true. But then I'd ask myself the question that kept bringing me back. Who's leading next? Because if fear was leading I'd stay, if security was leading I'd stay, if other people's opinions were leading, I'd definitely fucking stay, but none of those were building the life I actually wanted, and more importantly, none of those felt like me anymore. And so then came the surgery as well. Finally, March, and I honestly thought, right, we're back on track now, we're on the road now, we've, we've gone through this light, like this, up and down, up and down, over the last year. This wormhole, as I called it, that feels just.. you can't see a light, you can't see what's happening, you can't see how long you've got to go through this, and you think, "Oh my fucking good god, it is like the chrysalis and the caterpillar. I mean, the chrysalis, and it's painful when you've got out of it. So, I thought the surgery, brilliant. We're going to be back on track now. Oh my god, isn't it quite funny? If you listen to me, how many times I said that this year. Back on track, everything's back on track. We're all back on track now. Everything's going to be as though life had somehow left tracks. But anyway, the surgery did go well, and I remember thinking, this is it, few weeks and I'll be off, and then the infection, and the daily IV thing is honestly, if there was ever a moment where I really wanted to throw my toys out of the pram like a two year old, and that was probably it. Instead of getting stronger, I was getting sicker, like instead of moving forwards, I'd got backwards. I felt like I'd gone backwards. It was that daily IV, what's the antibiotics, the hospital appointments? I was completely wiped out, even more so than normal. And then, in the middle of all that I had my final day at work on the end of April when it should have been this huge celebration and freedom and the beginning, instead it was also my last day of antibiotics on the IV. There's something almost poetic about in there, you know, actually you can do with the bloody cannula in it was almost kind of like that, life's ending and another one beginning on the same day. It wasn't how I imagined it at all. Maybe it was better in some weird way, because it wasn't some magical gap where suddenly everything felt easy.

Sarah Elizabeth  21:18

There was just simply life happening in its messy and uncomplicated and uncertain and somehow beautiful way, then it fucking does, you know, and one of the lessons I didn't expect this year was actually not about resilience, it was about receiving. Anyone that knows me will know that I'm absolutely crap asking for help. I'm more than happy being the one that helps everyone else. I can be the organiser, the fixer, the strong one. The woman will say it's fine, I've got that, even when I absolutely haven't. But then suddenly I couldn't drive, I couldn't carry shopping, I couldn't do shit, like loads of really basic things, to the point that I had carers coming in my house. I mean, talk about a fucking identity crash that was huge, asking for help, having to pay for people to come and help me, like suddenly that capable woman wasn't capable anymore, so I thought, but also I realised that receiving help doesn't actually make you weak, it makes you human. I thought for so long it may be somehow vulnerable or weak, it doesn't, and it makes me wonder, like so many high-achieving women are absolutely bloody hopeless at receiving, whether it's compliments or support or love or help or rest. We're brilliant at giving, aren't we? Brilliant at giving, terrible at receiving, and this year really forced me to practice that. Did I enjoy it? Not particularly, if I'm honest. Did I need it? Absolutely. So that's where I don't think the broken arm was actually the hardest part. I think the hardest part has been allowing life to unfold differently from the story that I've got into my heads, because that's what reinvention really asks of us. It's not, "Can you cope? but "Can you trust yourself when nothing is going according to plan? And I think that's where the real work begins. A year ago, I thought I was redesigning my business; I was actually redesigning the woman leading it. So, where does it leave me now? Because you might be listening, thinking, okay, so did it all work out? There was a happy ending to this, and the honest answer is I'm still fucking in it. This isn't one of those podcast episodes where I reveal that I've secretly built an eight figure empire while sipping champagne in the mornings. I'm not recording this from a yacht, my love, I'm recording it from exactly where I was, a year ago, still building, still learning, still taking myths, and still occasionally wondering what the hell I'm doing. And weirdly, that's one of the biggest gifts that this year's given me, because I've stopped believing that certainty is the goal. Certainty is lovely, don't get me wrong, it's lovely, but it's also incredibly overrated. What I actually trust more now is me, and that isn't because I suddenly know exactly what's going to happen, it's because I trust the woman making the decisions, and honestly, that's new, that's new, the last 50, nearly 54 years have not been that. So, looking back, when I look back over the last 12 months, like since episode 100 it would be really easy to focus on everything that went wrong, you know, the broken arm, the delayed surgery, the infection, the frustration, the crones, the way. Seen the uncertainty, the fear, the days I thought, oh, good one poor bloody thing, go wrong, there's something you should have, but that's only half the story, because while all of that was happening, I also wrote a book, not just title one, finished one. If you tell me a year ago, I'd be holding a completed manuscript that's been published since November. I don't know if I believe you. I also published journals, one is 50 years now, seen on Amazon. Yes, it is. People I'd never met own my journal, they're writing it, they're changing their lives with something that started as an idea in my head. Fucking amazing is that I invested in mentors, not because I had loads of spare money floating around, because, believe me, I didn't - quite the opposite, but I invested because the woman leading my life now understands something that old Sarah didn't, that investment isn't about having certainty, it's about backing yourself before everyone else does.

Sarah Elizabeth  25:57

I kept showing up every Friday on here, 150 episodes, even when I didn't particularly feel like talking, even when I was in so much pain, even when I was exhausted, even when I wondered if anyone was even listening, because consistency ain't glamorous, is it? But it changes everything. I've planned my big lovely event in September, something that genuinely excites me. I'm hosting dinners, I'm getting brilliant people in the room, I'm creating conversations that wouldn't have happened otherwise. And somewhere along the way, without really noticing, the business stopped feeling like a dream and started feeling like my life. It's not finished, it's not fully built, but it's real. And you know what surprised me most this year? Like, I already knew I could survive, right? I've survived quite a lot in my life, divorce, a really fucking divorce, messy divorce shit show, losing both my parents within two years of each other, by the time I was 30, career changes, financial uncertainty, losing everything, you know, breaking my arm wasn't my first difficult chapter, right, but the surprise was how much joy existed inside one of the hardest years I've lived, there were days I laughed and I cried. There were rooms that I walked into that completely changed how I saw myself. There were conversations that opened doors I didn't even know existed. There was moments when I actually caught myself thinking this is it, this is the life that I was trying to build, and it wasn't because everything was perfect, but just because it was finally, finally mine. And I don't think I've ever experienced that before, but I think probably one of the biggest myths I want to bust is that reinvention is glamorous. Reinvention is not buying a new wardrobe, it's not changing your hair or booking a retreat or writing affirmations on the bathroom mirror. Those things can be lovely. Don't get me wrong, I love a bit of bougie. Bougie bitch is my name, but they're not reinvention. Reinvention is sitting in uncertainty and still choosing yourself, it's making the decision before you've got all the evidence. It's letting go of something you love because you've outgrown it. It's trusting your future more than your fear. It's allowing your identity to evolve, even when the people around you don't quite get it yet, and most importantly, it's understanding that the woman who's brought you this far may not be the woman who's supposed to take you where you're going next, and that's not criticism, it's gratitude. My survival self, she deserves a freaking award. Honestly, she got me through some really tough shit, some really incredibly difficult years. She's kept me safe, she's kept me functioning, she's kept me surviving. So, thank you, survival self, but also somewhere this year, and because two things can be true at once, I've realised that my survival self has slowly become the CEO of my life, when actually she was only supposed to be security. There's a difference, and maybe that's the best way I can explain my work. Now I'm not trying to get rid of the survival self, my survival self. I love her, she served me, she's still there in my email sometimes, usually about 3o'clock in the morning, but she doesn't make the final decision anymore. So, if you're listening to this and your life isn't going to plan, maybe you've had your own broken arm, not literally, maybe yours looks like divorce or redundancy or menopause or grief or an empty nest or. Business isn't growing quite as quickly as you don't, or a relationship that's sadly coming to an end. Whatever it is, you do not have to wait until everything settles down before you start living again. Honestly, I've spent most of this year waiting for the next thing, waiting for surgery, waiting to heal, waiting to drive, waiting to finish work, waiting to feel ready, waiting, waiting, waiting. And somewhere along the way, life wasn't waiting, it was happening. The question wasn't, "When can I start? The question became, "Who's leading today? Because if fear was leading, I'd wait. If doubt was leading, I'd wait. If perfectionism was leading, I'd wait. If the old Sarah was leading, I'd probably be still sat in the office where I was wondering whether to leave. Instead, I keep asking that one question, Who's leading? And every time answering it honestly for my designed self, the next step became obvious.

Sarah Elizabeth  30:59

It wasn't easy. Just because it's simple doesn't mean it's easy, just obvious. So, before I finish my reflection and my waffle, I just want to say thank you. Thank you, whether you've listened to one episode or all 150 Thank you. Some of you have been with me since the beginning of the divorce chapter. Since the divorce chapter, some of you found me after the pivot, some of you were in the book club, some of you weren't, some of you found me because you were searching for something, and somehow this little bug goes the beard. However, you got here. Thank you for walking this year with me, and I know it's been probably me going on about the army a lot of folks hates there with this fucking arm, diva arm, as my daughter-in-law says, but thank you, because in a lot of ways you haven't just listened to the reinvention era, you've witnessed it, you've watched it, you've heard me trying to work things out in real time, and you've celebrated the wins with me, and you've heard the wobbles, and you've watched me leave one job and build a business, you've watched me write a book, you've watched me crush myself, you've watched me keep going, and you know, actually, for me that's probably been the greatest privilege. It isn't pretending I've got all the answers, it's just showing you what it looks like to build a new life while you're still living one. A year ago, I just thought I was redesigning my business. I wasn't. I was redesigning the woman leading it, and it turns out that changes everything. So, if you take one thing away from episode 150 don't let it be my story, let it be this question before your next decision, before your next conversation, before you say yes, before you stay another year, before you talk yourself out the thing you already know you want, just pause and ask yourself who's leading, because the woman leading your life today is creating the life you're going to be living tomorrow. I'll say that again. The woman leading your life today is creating the life you're going to be living tomorrow, and if the answer to who's leading isn't the woman you want to be leading, you already know what to do. So, thank you for being here. Thank you for the last 150 episodes. Here's to 150 more. I think we're just getting started. So, I will be back in your earbuds again next week for more of this beautiful reinvention era. I can't wait. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And I'm sending you so much love. Bye.