Heather Charlesworth

I work with kick-ass women who feel overwhelmed and overly stressed to be

Productive, without being busy

In charge, without overwhelm

Effective, without driving yourself into the ground

Centered in your values, without losing your competitive edge

You keep a fast pace in both work and life. Working full-time in a demanding job, writing a thesis for your second masters, dating, maybe going to Bootcamp classes several times a week (just me?). You pile so much on and set exciting, ambitious goals. You can count the times you’ve been bored, in your life, on one hand.

Sometimes you daydream about going to a yoga retreat to calm down and relax. But I know you wouldn’t stay for savasana. You’d run to your room, open your laptop and answer your emails so you don’t get behind.

You know you can do it all… but you also know you need to do something differently. Because this isn’t sustainable long-term, and what has worked in the past is starting to break down.

The overwhelm is constant. Have your hands started shaking from too much caffeine? Mine did. Health issues might be cropping up out of nowhere (I discovered I was severely anemic—I thought I was just tired because I was doing so much!). Your closest relationships are feeling the strain because you’re always rushed and can’t sit down to chat for more than five minutes.

Coaching

I know what it’s like to have urgent tasks coming at you from all directions. I know what it’s like to look at your inbox (email and voicemail, and all the messages) and see all the new ones load in a millisecond as your heart drops. I know what it’s like to feel yourself rushing delicate conversations because you know how many other things need your attention today. I know what it’s like to feel like no matter how hard you work, how many lunch breaks you skip, you will never finish your to-do list.

I know what it’s like to feel like you are failing.

I was there too.

With two masters degrees and a solid worth ethic, I have had the privilege of jobs that require specialized skills. I have held a range of positions in healthcare, higher education and public service and the common thread in all these roles was the need to get shit done, quickly, effectively, in a high conflict environment.

I always felt the need to hustle, to think several steps ahead, to be helpful, to advocate for those needing extra support, to go “the extra mile”. More than once I sat in my office and looked at my workload and thought, is this why I worked so hard academically? Is this what I wanted? Will this get better?

For anything to change, I first had to shift my definition of what ‘success’ meant.

Ticking every box to hit a constantly moving target is the unwinnable game too many of us are playing, as if it’s the only game out there.

I started to realize that I didn’t have to go at top speed at all times. I would create mini-breaks throughout the day, and instead of shoving in more work, I would stretch, pet my dog, find a cute coffee shop, and notice the natural pauses. Internally, I stopped pushing myself to the extreme…

This made me really uncomfortable.

I felt like I was failing. But by creating this buffer of time, I began to see what I had been asking of myself was unrealistic for anyone. I was moving so fast to just try and keep up with an impossible pace that I was missing the big picture.

Once I consciously slowed down, I was able to see my real priorities clearly. I became more efficient. More of the important things got done, and the rest… didn’t really need to be done by me in the first place.

You can have a demanding, high-power, high-responsibility career without getting up at 5am and going to bed at midnight. You can be calm, even in the busiest days. You can practice balance (as long as you treat it as a practice and not an end result you can check off your list!).

And you can keep your values and humanity, even within systems built to erode them.

If this resonates for you, check out 1:1 coaching

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At the heart of my work are the unshakeable beliefs that:

You are tough as nails, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have soft edges too.
Your worth is inherent in your being and you have nothing to prove, achieve or reach to be worthy.
You are not broken because you want to spend more time with people and want to do each task well.
You do not need fixing because some things are out of balance in your life right now. You are not a victim, even when you’re in systems that don’t support your values or your needs (so many don’t)–you still have agency.
You may have temporarily forgotten how strong you are, and I am here to help you reconnect with your strengths and make time and space to refuel.

A few more things you might like to know about me

As a kid I was a competitive figure skater, and then I played varsity rugby in high school and university. Now I mainly practice yoga (and now have over 500 hours of teacher training under my belt).
Books that changed my life: The Dip (by Seth Godin), Mastery (by George Leonard), Vagabounding (by Rolf Potts); Turning Pro (by Steven Pressfield); Go Giver (by Bob Burg & John David Mann) and Improv Wisdom (by Patricia Ryan Madson). I love to read—fiction and non-fiction, especially library books. For my second thesis, I didn’t buy a single book thanks to the Toronto Public Library system!
I have run three marathons and countless half-marathons and 10kms. My favourite all time race was the full marathon in Ottawa where people lined the streets and I received hundreds of high-fives as I ran through neighbourhoods. Amazing!
I have three degrees (in science, education, kinesiology), lived in New Zealand for just over two years where I learned to surf. I have fallen while surfing oh… nearly every time I’ve tried to stand up.
My first salaried job was at a research institute, from there I moved into healthcare for 15 years, and then into higher education (working at both a university and college). Professionally my skill set is in health and safety, psychological safety, workplace violence prevention, and conflict resolution/mediation. Mostly, I solve problems when people are upset.

Today, I work with kick-ass women who feel overwhelmed and overly stressed—women who are ready to get back into the driver’s seat of their lives.

[Explore working together]

Based in Toronto, Canada. Available worldwide.

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