Seven years ago, I thought I had finally arrived. After two decades of climbing the HR ladder, I had reached the role I had worked so hard for - Head of HR in a company I believed I would grow with, right through to retirement. I was confident. I was settled. I had a plan.

But plans shift when the ground beneath them moves.

The leadership team changed.

The pandemic hit.

Overnight, everything I had built my identity around began to feel uncertain. I was expected to be the anchor in a storm that no one saw coming, yet inside I was questioning whether I was good enough. I tried to lead like the rest of the team, hoping to be valued, hoping to fit. Each attempt chipped away at the confidence I had once carried without question.

What I didn’t see at the time was the slow erosion happening beneath the surface, the subtle loss of self that so many senior leaders experience. When your role is built on strength, resilience, and having the answers, it becomes almost impossible to admit when something doesn’t feel right.

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Then came the moment everything broke.

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It was an ordinary workday until it wasn’t. A decision was made, one of those decisions that shouldn’t matter as much as it does, and suddenly I found myself in the backyard at work, sobbing on the phone to my husband. He listened, paused, and said quietly, “Niki, you need to leave there.”

The next day, without a plan, I resigned.

What followed were the hardest months of my career. I completed my notice period unable to get through meetings without tears. I felt betrayed, ashamed, and utterly convinced it was all my fault.

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I didn't know what I wanted to do next, I just knew that it had to be something different.

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I applied for jobs, but the rejections kept coming. Each one reinforced the belief that I wasn’t good enough. It took time, reflection, and honesty to recognise that what I was experiencing wasn’t failure, it was burnout.

Burnout isn’t simply tiredness; it is the slow shutting down of a system that has been in survival mode for too long. When we ignore our strengths, silence our needs, and adapt to be who we think others want us to be, our body interprets that as threat. Cortisol rises. Tension escalates. Eventually, something gives.

When I stepped away, I knew only one thing: I couldn’t go back to living in a way that required me to leave parts of myself at the door.

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I experimented. I started an HR consultancy, but it didn’t bring me the energy or joy I was longing for. It looked right on paper, but it didn’t feel right. That was my first clue. So I began to reflect on what had truly energised me throughout my career. I explored my strengths. I paid attention to the work that felt natural, meaningful, and grounding and that I would be good at.

Slowly, things shifted. When I focused on the work aligned with my strengths, recognition followed. Energy returned. Confidence, which I thought I had lost forever, resurfaced through self-trust rather than performance. I felt like myself again.

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That experience was the catalyst for what eventually became Noo Coaching and the NooWay® - a way of working with senior leaders that mirrors the journey I had to take the long way round.

The irony is that the clarity I desperately needed only emerged once I stopped pushing to fit into an outdated version of success. And it’s the same shift I now guide clients through:

Reconnect with who they are beneath the role.
Reclaim the strengths and confidence they’ve slowly misplaced.
Redefine success in a way that feels meaningful, energising, and true.

The journey hasn’t been easy, but it has been honest. For the past two years, as I trained as a coach while running my business and working full-time, I felt something I hadn’t experienced in years - energy and fulfillemnt in my work. Not the frantic kind, but the grounded kind that comes from doing work aligned with your purpose.

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And through it all, one small source of inspiration has remained constant: Oakley, my eleven-year-old cocker spaniel.

Oakley has never questioned who he is. Give him a field, a scent, a bird to flush, or a ball to find and he comes alive. He knows his strengths. He doesn’t apologise for them. He doesn’t try to be anything else. He simply works in a way that feels natural, joyful, and right.

My personal motto is “be more Oakley”.

It’s a reminder that fulfilment isn’t about reinventing yourself, it’s about returning to the parts of you that were there all along.

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Burnout forced me to listen.

Coaching taught me how to rebuild.

And now, guiding senior HR leaders through that same transformation is not only my work, but my purpose.

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Here’s what I learnt.
When you stop living by who you think you should be, and start honouring who you really are, everything changes.

Confidence returns.

Energy returns.

And life begins to fit again, not perfectly, but purposefully and truthfully.

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If you’re standing at your own turning point, unsure what comes next, you don’t have to work it out alone. Through the NooWay®, we can explore your truth together and begin reshaping the life and career that feel right for you now.

Just reach out when you’re ready.