Have you ever felt like no matter how hard you try or how much time you spend reflecting and striving to make progress in your career or life in general, you always end up in the same spot? It's as if there's an invisible barrier, like a glass ceiling, holding back your potential.

In the past few weeks, it's been nearly impossible to escape the buzz surrounding the Barbie movie! From social media chatter to water cooler conversations, it seems like everyone's got an opinion.

So, did you manage to catch it?

A few months ago, I wrote a post on LinkedIn that generated a lot of interest. The post touched upon recent news headlines that highlighted several influential women in leadership roles stepping down to prioritise personal well-being, family, and life outside work: YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, Meta's Chief Business Officer Marne Levine, and New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern have all announced their departures in the past few months.

You know that person....they have it all together - always! They are smart, confident, motivated, they win awards, they make stuff happen, they are successful... you get the picture. A high-achiever or an overachiever?

Let's face it, the pandemic made us all question what we are willing to put up with at work.

I was having lunch with a good friend of mine last week. He was telling me about his recent meeting with his boss, where he asked for a pay rise. What led to this request, was my friend's feeling that his market worth was higher than his current pay, the rising inflations rates and his ambition to reach financial freedom by the age of 55.

Do you feel that things in your life happen to you, or are you actively creating the life you want?

For me it was always a mixed bag. Some things I absolutely created with awareness, like making a choice at the age of 24 to immigrate to Australia on my own, leaving my family, friends and the life I had behind (well, being madly in love had something to do with it), but some things I wasn't necessarily able to explain.

Sometime we feel stuck. In a job we hate, in relationships we fear to challenge, in an old story we keep telling ourselves...

When I got to my mid thirties, I looked at my life and asked "Is that It?". On the surface, everything was fine - really! or at least wasn't bad enough or painful enough to push me to change anything, but I distinctly remember a moment, when I was washing the dinner dishes, asking myself if this feeling that there is so much more out there, has legs in reality outside of my own head.

When was the last time you itched for a 'real' change in your life?

For me, it was in 2017 just before I left a long standing career at the University of Sydney to pursue a new role as Head of HR with a global travel insurance company entering the Australian market (completely unaware that a global pandemic is about to hit the world 2 years later and brutally 'kill' international travel). Preceding my career move, was an urgent desire for a big change.

me you made a mistake, encountered a setback or a challenge. What was the your intimidate reaction to it?

Did you hear a voice in your head saying "all good sweetheart, not a big deal... this things happen, you did the best you could, you are still awesome and have what it takes to try again" or did you hear a voice telling you "that was stupid. What were you thinking?! not good enough!"?

The woman centre approach has come out of the work of my teacher and mentor, Dr Claire's Zammit. Based on her 25 years research and career working with thousands of women, Claire identified a phenomena which she named the 'Power Paradox' where — on the one hand— many women are well educated, talented, accomplished, successful, powerful, and on the other hand, they feel under-realised, under-actualised and powerless to create the things that their hearts are yearning for.

Surrounded by so many successful, accomplished, 'aware' women, I have been thinking a lot about the concept of self actualisation.

Very few women I have coached over the years, wanted more status, more power or more control. Most, if not all, want a life where they feel happy and fulfilled, where they utilise their brilliance to its full potential - where they are self actualised.