Hey Reader

I'm not perfect. Not even close.

I swear more than a coach probably should. I fuck up, regularly, in ways big and small. Some days I eat the wrong stuff, on purpose, no regrets in the moment (the regrets tend to arrive around 4 pm, but that's a different newsletter). I've put on a few pounds over the last few months. My gym routine, the one I tell everyone else to protect like it's sacred, has quietly fallen apart while I wasn't looking.

The old me would have spiralled about that. Would have made it mean something about my worth, my discipline, my right to call myself a Performance Coach. I'd have sat with the “I should know better” voice for days, maybe weeks, letting it run the show.

The current me just… doesn't anymore.

I want to be honest about why, because I think a lot of women are quietly carrying the same story I used to carry.

The perfection trap nobody tells you about

Somewhere along the way, a lot of us picked up the idea that we're only allowed to show up, to lead, to coach, to run the business, to be the strong one, once we've got it all sorted. Body sorted, habits sorted, emotions sorted, as if life is a waiting room and we only get called through once we're “ready.”

Here's the problem: nobody's ready. I've coached brilliant, high-achieving women for years, and not one of them has ever arrived at the mythical place where everything clicks into place and stays there. Life doesn't work in straight lines, it works in waves; some weeks you're solid, some weeks you're held together by dry shampoo and sheer will.

I hit 40-plus, juggling a business, a body, a brain, a calendar that never quite behaves, and I realised the goal was never going to be “never slipping.” The goal was learning what to do when I slip. Because I will and so will you, more times than you’d care to admit. Repeatedly, for the rest of my life.

Why I stopped punishing myself

Somewhere in my own work, I had to ask myself a hard question: what is beating myself up actually achieving? And the honest answer was nothing. Not one ounce of extra discipline, not one better food choice, not one extra gym session. All it ever did was cost me energy I needed for the day I was living, not the perfect one I was trying to aspire to.

That's when I stopped needing to be the finished, polished version of myself before I was allowed to show up. I accepted that I'm a woman in a body, in a life, with a business, some days going brilliantly and some days barely getting out the door on time. Both versions are still me; neither one disqualifies me from doing this work or doing it well.

That's not giving up. That's not “letting myself off the hook.” It's the exact opposite; it's the first bit of real work.

Where this fits in the StrongHER FAB Method

This is the piece I take my clients through first, and I don't skip it, ever, because everything else falls apart without it. It's Foundation, the F in my StrongHER FAB Method.

Foundation isn't about building a better routine on top of guilt. You cannot build strength, energy, or a business you're proud of on a base of self-punishment. It doesn't stick; you end up rebuilding the same three feet of ground over and over, exhausted, wondering why nothing sticks.

Foundation is where you stop treating yourself like a problem to be fixed and start treating yourself like a person to be understood. It's the acceptance that comes before the Alignment (getting your habits, energy, and choices to work with your real life, not the fantasy version of it) and long before any Breakthrough is possible.

You cannot skip straight to breakthrough. I promise you, I've tried and failed, it doesn't work. Foundation first, always.

What I'd want you to take from this

If you're a few pounds heavier than you were, or would like to be. If your routine has slipped. If you swore at your kids or someone inappropriately recently or ate the biscuits, or missed the gym for the fourth week running, this is what I want you to know: none of that is evidence against you. It's just data; it's just another Tuesday. It doesn't get to define your worth, and it doesn’t get to be the thing that stops you starting again tomorrow.

You don't need to be perfect to be powerful. You need to be honest and keep showing up, imperfections and all.

Here's a question for you, not as a coach, just as a human sat here typing this on my own imperfect Wednesday: Yes, I know it’s Monday, but you get the meaning.

Have you accepted who you are?

If the answer's no, or “working on it,” you're in exactly the right place. That's Foundation. That's where we start.

With love

Jo xx
​

My gift to you. Click to download yours today.