Member Article

Mental Health Awareness Week: 5 Tips to Creating a More Successful Life on Your Terms from Busy2Balanced Positive Psychology Coach

A mum of 2 from Marlow, Buckinghamshire, has chosen Mental Health Awareness Week and Learning at Work Week to celebrate a new phase of her life, as she steps away from her corporate career, having climbed the ladder for 18 years within organisations such as; Adobe and Virgin Media O2, to embrace full time self employment, driven by her love of positive psychology and human behaviour.

As conversations are taking place, nationally, and globally around the importance of prioritising our mental health and the importance of continued professional development as part of Mental Health Awareness Week and Learning at Work Week, Tara Rule, 41, is preparing to share her knowledge, and own personal experiences. This is part of her mission to show other professionals how she reached Senior Director of Global Business Operations at Adobe, whilst bringing up a family, pursuing her own hobbies and interests, training in positive psychology and setting up her business, - all with a smile on her face.

Tara, known as The Busy2Balanced Positive Psychology Coach, has this month officially left her successful career, having said no to a high profile VP role, which she very nearly took despite it not being something she wanted, after realising her passion lay within coaching. Feeling driven to now share the positive psychology tools she has learnt for her own personal development with other busy professionals, she hopes to help more people to find the balance she has achieved by ‘writing her own Rule book’.

Tara is working to create a ripple effect of positivity in the business world after she navigated her success with happiness, rather than stress after learning to play to her strengths and tackle her imposter syndrome head on. Having continually climbed the career ladder from starting work at 18, through two maternity leaves, and also alongside starting her business, Tara has battled her own mindset demons which told her she ‘wasn’t good enough’, to instead tap into the tools of positive psychology to build up her confidence in herself. She has learnt how to change her mindset to positive self-talk rather than negative and has become a master of setting boundaries, leaning into gratitude and spending as much time as possible doing what she loves.

She said: “I love helping people unlock their full potential. And confidence is a key ingredient… Everyone used to think that I was so confident, but inside I just felt lucky, guilty about what I’d achieved and was just waiting to get found out, so despite my success I wasn’t reaching my full potential. I’ve discovered that by really working on your inner confidence you can achieve anything you want.”

Whilst Tara has made the decision to step off the corporate ladder to work as an International Coach using her positive psychology training, she is still very much in the corporate world as she’s supporting other professionals to advance their careers.

“I love the corporate world”, she said. “ I have had an incredible and happy career. But, I have also seen people broken by the stress of overwhelm, people feeling like they are juggling everything, that the pressure is just on them, they think they’re the only one who feels like this and always putting themselves and self care last on their to do list which often ends in burnout. I’m passionate about now using my coaching skills to support these people“.

She added: “13 years ago before I was married with kids I thought I had reached my professional peak, having gained promotion after promotion - but how wrong I was. I have achieved SO much more than I thought possible for myself, whilst also still being there for my family. Through my own personal development journey and some amazing coaches and bosses, I continued to develop in my career and I leave corporate life earning 10 times what I did 13 years ago, but excitedly also knowing and believing that I will be even more successful in my own business. This is because I’ve learnt to back myself and I want to show others how to do this too”.

Having created a life she loves as a mother of two young children where work life balance has been a huge priority for her, her business offers coaching, workshops and retreats which prioritises finding balance, helping people maximise their impact, whilst still prioritising themselves and their self care. The number one question she gets asked is “How do you do it all?” – But, she doesn’t do it all, she prioritises ruthlessly, has clear boundaries and has invested in herself to really understand what gives her energy and so Tara has focused her business around supporting other successful professionals to help them create their own ‘Rule book’, working with their strengths to create ways of working where they can thrive.

Tara has already coached people to follow their dreams, for years, as part of her leadership roles, and now she’s taking the leap of faith in herself to follow her own dreams, on a mission to help tens of thousands of other professionals through her coaching business, to reach their potential without sacrificing their happiness or life balance.

Tara’s Top 5 Tips to creating a more successful life on your terms:

1. Recognise when your inner critic is talking and blocking your success.

Often the biggest blocker for success is ourselves. Take time to listen to your own thoughts. Are you self sabotaging by listening to your inner critic who’s saying you’re not good enough, this is impossible, you have to be perfect. Being able to recognise this is the first step in stopping the pattern of negative behaviour and fear that’s keeping you stuck.

2. Put self-doubt behind you and listen to your inner cheerleader.

When we are fearful or uneasy we stop taking risks, and we stop pushing for change - we stop believing we are worthy of what we want. Rather than focusing on the negatives and feeling out of control, chose to listen to your inner cheerleader instead and focus on your strengths and skills so you can regain control. Find ways to remind yourself of your achievements, undertake tasks that you know you’ll excel in, then capture that feeling of success to feel empowered to move forward.

3. Get excited about your future.

Work daily to really connect with your vision of what success looks like for you and visualise it coming to fruition. Some people like to journal, some like to create vision boards, whatever you do find a way to get excited about what success looks like to you, whether that’s more money, more time with family, more success or all 3.

4. Get clear on your boundaries and make them non negotiable.

Stress often comes from feelings of losing control and overwhelm and feeling like everything is never ending. When we don’t have strong boundaries in place this all comes too easily. Get super clear on what’s important to you and make them non-negotiables! It could be not working late or at the weekends, ensuring you exercise during the day, doing the school run. Each of us are different so get clear on what’s important to you and make sure you stick to them.

5. Prioritise your mental health, every single day.

There are many ways to do adopt better self care, from small things like making sure you get a few minutes of peace everyday to do something you enjoy, to listening to uplifting music, to switching off the news or removing social media apps. A big game changer for me was connecting to gratitude - it started in lockdown, homeschooling a 6 and 9 year old while my husband and I both worked full time, we started saying what we we’re grateful for at dinner each evening - finding just one thing helped us feel uplifted, and positive. This directs my behaviour, my internal dialogue, all of it, often enabling me to quickly reframe any negative thoughts into positive ones.

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