Take responsibilityfor the thingsthat matter

I started my working life in social care, supporting people with disabilities - work I loved. Then I started to suffer from severe, constant pain. At just 21, I was medically retired with Fibromyalgia. I was prescribed medication and felt as though I'd been put out to pasture. At an age when my adult life should have been beginning, I suddenly had to work out what came next.

If there's one thing I've learned about myself since then, it's that I don't accept problems as barriers very easily. I want to understand them. I gather information, ask questions, find people who know things I don't, organise what I've learned, strip away the noise and work out what I can actually do.

That mindset has taken me through chronic ill health, a second career in IT, repetitive strain injury, raising and home educating three daughters, studying health and eventually creating Health Journal. It has also shaped a philosophy I've carried through most of my adult life: take responsibility for the things that matter.

You don't have to know everything or do everything yourself. Recognising when somebody knows more than you and bringing in their expertise is part of taking responsibility. But there is an important difference between delegating something and abdicating responsibility for it.

Read my story

I want to use my experiences, what I’ve learned and the things that have worked for me to help others live healthier lives. My goal is to educate, encourage and equip as many people as possible to take greater responsibility for their own health - with a simple framework for understanding where they are, deciding where they want to go, and creating a practical roadmap for getting there, as naturally as possible.

You can follow that framework yourself, use it with the support of a coach or practitioner, or work through it directly with me.

At least, that's how I describe myself. Give me a problem and my instinct is to gather information (probably too much information) then sort it, question it, organise it and separate what matters from what doesn't.

Eventually I want to answer: What do we know? What matters? What can we do about it? What happens next?

Gather widely. Discern carefully. Simplify ruthlessly. Act deliberately.

Health can become extraordinarily complicated: another supplement, diet, routine, app, piece of advice or intervention. My instinct is to declutter. Before asking what else we should add, I want to ask what we can take away.

Supplements are a good example. Why are you taking each one? What was it intended to achieve? Did anything change? Is it still relevant? The point isn't that supplements are good or bad. The point is to understand why you're doing something.

The same principle can apply to long-term medication. Why was it prescribed? Is the reason still relevant? Is it delivering the intended benefit? When was it last reviewed? Any change to prescribed medication should be discussed with an appropriate healthcare professional; some medicines should not be reduced or stopped suddenly.

I want to make as much of what I've learned as useful and accessible as I can. I'll share videos, articles and practical ideas about taking greater responsibility for your health.

You don't have to agree with me. I'd rather you didn't simply accept something because I said it. Listen, read, question, investigate and decide what makes sense for you.

Follow along, learn, question and decide for yourself

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I want to look after myself because I have things I want to be here for. I'm a wife, mother and friend. I want to cook for the people I love, travel, write, learn, laugh, create, help somebody when they need me — and occasionally wander around a supposedly haunted old building late at night.

I believe there can be enormous purpose in living partly in the service of the people we love. Looking after ourselves gives us greater capacity to do that.

I believe the mother can play an enormously important role as the matriarch of the family — someone who keeps an eye on the bigger picture. Not because she has to do everything, but because she coordinates, anticipates, notices and finds good people when expertise is needed.

As a science-fiction fan, I've joked that there was a little Sarah Connor* in my approach to motherhood. My job wasn't to shield my children from life. It was to help prepare them for it.

* Character from the Terminator films.