Carving out an unknown specialism: Sports and Exercise Psychology with Paula Watson

Welcome to the Business of Psychology podcast. I'm really pleased to be welcoming my guest today, Dr Paula Watson, who is an applied sports and exercise psychologist specialising in health behavior change relating to eating, exercise, and weight. Paula spent 18 years in academia including working at Liverpool John Moores University as a reader in exercise and health psychology, before dedicating herself fully to her private practice, Made Up To Move. The concept of an exercise psychologist in private practice is one that might feel quite new, and I know that exercise psychologists qualifying now often feel unsure about how to introduce a less known about psychological service to the market. Paula's story is one that's all about forging a new path, embracing the unknown, and defining her own value when the public didn't even know that she existed. We're going to explore today how she built her practice when the public wasn't even aware of what exercise psychology was, and there's so much that we can all learn about really solid business and marketing skills from Paula's journey. 

Full show notes and a transcript of this episode are available at The Business of Psychology

Links:

Episode 41: How to set your fees in your psychology private practice with “pricing queen” Sally Farrant

Links for Paula:

Website: madeuptomove.co.uk

YouTube: www.youtube.com/@DrPaulaWatson

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/paula-watson-weight-loss-therapy

Links for Rosie:

Substack: substack.com/@drrosie

Rosie on Instagram:

@rosiegilderthorp

@thepregnancypsychologist

The highlights

• Paula tells us what drew her to sports and exercise psychology 01:34
• Paula talks about her academic career 06:59
• We discuss imposter syndrome 14:30
• Paula tells us about her decision to move from academia to the applied space 20:10
• I ask Paula about choosing private practice versus a job 24:35
• Paula tells us what a week in her practice looks like 36:14
• I ask Paula about her YouTube channel 45:20
• Paula speaks about the learning curves and mindset shifts required when setting up in private practice 51:06
• Paula tells us how we can connect with her 56:38

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SPEAKERS

Rosie Gilderthorpe, Paula Watson

Hello and welcome to the Business of Psychology podcast. I'm really pleased to be welcoming my guest today. Dr Paula Watson is an applied sports and exercise psychologist specialising in health behavior change relating to eating, exercise, and weight. Paula spent 18 years in academia including working at Liverpool John Moores University as a reader in exercise and health psychology, before dedicating herself fully to her private practice, Made Up To Move. The concept of an exercise psychologist in private practice is one that might feel quite new, and I know that exercise psychologists qualifying now often feel unsure about how to introduce a less known about psychological service to the market. Paula's story is one that's all about forging a new path, embracing the unknown, and defining her own value when the public didn't even know that she existed. So we're going to explore today how she built her practice when the public wasn't even aware of what exercise psychology was, and there's so much that we can all learn about really solid business and marketing skills from Paula's journey. So I'm very pleased to welcome Paula to the podcast. Paula, I'm so pleased that you're here with us.

Me too. I'm really excited to be on one of my favorite podcasts ever, so thank you for having me.

Oh, that's so lovely to hear. And I think one of the first things that I'd really like to know about is what initially drew you to study sports and exercise psychology?

Okay. Well, it was actually during, so I did a psychology undergrad at York and I got really into football when I was at York. I wasn't sporty at school at all, actually. I was, it kind of wasn't cool to do sports at my school, so I'd always been quite active, like enjoy, you know, habitual activity, playing, running around, those kind of things. Like my family, my dad took me out for runs and stuff, and we went hiking and stuff, but I'd never been… my hand eye coordination is rubbish. So at school I'd always been like one of the worst at sport, but also because I didn't enjoy what we had to do. I didn't enjoy standing freezing on a hockey field and netball was okay, but I wanted to play football. And in those days, girls football wasn't like it is now. So finally when I got to uni, I got to play football and I got really into actually playing a sport myself, competitively, all my best friends are still from that team. But what it was, I really started to realise that in training I could perform, I loved it, everything, but the minute I was in a game, I was a totally different player and my head, everything went to pot just because of anxiety, worrying, and football particularly, you've got a lot of kind of downtime. Because there's 11 of you on the pitch. There's only one ball. A lot of time for anxious minds to think. And I was very conscious, so self-conscious, every time I touched the ball, I was messing it up. And I became really interested in why this was and discovered there's this thing called sport psychology. So, put together the psychology, which I was really enjoying with the sport. So essentially that's why I got into it in the first place. I came to do the MSC at John Moores, just over 20 years ago now. And most people get into sports psychology because they want to work in elite sport and I was like them in that situation. But I think during that year I realised that actually I didn't want to be a sports psychologist. I couldn't see myself, the main sport I was interested in was football. It might have been different nowadays actually, if women's football had been where it was, but I couldn't see myself fitting into the male football culture, and I realised that what I was actually really interested in was the psychology of exercise and the power of movement for our minds and our wellbeing, and I was also really fascinated by the fact I've always really got a real buzz out of movement myself, and why others didn't seem to always get this. And there’s the question that, you know, if, if you didn't have this, can we help people develop it? And I just became fascinated by that. So kind of moved in that direction.

That makes a lot of sense, because thinking back to the culture that we had at that time as a society around exercise, what I remember is, you know, from my parents who didn't, who found it very difficult to enjoy exercise, you know, I always have and they never have. And there was a lot of like, oh, you are so good, you're so disciplined, and I said, no, I'm doing this because I love it. And they couldn't understand that because they didn't get that buzz from it. And there was just in the culture, there was only, you know, people who were good and virtuous and disciplined who did exercise, and people who, you know, maybe would have some negative words associated with them who didn't enjoy it. And I don't remember anyone really having much curiosity about, you know, what might make it challenging for people to exercise or why some people might love it and other people really hate it from seemingly quite a young age. Yeah, what a fascinating time to get into it.

Yeah, and it's really interesting. It's really changed in the last 20 years as well, because I do remember at the beginning, I mean, I remember the first conference I went to about physical activity and it just blew my mind. I think I'd volunteered, they'd given me a free place for me to volunteer, like on reception and stuff, and it blew my mind because I actually thought, oh wow, there's all this research to back this up. It's not just my dad, because my dad's a retired GP and he'd always kind of led me to believe the power of exercise for our minds actually. And, but I was like, wow, it's not actually just my dad saying this stuff. And, but what I do remember a lot in my early days of, you know, working in physical activity promotion and lecturing and stuff, is that exercise didn't used to be cool at all. It was very cool to say you don't do exercise. It was very cool to say you're lazy and you can't be bothered, and our whole subculture has actually really changed in this last, it has become now the thing to, I mean, yeah, it's being replaced with other things I guess, but that the whole way we see the gym and movement and working out is very different now.

Yeah, that's so true. Like you see all the teenagers always in their gym kit. There's a whole, like there's all these brands that are built around young people loving exercise and always looking like they're about to go and lift some weights. I mean, I guess, yes, there's definitely issues there, but they're completely different issues to the one that you kind of entered in order to deal with.

Yeah, no, absolutely.

So how did your career kind of go from there?

So, when I finished my MSc, so I knew I always wanted to be an applied practitioner. I always wanted to, my dream job would've been going straight into exercise psychology then, working in the frontline with people, you know, to help them develop a healthy relationship with exercise. At the time, and it's interesting because I found my notes from a placement presentation I did in my MSc, so I kind of designed my own placement because my MSc was pure sports psychology. So I designed my own placement, working with the GP exercise referral scheme, which is when people are referred by their GPs, people with chronic health conditions or musculoskeletal injuries for exercise at the gym. And actually, I think in that presentation I did, I think I'd recognised through that, that the position of exercise psychologist didn't exist and was so far from being recognised that I'd kind of, I think I wrote something like, psychologist isn't going to be in my title, but I know it is going to be in my role or something. So I was trying to, or even from then, I knew I was going to have to be creative with my career to try and develop something. So I was looking for any kind of practitioner positions. And then what actually happened, I had my eye on this, they were doing this research project at John Moore's developing this healthy lifestyle program for children with obesity and their families. And I knew the research on that and I knew she was going to be recruiting practitioners for it. And I had my eye, I was like, oh, well, my dream next year would be being the psychologist on that program. But then she left her role and the research position came up and my mentors were really encouraging me to apply for it, and I was like, oh, I don't really want to do research, but I kind of thought, oh, I'll do it for a year and see how it goes. So I got that job and as it turned out, even though it was called a researcher, it really was more of a practitioner post. So basically my role then, so this was from like 2005 to, I ended up working in it till 2012. My role then was developing from scratch, a healthy lifestyle program, behavior change program for children with obesity and their families. But there was always that bit of me, I think, that thought, I don't want to be the, I was the researcher and project manager. It was almost felt like I did stuff backwards. So I had a very strategic managerial role, we built the team up, I was managing 20 staff within a few years. So I was mentoring the people, doing this, giving the psychology support and kind of trying to weave a bit in myself now and again. So, yeah, I learned loads during that time, became somewhat of a, I guess I did a lot of conference presentations really in with the field. There were lots of those programs around then. It was when the, at last Labour government were in, and then that's what changed everything actually. I did my PhD during that time because I never had an intention of doing a PhD, but I was employed by the university, so even though we were commissioned by the NHS, the university employed us, so I kind of got sucked into that. Everybody asking all the time and then like, I'm here now, I might as well do it. So I did it through that, through my employment. But then when the government changed, all those programs got decommissioned. And it happened at the same time then that they were recruiting for lecturers and there happened to be a lecturer in exercise and health psychology. Again, not really my intention, but by then I'd kind of got sucked into the actually I can see the value in being in academia. So I then did that for about, well, yeah, no, it was about seven years before I got itchy feet and realised I needed to make a change, and then I was there another 10 years altogether. So I was employed by John Moore's Uni about 20 years altogether, but half of that was as a practitioner, really before I became a true academic for a little period of… accidental academic.

It must have been really frustrating to have that role where you were kind of doing a lot of what you wanted to do as a practitioner, and also working with children where their kind of relationship with exercise gets set, to have that taken away at a moment when, you know, we all know that the obesity crisis was only amplifying. That must have been crushing.

Yeah. It was really, it was during that time, we were very fortunate actually, that I developed a really good relationship with the public health team at the, they were primary care just in those days, and we only had funding year on year, but managed to really convince them that you need to not judge us on the outputs of the change in the children's BMI, the Body Mass Index, in the short term, this is going to take us time to build up this program. You need to trust on these other markers. You need to trust on the other qualitative feedback we're getting. And we are very fortunate that they did. And they worked, we worked collaboratively with them. And it's really interesting, the data from that program actually, it shows that year on year we were improving our outcome results, which really values the, and I think I've written a paper on that actually about, you know, the value of that relationship with the commissioners in actually understanding. Because too much, oh, this is frustrating, too much, you see the cycles go round and round and just from scratch. They want to be innovative, they want to commission a new program. Whereas actually because they invested in us for a long period of time for that kind of program, it really allowed us to reach a point that, but yeah, it is frustrating and it was, it was frustrating because we were having, we had to tender for a position, for the same position we'd been running and it got given to, I remember that tender totally stressing me out, and I don't think I even, yeah, it was just really stressful and I didn't even manage to finish it properly, I think, so I blame myself for not getting it. But it went to the big national program who would've sold something on a plate and it was, and yeah, so it was quite frustrating I think. We'd built up all that work. And it's frustrating when I have the conversations now and you see them back at the same stage. It's, yeah, when you're in it that long, you see them go around the cycles.

That's really sad. I mean, I think on the positive side, I was just thinking as you were talking then about how you really sort of jumped into a role, which had you using the complete skillset of a psychologist, like literally you could be ticking off all of the competencies every single day in that role. I mean, you were even, you know, dealing with commissioning processes and negotiating and using psychoeducation to try and inform outcome measurement. Like, you know, it sounds like you really, although you had to be really creative, you weren't sure if they'd even call you a psychologist at the beginning, actually, you were very much a psychologist. So it sounds like a great role in lots of ways, even if it ended, sadly.

Oh, yeah. No, it was amazing. And we had an amazing team and I learned so much about management and about psychology, behavior change, childhood obesity. Yeah, no, it was brilliant. I totally overworked when I look back and look at my own working practices, but yeah, it was, yeah, because it almost feels like I did do things backwards. I got all that strategic experience, I got all that experience of, you know, I thought that earlier, I often feel a bit of a, well, you know, when I listen to all you guys that have come from clinical psych from the NHS people kind of do the time in the NHS. And I always feel like, well, I haven't really done that, but then I'm like, actually I did kind of work for the NHS for all those years. They were the ones that we were working really closely with them, I might not have been based in an NHS building, but we were a community program that was, you know, we were the childhood obesity management program for Liverpool. So the pediatricians, the GPs were referring to us. So I did really get that understanding. Yeah, no, it's a really valuable background and I think it's taken me a couple of years, you know, when I moved into the private practice and slightly different focus of my work now, to actually recognise the value of all that background. Because in a way, I think my mind kind of dismissed it. Okay. That's not so relevant now, I'm a total beginner now, I'm learning from scratch. But I've really begun to see how even things like the understanding of behavior change is so valuable in the therapy work, and stuff that I perhaps took for granted that I've done all those years through that other work. Just the understanding of some of those processes and working with people. I guess, yeah, I guess when you work with young people and trainees and Masters students and people coming through, you realise, don't you, how much you learn through life experience. So yeah, it was definitely hugely valuable. But on the point actually, yeah, so what I didn't say when I came out of my Masters, there wasn't at that time a training pathway. So we weren't on the HCPC register, I don’t know, did all psychologists join the HCPC in 2009? Or was that just sport and exercise psychology that joined then?

No, I think, I think it was everybody from my recollection, but yes, we used to be chartered with the BPS and then I think everybody moved at the same time, I think. There'll be people listening to this who know, oh, it was a few months different. It was definitely around that time period.

Yeah. Okay. Sorry to put you on the spot with that question. No, but I was, so there wasn't at that time a supervised experience pathway post MSc to get you to that. Well, we had BASES, the British Association for Sport and Exercise Sciences, who is now CASES, the Chartered Association for Sport and Exercise Sciences. They had like a supervised experience pathway that was predominantly the sport focus, you could do the psychology route, but for me it was so unstructured, there were so many hoops I'd need to jump through because I didn't have the sports background that it wasn't really, I didn't really see value in doing that at that time. But there wasn't… so I got my HCPC through the grand parenting route. So I guess every, all psychologists of a certain age would've done, but for how it worked for sport and exercise is we submitted an application. So all that work that I'm talking about, it was called Goals, the program, the Childhood Obesity Program, all that got submitted and they looked at that. But I've always felt somewhat of an imposter because of that, because I haven't been through, you know, you guys would still have been through a clinical psych training pathway, postgraduate training pathway, and I never went through that. Whereas now we have three pathways to HCPC for sport and exercise psychologists, all of which I supervise on. But I can see the value of the training that they get.

Just to reflect, you still feel like an imposter, even though the training programs recognise your expertise and want you to train people?

Yeah. Well, I remember when the BASES one came out, I remember a professor who's been a mentor for me said to me, oh, are you going to supervise on this Paula? And I'd initially said, I'd looked at all the criteria and been like, oh my gosh, I think I need to go on this program, not supervise on it. And I'd kind of said that to her and she'd really encouraged me to go for it. And I think after time I can see, I can see now I can contribute, but I think I'd have struggled if I was still in academia. I think coming out in applied practice myself was really important in that. I'll say I wouldn't, I mean, these are applied practice pathways, so to me it's really crucial that I'm practicing and learning and developing myself as a practitioner in that.

Yeah, I think that makes sense. But I also think, well this is valuable evidence for anybody listening that however much experience you have and however competent you are perceived as by your colleagues, you will always have imposter syndrome. It just happens to everybody. It's a really nice example of that.

It just gets worse really, doesn't it? It's true, the more you know, the more you realise you don't know.

Yeah, exactly. And it's kind of a healthy process. I wouldn't, you know, we talk about imposter syndrome all the time and I see it talked about a lot on social media, particularly as though it's something negative when actually I think it's, it's there for the same reason all of our kind of critical thoughts are there, to try and keep us safe, but also to keep us accountable. And I think so long as it doesn't overwhelm us, it can be kind of a useful thing sometimes, to listen to. But anyway, we digress slightly. I would love to know about how you made the transition. So you did your stint in academia and you said you got kind of itchy feet and decided to branch out, back into the applied space. So tell me a bit about that decision making. What made you want to?

Yeah, I don't… now I loved my role in academia. I mean, I, this is it. I am somebody that finds, I've been very fortunate to find joy throughout my career, but I also think I'm a person that kind of, there's lots of things I enjoy in life and I find… so I loved so much about it. I loved the fact I was researching and teaching a topic that I was so fascinated in. However, a lot of it really frustrated me. I hated the… I was working in a world class department. There was a lot of pressure of, if you're not world class, you're not doing well enough, kind of thing. Didn't like the kind of 24/7 work culture and it was, I found after a while I was getting a bit detached from my purpose. And my purpose, essentially for me, was wanting to help people. The only purpose I see of research in my mind is if it's going to help and inform practice. And I found myself getting a bit sucked into the… they rate publications in academia for the research excellence framework at like two star, three staff, four star, and I found myself getting sucked into what do I need to get an next star publication rather than actually, is this project going to be meaningful for the people I want to help? And I didn't like that and that felt really incongruent. But I also found I was getting… my job had just become very reactive because the work just builds up and up the more you're in it. You just take on more and more and, and I was just, or my whole time was reviewing PhD students work, supervising PhD students, which I enjoy that, but it was always reviewing other people's stuff and I felt I was losing, I'm quite a creative person and an ideas person, there wasn't an opportunity to really have something of your own to really grow it. And yeah, I could just tell I was starting to get a little bit bitter and I didn't like that. But also it had always been, it has always been in my heart, I'd always had this thing when I did my motivational interviewing training, during that time, I always thought, well, one day, one day I'm going to, I'm going to do this as my career and get out and try and… but you always think in your mind ‘one day’ and then you're like, I, I actually, what, I can't remember what prompted me to go for it, but I went for a job with what was Public Health England then. I applied for a job and I was really serious about this application. It was leading the moving medicine program, which is, it was, would've been training health professionals to talk about physical activity. But it was leading it nationally, I think, this job, and I was really serious about this job. I remember flying back early from Self-Determination Theory Conference, which is another one of my favorite things, to come for this interview, and I really enjoyed the interview, the presentation, I came, there were two positions, and I came third and they said, well, the thing that made a difference, they said, really impressed with everything, but because you've been, well, essentially you've been out of practice for a while. It was the thing, you're not as, you are not as fresh on the practical, which was totally fair. But it really brought home to me actually, if I want to actually do something, I need to do it now. I can't sit on this, obviously life is short as well and you just, so from that point, I decided I was going to make a change and I wasn't quite sure what, but my manager then helped me. We decided, I went down to three days a week. My intention was never to be in private practice, but the only way to do what I want to do, because there aren't jobs for exercise psychologists yet, advertise really, was to do it in private practice.

It wasn't, it wasn't that you had a, well, this is interesting actually, because the way that you talk, I feel there's a bit of natural entrepreneur in you. You're definitely an ideas person. You're definitely someone that likes to create and then test and iterate and change things based on outcomes that you've observed. And that's everything that we need to be an entrepreneur. But do you think if there had been jobs available, you would've chosen a job? Or do you think there would've been a part of you that wanted to go independent anyway?

If I'm honest, at the time, I think I would've chosen the job. It's probably all, and because, well even now, potentially, if I saw the perfect job, I'm not averse to being employed. However, I think I'd really struggle. The autonomy needs to be there because you're absolutely right, all those things are really important to me and I do love, I love the private practice now, but at the time, I think had there been, yeah, I'm not so sure now, but actually had there been a job that filled those two days where I'm employed as a psychologist working. Absolutely. And I…

I'm really glad for people to hear that because, you know, I didn't really choose to go into private practice either for very different reasons. But, you know, I know that there are lots of people that feel pushed into it and doubt whether they've got that inner entrepreneur in there somewhere. And actually, you know, hearing that it wasn't, it wouldn't have been your first choice, that it did feel a little bit uncomfortable, but you know, you've got to where you are now, I think that's really helpful for people. And we know, particularly in exercise psychology, you know, there are lots of people having to forge their own path to follow that passion just like you did. So I'm really glad that you've, you know, being honest about that.

Yeah. And it's really weird though. I mean, if I'm really honest, I still feel like I'm kind of playing at it. I don't, I feel like I'm a kid playing shop, and I know it sounds really stupid, but yeah. And it, and it took me a while to, it just doesn't feel real, the fact that I'm running a business now. It took, it was thanks to you and listening to your podcast and the coaching, I don’t know at what stage I made the shift, but I would never have called this a business for my first couple of years. Totally like, really just went into myself at the idea of using the word business. Because to me, I guess because, thinking about this, I guess both my parents worked in the public sector, I guess then, although I was employed by the university who was technically a business, you don't, all the work I was doing, it was all with socioeconomically deprived communities. It was all, I've always been, yeah, kind of grown up in that public sector. And you begin to see, I certainly, I saw the commercial sector as a bad thing, as a, and it, your podcast totally changed that for me. I saw it as a, I felt like a bad person because I was trying to make money that, despite my dad trying to explain to me how no, you are giving back to the system, et cetera, et cetera. But it was sometime before I even would see this as actually a business. I'm now kind of okay with that, but it definitely was thankful to listening to some of your, you know, some of the sessions about ethical marketing and about the notion how, how we can still be altruistic and in private practice because I don't know if it's the same in the NHS, but certainly when I was working, yeah, I don't know, I feel like there's a bit of a bad feel about the private sector, and I can feel that now when I converse with some people I used to know in the council and stuff, and I wonder if you get this impression that, well, if you're charging for it, it's a no. But I used to be like, I can see it's really changed my view to how I approach buying other people's services. Like I used to like do the free version of the app and everything, the minute it asked for money, no way. And, like, there's no way I would've invested what I did on coaching with you right at the beginning. There's no way. I did a couple of years in, because I could really see the value by then, but initially I would've been like, WHAT? No offense. But no, it's totally been worth every penny because I got it by then, and I can see, but yeah, it's been an interesting journey mindset wise, that has.

Yeah, and I think it's one that all of us who have been entrenched in the public sector have to go on. I certainly had to take an accelerated journey, I felt. Because you are right, I think the culture, definitely when I was in the public sector, was really negative towards the private sector and actually it was kind of learning about the economy and how it all works as an ecosystem and if we dropped parts of it, nothing would work, that helped me start to slot myself into the mental health ecosystem in a way that I felt good about, and also kind of recognising all the different models that are out there that we can use to help people in different ways. And I know that you've experimented with a lot of that as well. And yeah, but it is a journey and it's one of the things that makes business hard I think. I'm really passionate about the fact that I think all psychologists already have pretty much all the skills that you need for business. But we almost don't allow ourselves to use them because we've been trained to think that it is a bad thing. And I do think there's some irony, because certainly universities are savvy businesses in lots of ways. But yes, I think activating that part of yourself is really difficult and it, and it was a pleasure to help with that and I'm so, I'm so pleased to hear that the podcast kind of started you thinking in a different way because absolutely, what I'm trying to do a lot of the time.

Yeah, no, it totally did. And I'm like your biggest advocate every, well you probably read in those, the papers I've published, I'm always suggesting it and I'm always suggesting it to trainees, anybody that's going into independent practice, just because it helped me so much in those, just recognising that it's okay, it's okay to be doing this. And yeah, and that was the biggest thing I think. And yeah, the opportunity to feel part of a community with other psychologists who share your values, because that's the other thing. And I guess this still, well, it's still, when I let myself really think about it, it sits a bit uncomfortable with me because I can't help but think the only people that can afford to use my services are people of a certain financial stability, and then I'm like asking myself, well, am I perpetuating the health inequalities? But then I also know that, well, I guess something dawned on me when I think about, you know, Maslow's hierarchy of needs actually, but the, I don’t know, this is maybe further fueling that argument, but the people who are really struggling aren't actually… the type of work I like to do and I really enjoy doing in my therapy with clients is really, I guess it's complex, it's getting to the bottom of things, it's really, I guess it could be perceived a luxury that's more at the top of the Maslow's hierarchy of needs and perhaps, but I've just further fueled my argument that it doesn't sit easy. But I guess my longer term plan, which I think again you helped me with is, and recognising, I guess you give stuff back in other ways, don't you? And starting the YouTube as part of that. But then I guess I'd also hope that one day I can get my working week established enough that I could give a few hours volunteering. And I do do stuff like that. You just don't recognise it the same way if it's not a formal thing. So, as you can hear through my thinking out loudness in this, this still preys on my mind a bit.

Yeah. And I think sometimes it is helpful actually to, you know, once a quarter, or even if you only manage it once a year, to review all the stuff that you've done that has had social impact. So when I was running the CIC, this is something that I would have to do formally, and I found it extremely useful because just as you said, we probably do quite a bit often of pro bono consultancy. Oh, we'll just, you know, do a little bit here and there for people who ask, who can't afford to, to pay. You don't keep a track of it, and that's bad for two reasons. Firstly, sometimes we can overextend ourselves and drive ourselves towards burnout because we're picking up so many little things. Like if I think about the number of, sort of micro interventions that I do kind of at the school gate, it can be a bit draining sometimes when you're like, oh yeah, sure, I'll come and talk about that for a minute. And, you know, you don't necessarily add it up in your mind. But also I think sometimes you can sort of fail to recognise what you do for your community because you don't, you know, you're not tossing up every 20 minute talk that you give for, because somebody at a networking group asked you to come and talk to their dog walkers or whatever. So I think it's really valuable to spend some time formally reflecting on that, but I also think it's really important for all of us that might be working with only people who can afford to pay, to think about the trickle down effect of what we're doing. You know, say you work with somebody who's pretty comfortable, and it's not a critical issue for them, this is about enhancing their life, it's about flourishing. You know, you work with that person, they're then in a better place to bring up their child in a way which gives them a healthy relationship with exercise. Do you see what I mean? You can't always second guess, you know, maybe they're a better boss to somebody who's struggling. All of these things, which it just has such a positive impact on the whole of society. And the other thing, which I always think, you know, we never see or we rarely see, but is super powerful, and if you look for it on a societal level, you do see it. Are, you know, well off people who have a good experience in therapy tend to tell their friends about it. And they tend to say things like, oh, you should definitely give that a try, it's been really helpful. Or d’you you know what? My therapist really changed the way that I feel about exercise, I actually enjoy it now. Those little conversations are what creates the change we want to see in the way that people perceive their mental health and the mind-body connection. So I think I can see it's tempting to underestimate it sometimes, but it's, I think it's really important to recognise that. But also, you know, I can feel public health initiatives in your future, and, you know, we've always got to think about our career path as well, and where what we're doing now may take us in the future if, if that's something that interests us. Could you say a little bit more about what a week in your practice looks like?

Yeah. Okay. So actually, yeah, it's interesting because I can feel myself like, oh no, because I'm a bit scared of doing anything big now because really my goals now, and the part of my reason, yeah, I guess for leaving was really wanting to, we say a healthy work life balance, but I guess wanting to create a less stressful, a calmer week where actually I am, I guess, yeah, it feels selfish saying it doesn’t it, but doing stuff that I want to do, doing the elements that I want to do. So before I left, I actually, when things got too much, which made the decision for me to leave, I think, I actually, you know, when you’ve kind of got to hit rock bottom sometimes, haven't you? And I remember having a weekend where I was just, yeah, I was just in a state, but then I wrote myself this, everything that, what's important to me, values in life, what the academic career was giving me in that. And I realised that it was giving me very little of those things, even though other elements of it I was enjoying. And yeah, so it was really about trying to recreate that space. So, sorry, that's digressing, but it's just because I can feel the, I can feel my emotional response when you suggest, oh, one day public health initiatives, because now… And I remember having this conversation with you as my coach saying, I feel actually a bit guilty that actually, I think what I, I just, my main objective, my main priority is doing therapy and developing as a psychologist and a one-to-one practitioner. Because I've also almost gone backwards and actually the fear around big things and big responsibility for others now is, but that's because I love the one-to-one work so much. So what I'm actually doing, so my week at the moment, my main priority is developing my private practice with, which is one-to-one therapy for, I practice mainly from a CBT perspective, very influenced by self-determination, theory needs, supportive counseling. We could get in a whole nother debate about CBT, but I don't think we're going to have time today, but I really value it for what I'm doing and I've been doing a lot of my own development CPD in that area as well. But I work primarily with clients in the weight management disordered eating space, actually. We find that, partly because that's where my background is and I found that intuitively my training has kind of led me there as well as I've seen what's coming up with my clients and then gone and done more training and working with eating disordered with non underweight clients. But I primarily have tight kind of two client groups. One group are those who are living with obesity and the work is perhaps more health behavior change, more, I guess. bespoke iterative, CBT health behavior change. Yo-yo dieted all their lives, recognising there's a psychological underpinning, want to learn how to do it sustainably. Really challenging work actually with that particular group as well, because they actually also could do with losing some weight for their health as well. The other group, I say the other group, there's a lot of similarities between these groups, but the other group that I find are coming forward are, I guess, subclinical disordered eating. So often bulimics, bulimic symptoms, binge eating disorder symptoms, but probably a healthy to mild overweight BMI. Obviously it isn't determined by their BMI, but I find that yeah, they will, they might come forward for the same reason, and this is something that I'm learning to navigate as well. So they might also come forward for sustainable weight loss, but I can see pretty quickly that actually we are looking at disordered eating here. We need to treat the eating problem first. Then if they still have a desire to lose a little bit of weight, I might support them to do that in a healthy way so we're not undoing the good weight we've done. There's varying levels of insight into that disordered eating. So that can be quite challenging, and it's really important the way I navigate that in those initial discovery chats and managing expectations. But, so in terms of the exercise, the exercise can be really varied individual to individual, I find. Obviously that disordered eating group, I do work quite a bit with exercise, when exercise becomes obsessive and over exercising. The other group, it's really varied actually. Some people really enjoy exercise, exercise isn't an issue at all. Others, it's more that helping them get into a routine, helping them find something they enjoy. But I probably do far less of that, even though that's the thing, if I go back to my career that got me into this, I spend, definitely spend more of my time now, encouraging people to do less exercise and be kind to themselves and eat more, to put things very crudely, than I do the other way round.

Yeah. It's so interesting, isn't it? And I'm guessing that societal shifts and, you know, trends in how people are thinking about their bodies have a huge impact on what will come through your door. And, you know, I suppose I'm wondering, because we are talking about this group who do have money, about what the impact over the next decade is going to be of the weight loss injections that are available to people now.

Yeah, no, that's interesting as well because it's… So, sorry to finish off my week then so, I've got my private practice. I'm also an associate with a company called the Health Matters Group. And it was an absolute game changer to me, that, because the biggest challenge I face is because people don't know people like me exist often. If people are really struggling with their weight or their exercise or they're eating, they don't instantly think, oh, I’ll see a psychologist. They may spend, they've spent so much money over the years on, you know, different weight loss. It may be medication, it may, some people have tried everything by the time they get to me. They may have spent loads of money on personal trainers, but personal trainers aren't the right people to support the problem that they have. So recruitment has been the biggest thing for me. So, it's Weight Matters, part of the Health Matters group. That position for me really made a huge difference at the time because they were bringing me referrals. I was finding, I was, again, following your advice, Rosie, for my ideal, my profile page and my persona, my other associates were saying, why is everyone asking for you? And I'm sure it's because I followed your advice on really thinking about doing that profile page and my ideal client because I'd have a lot of clients coming and saying that really spoke to me, what you said. The reason I brought that up then is they've gone really quiet now and for the first time, so this is okay for me, because for the first time I have more clients in my private practice than my associate practice. And this is obviously the way I'm trying to build my business. The associate does have a place for me in the week, because what it gives me as well is worth saying is it, it gives you that sense of being part of a team, and working with psychotherapists, health psychologists and that's so valuable for me. People with that multidisciplinary working, we've got nutritionists, dieticians, and it's a really well managed organisation, so we are made to feel valued. They give us training, they give us supervision. So that to me is all worth the cut of the, the quite large cut of the fee they take. So that's the bulk of my week. The other things I do in the week, I supervise trainees who are in that, on that post MSc pathway and I review on that pathway and what else do I… oh, and I've recently started the YouTube channel as well.

Oh yes. Very important to mention the YouTube channel. Can you say a little bit about the purpose of the YouTube from your point of view? Because I know that you were not comfortable, to put it mildly, at the beginning of that journey, but it has a real purpose for you that's driven you through that discomfort. So can you say a bit about the meaning of it for you?

Yeah. Well, I think I'd always had in my mind as I'd quite like to do that, and again, it was listening to your podcast, I'm really bad, I can't remember her name, but who does the Generation Calm talking about YouTube, that gave me the confidence to start it. And I remember us talking about it in coaching, but for me it was wanting to, it is part of my marketing strategy, I guess is one of the key things because I know everything I do at the moment needs to be part of my marketing strategy because I'm still building up my business and I need to get those clients in. But it's really about that opportunity to raise awareness about what I do, give people an opportunity to get to know me, because, and again, I draw parallels in my experience with you on this, it takes people a lot of time to think about before reaching out to work with me, certainly with what I do, it's not something that they'll just decide and they're going to do the next day. So that middle bit of that kind of sales funnel when you talk about, well, the top two bits, the raising awareness and then the getting to know me, that's what prompted me to actually do it, but really for me, the essence is wanting to give something back as well for those people that are never going to afford therapy and that actually get some things that I've seen be so helpful when I work with my own clients on, get some of that out there as well. And particularly I've worked with somebody on exercise anxiety, where the exercise itself was bringing on the anxiety for them and they said, well, when I Google this, there's nothing out there, all I get is exercise is really good for anxiety, which obviously totally puts people off. So I was wanting to really, I guess put some credible content out there that is genuinely going to help people. But I have to keep checking in with that purpose because once you start YouTube, you get very sucked into all the advice and the analytics, and I'm surprised how much it, yeah, it excites me and I really do enjoy it because I am a creative person and I always did used to want to be a TV presenter, so I am kind of making myself a TV presenter by default. But yeah, I could talk lots about that. So maybe I won't talk and you can just ask if there's anything you want to know in particular about it.

Well, I think you're so right that it's really easy to get sucked into algorithm pleasing, creating what a platform will, you know, push out more to people. But it is so important to always create stuff that we're proud of. And that's something that really strikes me with you, that you've really put a lot of thought in, in all of your roles, but you know, particularly it shines through on the YouTube channel that you've really thought about what is going to be useful to people, what do I want them to know? And then you, you look for ways to make that work on YouTube, and I think that's a really good example for people to follow, that you decide what are the core messages that you want to send and put out in the world, and then we work out how do we make it fit for a platform. The platform can't come first.

And it's so, yeah, it's so interesting, I've learned so much, but I've surprised myself how much I've enjoyed learning about YouTube because I knew very little about it. There was one person I followed who, I do Brazilian Jiujitsu and I loved, I would Google, he'd answered my questions on YouTube, so I kind of watched that and that's the basis of what I was thinking for, for this. And then I did a bit of research before I set it up. But you can't ignore, you do have to learn a bit about it because you can't ignore it because I need my videos to be able to reach those people. So if I ignore the advice about actually how to, you know, writing your titles, doing your thumbnails, doing, it's never going to reach those people. So it's a real balance, but really like checking in with yourself, I think you need to be able to, when you're listening to those tutorials, remember I need to remember that my purpose is different and where I'm going to go with it is different. I can't pretend that I haven't thought about, oh, one day maybe I could get monetised, but when I work it out, it'll be about 10 years. But that's okay. I'm starting to think retirement plan actually, like genuine, like as long as I keep enjoying it and I've still got ideas, I will keep doing it. So I've set up, I'm only publishing once every three weeks, but I know I can stick to that. And I'm, and it's been really good for my perfectionism because I cannot be a perfectionist about this else I won't stick to it. And I've got written on my whiteboard progress, not perfection. It just has to be good enough and it feels cringey, and the first few you put out, you definitely think, oh, well what if, you know, what would other psychologists think of it if they saw it and stuff, but then you realise, by now I realise I've only got nine videos now, but I realise psychologists don't have time to watch my videos or care what's in them. And again, it's also trusting myself.

Or if they do, then it's because they are getting something valuable from it. So, you know, I think that's a really difficult perspective shift to make and it still trips me up. I've got a Substack post scheduled for tomorrow that I keep thinking about and wanting to unschedule because it's not perfect and I'd like to spend longer researching and dotting every i and crossing every t, but you kind of get used to having to move through that feeling. And I think, you've, you know, you've done a wonderful job of that and it's been so interesting to hear about how, even though at every stage you've been a bit anxious, you've had this, you know, amazing career so far, which has, you know, made a lot of impact for a loss of people. So, I mean, thank you so much for coming on to talk to us, Paula, it's such an interesting journey and I really, I hope that some people that are on the precipice and, and worrying about whether they can carve out a specialism for themselves that maybe isn't the most well known at the moment, will feel a little bit more confident having heard you talk about it.

Yeah. No, I hope so as well. And I know, well, I would share, you know, I said to you, I felt a bit of an imposter coming on here because I thought, oh, well, I'm not, I've not succeeded yet. I don’t know the answers yet. But then I thought to myself, well hang on a second, when I'm thinking of success, by that, I just mean I'm not earning loads of money yet. But that's not what it's about. If I think about my goals and my purpose, I am definitely achieving a much more… that's been a mindset shift, but a calmer week. I'm enjoying my week. I love getting, I love my work I do. I'm developing as a practitioner, as a person, and actually I'm learning loads and I'm loving it and enjoying it, and, yeah, it's also, so I hope it is helpful to people because I also think it's likely to be more relevant when you are kind of in the thick of it and a small business essentially, because not everybody, and that's okay. Actually, I think it was Sally in one of her newsletters, you know the lady about the fees?

Sally Farrant, our pricing queen, the accountant that tells us how to price ourselves without the emotion getting in the way.

Yeah, well that was the other massive learning curve, so I can definitely recommend if anyone hasn't listened to that, listen to it. I doubled all my fees instantly and everything, and actually it had the reverse effect. It didn't send people away, it definitely brought more people. And I think I, yeah, I made so many mistakes with that at the beginning, but, yeah, I'm learning so much and that's what I really enjoy about the journey.

Yeah, and I think it is always important to really think at the beginning, you know, all of my coaching programs start with values, and in that I'm really trying to get people to think about why they're doing this and what success would mean for them. Because in most business courses I've done and every marketing course I've done, It's assumed that you want growth, growth, growth, growth, and that there is no ceiling on what you want to earn. And for many of us in independent practice, we are actually going into it for a reason that means we don't really want growth at all costs. You know, if I wanted to, I could grow Psychology Business School, I could move into the States, I could move into Australia, I could make it a much bigger thing and I would make more money. But that isn't what I want for this business. There's an amount that I need to earn, but beyond that, I'm not particularly interested, because what I actually want to do is follow my interests, make a difference, and have flexibility for my family, and I'd have to sacrifice some of those, in order to grow beyond a certain point. So it's not that I'm not ambitious, it's just that I've spent time on what I actually value and pursuing that rather than the idea of just pursuing more and more and more revenue, which is what I think most courses I've come across encourage. So it's really great to hear you reflecting on that because I think it's so important.

And growth and ambition means different things to different people, doesn't it? Because I'd absolutely say that about myself as well. I'm definitely not, not ambitious, but ambition looks different from how people might assume it looks on the outside. And I think, I did, I wrote down three things because I was thinking about what were the key three things I've learned from, yeah, again, a lot of it from you and the podcast and the business school, but what first one was like knowing your why and not losing touch with that. Second, knowing your value as in I did way too much for free to start with, and particularly coming from full-time employment, because full-time employment, you feel like you're working for free all the time, but you forget you're getting a salary at the end of the month. So it was such a mindset shift. I made some stupid mistakes. I remember giving somebody an hourly rate for a case management company, they came back to me going, uh, are you sure? Psychologists normally charge… like, I think I'd said £25 an hour or something. They're like, psychologists normally charge… but I was just, so I'd just kind of taken my salary from before, divided it by all the hours in the week and said, that's fine. I did then say, oh actually then I will have the 80. You know. And then the third one then, just worth mentioning because we have, is knowing my priorities. And I do remember, I don’t know if you remember Rosie, but there was one coaching session where I came with all my, what I thought I'd put down as my objectives. And it was a whole sheet that had like all these mind maps and things all over the place. And you were like, mmm, there's quite a lot of objectives there. And I realised that once I made the decision that my main priority is developing as a one-to-one therapist, and that's the work that we, and that's okay, and not being apologetic about that, it then allows me, really helps me to know what to say yes and no to, and to manage my workload and to trust that you can create opportunities where you want them, but trust that they're going to come. So they've all been really important to me. So, and having confidence and trusting in all those three things.

Oh, thank you for sharing those. I think that's really helpful for people to reflect on for their journey as well. So I'm going to put the link to your website and your YouTube in the show notes. Are those the best places for people to connect with you, or is there anywhere else that people can follow you?

Yeah, probably to connect with me, either email me, which is on my website, or you can find me on LinkedIn. I don't post much in LinkedIn, but I do respond to messages. I post intermittently. And the other thing just to say actually about the YouTube, I hope that the YouTube can also be helpful to other professionals, but you know, if you've got a client that you're not working, it's not the main thing you're working with them on, for instance, but say weight comes up, weight is an issue for so many people. Like I've got videos on there, how to lose weight healthily and sustainably, and you know, homework tasks or things to signpost them to, I hope that they might also be helpful for other professionals from that perspective. So.

Oh, definitely. You know, working in perinatal, it's a topic that comes up a lot. And so I think having somewhere safe to send people to so that they can watch content that you know is psychological and not going to, you know, have any messages that we wouldn't fully endorse, I think is really helpful. So I'm sure a lot of people will find it a very useful resource. So thank you so much for coming on today, Paula, I really appreciate it.

Thank you for having me, Rosie. It's been fun. Thanks.