Today I’m going to be sharing with you my own story of how I made my way here in my life, what lessons I’ve learned, and what I’m working on now so that I can continue to enjoy my days and craft the life of my dreams. I created Live an Intentional Life because I want to share all my knowledge as a former neuropsychologist and all my life experience, and I thought that by sharing my experiences with you, you can get some takeaways that you can implement in your own life, and maybe I can show you what’s possible too.

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My Personal Story

So I’m going to tell you a little bit about my life now, and then I’m going to share how I got here and some lessons I’m learning at the moment. So my name is Natalie Barre, and at the moment I have two careers, I’m a time management coach with this business, and I’m also a graphic designer with a wedding invitations business. I also have five children, the two older boys are my step-kids, the two younger boys are my kids from a previous marriage, and my new little baby girl is 8 months old at the time of recording this, and so I’m really coming out of maternity leave and really only working a few hours per week. I have a fantastic fiance named Evan and he works from home, so we really share the load. So, I’m in a slow season now, where I’m focusing on my family and home life, and then next year I’ll be working more and more.

Now it wasn’t always like this, I’ve been through a lot of change and upheaval, and I’ve also spent a lot of my life not exactly doing what I wanted to be doing, so let me take you back to the start and tell you more about who I am and how I got here.

When I was younger, I was always a shy kid, and I found it really hard to speak up for myself. I was bullied a lot, and I really learned that speaking up was an invitation to get picked on, so the idea of going against the grain, or dreaming big and potentially looking silly, or doing anything that revealed that I was smart, felt very exposing. So, I avoided a lot, I played it safe, and I learned to be invisible. The other part of me was hugely creative, I taught my classroom friends origami in Grade 2, in Grade 4 I won a national drawing competition, and I even used to design my own dream houses and draw up the plans on paper! By high school I was excelling in all the art classes and drawing in my spare time. I didn’t really understand it at the time, but art and creativity wasn’t valued in my environment. I was also really smart, and I did well in science subjects, and my Dad and my teachers were really pushing me to do something scientific, and even though I desperately wanted to be an architect or an interior designer, I was suggested careers like a pharmacist. We didn’t really have the internet back then, and so it was actually really hard to see what was out there as an option. Now, for some reason unknown to me, I also had a big dream of flying planes. I had a flying lesson for my 16th birthday, and I really wanted to keep flying, but it seemed too big a dream, and my careers counsellor at school actually laughed at me, in my mind reinforcing the idea that big dreams just weren’t possible.

So needless to say, at the end of year 12 I was so confused. I was told that because I didn’t realise I had to have been working on a portfolio in order to apply for any artistic or design courses, I couldn’t do that, and I remember feeling shattered in that moment, and again, I just resigned myself to assuming that that was true. I never fought back or explored it anymore, and so I applied to the University of Melbourne and tried to find something to do with science. Neuroscience sounded interesting, and so I ended up taking Psychology as a major so that I could do neuroscience subjects. This all sounded like a very sensible career, and so off I went! I really really loved doing all this psychology study an research, but I always felt like a square peg in a round hole. I would often find myself looking for an out, or an alternative, or some way to include something creative in my life, like making jewellery or drawing. I remember sitting on the train one day going into uni like I always did, during my PhD, and writing a list on a blank piece of paper of all the creative careers I could pursue. Jewellery making, interior design, creating wedding invitations, but I told myself, just finish the degree, you can’t quit.

Becoming a Neuropsychologist

So I went into this career of neuropsychology being a good little girl. Being a good student, studying hard, learning all the information, and not really having the courage to alter anything. And I think the assumption is always that you have stick it out, right, if you study at uni for 10 years and get 4 degrees, you obviously can’t change careers. So I became a neuropsychologist and worked with patients in a hospital setting for about 10 years. Now, one of the themes throughout my career and even during my studies, was that I really loved teaching as well. I was a tutor at Uni, I taught students and supervised junior staff at the hospital, and I even had one of my teachers at high school comment that I would make a good teacher. I always imagined that I’d become a university lecturer at some point in my neuropsychology career too. I think teaching is how I like to give back and also build connection with people.

So, again I really did love working as a neuropsychologist, teaching students, seeing patients, solving diagnostic problems, helping with rehabilitation; so even though it didn’t feel like my soul’s work, I continued doing it, and I balanced it well with having a little family and then deciding to create wedding invitations on the side, as my creative outlet.

And this was all working pretty well for me, having my professional career, doing design, and raising my two little babies. Until my marriage ended.

Life Took an Unexpected Turn

And everything changed. Everything. I had spent my life doing all the things that I was supposed to do – go to school, find a boyfriend, go to uni, get a job, buy a house, get married, have kids, and I even got my dream position as a neuropsychologist in an excellent clinic, and then all of a sudden, I could see literally nothing in my future. There had always been something next on the ladder. And now there was nothing. I felt very empty, and I didn’t really know what to do with myself.

All this was happening while I had to look after the kids full time, and still continue my job, and pay the mortgage. I tredded water for about a year, and during that time I found Brene Brown and an Australian named Kim Newing (or Mama Goddess) who had meditations online, and both of those women really opened up my eyes to different aspects of personal development, and they kinda kept me going. Their content taught me about resilience and optimism, and I held onto that. I spent a lot of time grieving the expectations that my life was going to go a certain way. And then in early 2018, about 9 months after my breakup, I was in Target in the book section looking for a present for my niece, and a bright yellow book caught my eye, it was Your Dream Life Starts Here by Kristina Karlsson, the founder of Kikki K. After reading the title I thought yep! I think I need that, and that book actually set me on a course to finding new things in life and deciding what it is I actually want to do in the first place. I spent about a year going through the questions in the book and basically rebuilding my goals in life and what I wanted my lifestyle to look like.

Sliding Doors

So in 2019, and I had come to the biggest crossroads in my life because I couldn’t really afford the mortgage by myself anymore. I could either continue white-knuckling through the week and burning the candle at both ends, increase my work days from 4 days to full time, hardly see the kids, and have no time for myself, and just barely afford the mortgage so that I could keep the house we’d built as our forever home; or, I could stay working 4 days per week, spend more precious time with my kids, and sell the house that I never thought I’d lose. I had to choose the latter. But it was only through a lot of self reflection and journaling that I had the courage to do that. The choice might have seemed easy for some, because a house is just bricks and mortar, but there was something about loosening my grip on the certainty of my house and stepping into an unknown situation by myself that just felt really hard. It felt like a lot of loss.

This new phase of my life brought about so many scary uncertain things, like where do I live, do I rent or buy, how am I going to be a single parent, do I date again for the first time in 15 years, weird stuff like do I even like myself, and this sort of forced “diving into the unknown” made me be courageous; and again I could only do all this by doing the internal work – deciding on my dreams and values, watching my thoughts and feelings, learning about habits and achieving goals, and other things like understanding true facts versus my beliefs which are optional.

I was learning all this personal development and self-care content on the internet and in books, all while I was working with patients in the hospital using my expertise in cognition and brain function. And much of what I knew about the brain helped me to understand and get better at personal development, so the two really went very together very well. I used all of these skills in personal development and applied them to my life so I could improve my situation and enjoy my life more, and recover from the upheaval and stress of the previous few years.

Rebuilding My Life’s Dreams

So over the last few years, I have never stopped taking a look at what I really want, how to get there, and working on the courage to take risks and make it happen. In 2021 I asked for 12 months off my neuropsychology position, so at the start of 2022 I worked only in my wedding invitations business called A Tactile Perception, and I absolutely loved it. I knew I also wanted to use my design skills to create a yearly planner, and so I sat on this planner idea for a while while I was running my wedding invitations business, and thought that I could also design productivity and personal development workbooks, and use those teaching skills to teach people how to use their cognition to be more productive. I thought this would be fun to do on the side, and this is how Live an Intentional Life was born. I started this towards the end of 2022, and then I formally resigned from neuropsychology at the end of 2022. By then I was really immersed in the entrepreneurship and small business world, and that has taken more courage and self-belief than anything else I’ve ever done. It has absolutely come with challenges, I’ve had a lot of low points like being told that it’s harder to start a business when you’re an introvert, I’ve been told that I have nothing of value to offer (which is another story for another day), and so it really has taken a lot of internal work to forge ahead and follow my dreams. I’ve had to re-examine what I learned as a child about being quiet, about being invisible, about not being good enough, and I’ve done that because my life’s dreams lie on the other side of that. And because I have 5 kids now and a partner and friends and all the other demands of life, I have really enjoyed using what I know about the brain to structure my days and weeks really productively without burning out, so that I can achieve my goals. And so this really is the crux of what I offer to you in Live An Intentional Life. And of course this business has now grown into offering an online time management course, and now a podcast!

How we Spend our Time

So for me, I’m really intrigued by this quote by Annie Dillard in her book The Writing Life, which goes…“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order—willed, faked, and so brought into being; it is peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living.” Endquote.

And so here is such an important point – that how we spend our days is what we end up doing in our lives, which makes our goal setting and time management day-to-day, of the upmost importance.

So here I am now, running two businesses and a big family, and still finding time for me and my fiance and for a social life. Things for me on a personal development front are a work in progress of course, but there are things I’m working on at the moment which I thought I’d share with you here, these are things I’ve learned or things I’m still working on as part of the huge changes I’ve been through in my life.

Four Life Lessons

The first thing I’m more aware of is that being an introvert or a perfectionist and following the rules doesn’t make me somehow worse than others, and I’m working on accepting myself more. I’m very self-critical, and so even though it might seem like a good thing to be virtuous and try to do things right, I’ve really been bullied a lot for that as a kid, and so I have to unlearn that. I actually think that I’m still discovering who I am and coming to terms with the fact that this person is loveable and worthy, and can be seen. I’ve been reading quite a bit about personality lately, and so these parts of myself are on my mind as an area to take a closer look at in my personal development.

Next, being confident comes after taking action, not before. I was never a confident person, and I don’t see myself as a confident person now, but I can kinda bypass that by understanding that I just need a vision and to be brave, and then take action. I’ve realised that people just do whatever they want, others aren’t different or special, if someone else can build a business or follow their dreams or speak on stage, or change their careers, then I can too. There aren’t life police coming to put me back in my place and tell me what I should be doing. Thinking things like “who do you think you are” just keep you playing small and unfulfilled. Of I course I want to say that this comes from a position of privilege and not everyone in the world has the same opportunity. But I think part of what holds us back is believing that we just “can’t” for no specific reason, so bringing awareness to that belief is a really important step.

The next lesson I’ve learnt is to enjoy the journey, because there is no destination. I was just going through life hitting all the milestones, until there was no more left to hit. I kept achieving things to feel worthy, when there are just more and more and more things. I learned to really rely on praise and feeling good about my accomplishments, and I do really like to feel accomplished, but I am learning that I have to do things that I enjoy regardless of the outcome. I’m not here to please others, I am here to enjoy myself, define success in my own way, and try my best which includes making a heap of mistakes along the way.

And the last lesson that I want to mention is that I’m learning to practice being, not doing all the time. This is related to the previous point where I feel like I used to constantly keep striving for the next thing, and that resting felt selfish or somehow bad. But doing nothing, resting, relaxing, spending time doing things that are unproductive or just enjoyable for the sake of it are absolutely crucial to mental wellbeing, to longevity and a sustainable lifestyle, and to a happy life. I realised in 2022 that I didn’t really know what to “do” when I’m not doing anything. How do I do nothing? How can I prioritise relaxation, and what do I like to do when I have free time? My word of the year this year is presence, because this is the year that my last child will be a baby, and I’ll never get this year back, so simply being with my family is something that I’m taking time to do every day. This is why I’m so passionate about time management – the days are long but the years are short, and if we can get the most out of our day without stress, the we can live a life that is meaningful to us.

Looking Forward

So that’s what has come to mind when thinking about major lessons that I’m learning, and we all focus on different things at different times this is just what I’m working on at this period of transition in my life. In my next life season I’ll be focusing on something different I’m sure, but I think it shows you why thought work is so important and something that you have to continue for your whole life as an important part of wellbeing. It’s like working out, we can’t stop working on keeping our bodies fit and healthy, just like we shouldn’t stop or avoid working on our minds. I was watching the Netflix documentary called Mission Joy the other day, which focuses on the relationship between the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and in that they talk about the science of meditation. They said that if everyone meditated 5 minutes per day, the world would be a happier and healthier place. And I agree. In this podcast I want to bring you not just self care science and how to live more intentionally, but I want to show you how your cognition works, so that you can understand what works and what doesn’t work when trying to live your life to the fullest.

I have a quote that I like to end every episode on, and it’s something that I keep coming back to when I have made every decision in my life – and there has been a lot of big ones over the last 8 or so years. The quote is by Mary Oliver, and it goes “tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode, and I’ll see you next time.

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