About Balanced Life Coaching
Empowering you to achieve balance.
Learn more about our approach
Hi, I'm Kirsty
You deserve a life that feels good on the inside not just one that looks good on paper.
I help driven professionals reclaim their energy, purpose, and well-being, because I know what it means to feel completely off course and to fight your way back.
With over a decade in senior leadership, opening and running 40 venues across the UK, I looked like someone who had it all together. But the truth was far more complex. Behind the title, I was battling addiction, burnout, and the long term impact of living life out of alignment.
I’ve walked the long road of recovery, reinvention, and rediscovery and I’ve come out the other side with the tools, perspective, and unwavering belief that lasting transformation is possible.
Today, as a certified coach with deep expertise in human behaviour, wellness, and leadership, I help others create lives they don’t need to escape from grounded in health, purpose, and true balance.
This is my story.
And it’s why I do what I do...
My Journey to Balance
I hated being a child.
From as early as seven years old, all I could think about was my future as an adult. I grew up in a privileged home with parents who fully embraced the late 70s and early 80s style of parenting: “Go play outside. Don’t bother us. We have guests.” That was my childhood.
I longed for independence. For control over my own life.
Being dyslexic and struggling to fit in at school added to a deep feeling of not belonging. I didn’t form real friendships until I was sixteen by which time I’d already started rebelling. Drinking, smoking, throwing parties... I’d found the secret to being liked: be the fun one.
Partying became my identity, and I lived for nights out with friends and my sister, Tam.
In 1991, I left South Africa to travel the world chasing adventure, culture, and freedom. I worked a season in Greece, then lived on a Moshav in Israel. But those years also left their mark. I experienced events that deeply affected me, and to cope, I numbed myself with alcohol and drugs. I drifted through Egypt for six weeks, disconnected from myself and taking risks that could have ended very badly.
When I returned to London, things didn’t improve. My drinking escalated, and I gained nearly 20kg within a year.
So why am I sharing this?
Because this was the beginning of my unravelling and the foundation for the work I now do.
Behind the Success
Back in the UK, I threw myself into work. I built a career in hospitality, married and divorced before 30, and became Operations Director for a national restaurant chain. I opened 40 bars and restaurants and was constantly “on”.
To the outside world, I looked successful. But behind the scenes, I was unravelling.
My addiction deepened, and eventually, I attempted to take my own life for the third time. By the grace of God, I was found in time.
An intervention led me to rehab. Afterwards, I entered long-term treatment in South Africa. I returned to London to start fresh but relapsed again.
I faced heartbreak, betrayal, failing health, and crippling anxiety. The coping strategies I relied on stopped working. I felt completely lost.
That’s when my sisters stepped in. They convinced me to move back to South Africa.
After 19 years abroad and another two years of struggle, I got clean.
It was the hardest thing I have ever done.
From Recovery to Reinvention
The first three years of recovery were brutal. I had no idea who I was without my old life and habits. I felt alone, abandoned, and raw.
But I stayed clean. And over time, the fog began to lift.
That’s when the real transformation began.
I immersed myself in personal growth. I read, studied, found mentors, and slowly rebuilt my life from the inside out. I became fascinated with how the mind and body work together, how real health isn’t about appearance or status, but how you feel and function on a daily basis.
I shifted my career too, moving away from operations and into marketing and leadership development. I fell in love with what it means to lead from within and to help others do the same.
The journey wasn’t linear. There were still doubts and setbacks. But I stayed with it.
And that determination that belief that change is always possible is what forms the heart of my coaching today.
Why I Coach
Today, I work with high-achieving professionals who feel stuck in a cycle of stress, burnout, or unhealthy coping mechanisms. People who, like I once did, appear to have it all together but know something isn’t quite right underneath.
Together, we build a lifestyle that’s sustainable. One that nurtures both your ambitions and your well-being.
Because it’s not about simply surviving the week.
It’s about thriving with clarity, energy, and peace of mind.
If my journey helps even one person step into their own transformation, then every part of it has been worth it.
My sisters, Tam and Nikki