My Mission In Life

Today is my birthday.

Every year on my birthday, there are 3 things I love to do.

1. Spend time with the people I cherish

2. Do something that I love doing

3. Reflect on the year that’s been, and get excited about what I will accomplish in the year to come

This year it is no different. Today I get to spend time with my beautiful partner and my family, and I get to go to work! Now, don’t get me wrong, this isn’t sarcasm. I GENUINELY am looking forward to a day doing the one thing I love, which is to educate, treat and inspire people to make changes to their lives through better nutrition.

Now, as I sit here grinning from ear to ear thinking about all the wonderful things that have happened in the past year, and all the beautiful people I have met along the way, I had a light bulb moment. I have realised what my mission in life is (yes, it sounds corny, but who cares…it’s my birthday).

So you already know that I love to educate, inspire and treat people. So, my mission in life?

It is to EDUCATE, INSPIRE AND TREAT MYSELF OUT OF A JOB.

Yes. You read that right. But do let me explain.

Ever since I became a dietitian, I wanted to actually make a difference. This is the very reason why I was so unhappy to just plod along in the hospital system, and why I felt the need to create a platform where I could actually make a difference.

I’ve always been one to search for answers, and one to look for new information. Learning became a passion of mine, as I noticed the more I learnt, the more I was able to help my clients. Through the process of learning, I have realised that I have needed to increasingly challenge what I already know. I have had to re-learn a lot of things, and accept that science, especially nutritional science is fast progressing and ever evolving. I knew that I had to keep my mind open to new information because I believe that the day I stop being open to new information will be the day I stop progressing as a clinician.

As I learn more and put more pieces of the complex puzzle that is the human body and metabolism together, the more I am convinced that there has been so much the world has been misinformed about. What perplexes me is the fact that the science isn’t new or ground breaking – it’s the same old stuff we all learned about back at Uni – but somehow, between the lecture theatre and the real world, a lot of the science was forgotten (or just got hidden) behind a world of guidelines and legislations.

My mission is to put everything I have learnt (and will be learning) into turning people’s lives around. I don’t want to regurgitate old guidelines. I don’t want to lead people down a garden path – one that is safe, but is not revolutionary nor life-changing.

I want to stop diabetes from developing, by catching it even before it becomes “pre-diabetes”. I want to help my clients successfully lose weight in a sustainable way when weight loss has been something they have tried and failed time and time again. I want to use diet to help clients improve their moods, their gut health and disease state. I want to do so much more than just “manage” patients. I want to educate them. I want to inspire them. I want to TREAT them.

The exciting part of all of this is the fact that everything I WANT to do is already starting to happen. I AM “catching” diabetes before it becomes diabetes; I AM helping people lose weight and keep the weight off without them having to starve themselves; I AM lifting people’s moods and improving their gut health; I AM turning peoples’ lives around.

Whether this is because I am applying the science as the science was intended to be applied; whether this is because I have opened my mind to learn, re-learn and accept new information; whether this is because my passion for what I do has been infectious enough – the fact is, I am making a difference and this makes me excited.

As I say goodbye to clients after discharging them, I feel a sense of fulfilment. I hope I never have to see them again. I hope that I can start discharging more and more clients – to the point where I no longer have a job.

But by then, I will have more than just a job I love. I will have a dream fulfilled.

So there you have it.

That is my mission in life.

To educate, inspire and treat myself out of a job, and into a dream fulfilled.