Georgie, 44 from Manchester, invites us into her world of practical personal growth, healing and self-improvement.
From many challenges throughout her life, Georgie’s story is a testament to resilience and continuous passion driving her to help others achieve their desires. She shares her experiences and the evolution of her SHIFT Life Transformation System™ and her mission to guide women to build confidence, recognise their capabilities and channel their strength into creating lives they love.
Tell us a bit about yourself, background and your current role:
I’m Georgie Shears, I’m 44, and a Life Design Strategist based in Manchester.
I’ve gone from a girl who never felt good enough, to a down-to-earth, ever-evolving, confident business owner who wholeheartedly believes in women’s transformative growth.
I grew up with my Mum and brother. I was deeply loved and cared for, surrounded by good friends and a supportive family. And yet, I never, ever felt good enough. My parents split when I was one. As far as I knew my dad was a decent bloke. Still, the many Sunday mornings, sitting in the living room with my coat and shoes on, looking out of the window waiting to be picked up, only to realise he wasn’t coming, taught me I wasn’t good or important enough.
I always felt like the outsider looking in. Despite having close friends at school, I always felt on the periphery of the group, forever going along with the crowd and being the girl I thought others wanted me to be.
As I grew older, I learned to mask my insecurities. I was the life and soul of the party, always so much fun, a great laugh. I was having a ball. But, away from the dance floor, I was struggling with depression and was put on medication in my early teens.
After college, with no real direction, I fell into various jobs, eventually landing in marketing via a stint in sales. My career followed a specific pattern, great people, dull work. I loved the people, the camaraderie, I was great with it, if I felt able to help someone, I was happy. But for the most part, I felt totally unfulfilled. Disconnected.
Amid this came the end of a once-happy relationship that turned sour, with intense panic attacks consuming me for years. This eventually led to my brave decision to walk away from everything I owned, with just a car boot full of my belongings and culminating in a £50k bankruptcy court order.
New start, new relationship. After my daughter made her wonderful, everything I ever wanted, grand entrance, I knew I needed more. I didn’t want to leave her to go back to work in a job that meant nothing to me other than earning a living.
I had always trained. Always loved it. Moving my body was one of the healthier ways I coped with anxiety. So, instead of going back to the office, I decided to follow my passion and hit the gym, this time as a Personal Trainer.
The first incarnation of the new me was born. Shortly followed by my precious son, the absolutely delicious icing on the family cake. As a business owner, wife and mother I felt like I was on the right path, gaining confidence and – after many different therapies – experiencing a breakthrough in dealing with childhood traumas.
However, fast forward the height of the COVID pandemic. I found myself curled up on the floor, trembling, gripped by an overwhelming sense of panic. All my past anxieties came rushing back, paralysing me like a punch in the gut and leaving my body immobile in pain. It was at that moment I knew something needed to change, drastically. I decided to take control of my life. That’s when everything shifted.
Determination ignited. I dived headfirst into a learning journey towards my own healing and growth.
Immersing myself in anything and everything I could find; books and podcasts, investing in courses and coaching with the best practitioners around. Embracing meditation, tapping, gratitude, affirmations, new routines, and breath-work. I learned how to tune into my own deep guiding intuition and rewrite my limiting stories. A world I would previously have rolled my eyes at as a load of rubbish!
I found not only solace and relief from anxiety, but a new zeal for life. It was like opening a door to a whole new world and I was there for it.
In overcoming anxiety, cutting out people-pleasing, and rising from the depths of despair, I’d discovered my passion for helping other women recognise the depth of their capabilities so they too could confidently follow their chosen paths and create lives they love.
Drawing on my own experience, research, application, and healing, I developed the SHIFT Life Transformation System™—a straightforward framework designed to foster and support genuine personal growth.
It’s a privilege to witness the phenomenal transformations my clients achieve. Nothing brings me more joy and fulfilment than genuinely empowering other women with the tools and strategies they need to create lives they love.
Did you ever sit down and plan your career?
For me, it’s been more of an exploration, experimenting with what happens when I focus on my passions… What gives me energy and fills my soul. I have a deep desire to make a positive impact on the world and a huge passion for human beings.
Having spent over a decade specialising as a Health, Fitness, and Lifestyle Coach, building deep connections with my clients, I noticed a recurring pattern: they would often use their external circumstances to explain why they weren’t achieving their desired outcomes. But I knew external factors weren’t the real problem. It was a lifetime’s collection of acquired limiting beliefs.
Coming at a time my own journey of personal growth was advancing greatly, this proved to be a eureka moment, and SHIFT was born.
We are strong, and we can do this! Trust the process – every twist and turn, every tough bit, all contributes to personal growth and you’ll be grateful for it all.
Have you faced any challenges along the way?
Who hasn’t? My journey has been peppered with many challenges that have shaped who I am today. I’ve battled depression, especially after the birth of my daughter, I suffered greatly and as much as I adored being a new mum, I had a traumatic birth experience and it took me some time to come to terms with it all. I felt alone, I loved being with my girl, but I struggled without adult company too. I guess the sudden change of life came as a shock that I hadn’t prepared myself mentally for. This life change, our gorgeous daughter, had a domino effect on mine and my husband’s relationship, as you can imagine we had finances to worry about, time that we couldn’t spend together because of my husband constantly working to provide and my decision to be a stay at home mum while she was small. I even tried to work for my husband’s business, but it didn’t work, for either of us!
But, each challenge, I now know, was really a stepping stone, making me realise what I want, what I need, what makes me happy and shaping who I am today. I wanted to be more than a mother, so I turned to fitness which has been my lifelong passion. I trained as a personal trainer, fell in love with what I did, my marriage blossomed as I found myself again, and as a result, we had another baby!
What has been your biggest achievement to date?
After becoming a personal trainer, I felt I needed to broaden my knowledge on how to help people past the physical side. I wanted to connect and tap into people on a different level. I explored individual design through my OPEX Health Fitness and Lifestyle certification, which is the reason I can do what I do today. You get to learn everything about that person, their priorities in life, their stressors, how well they sleep, what each and every day looks like for them – time they get up, what their routines are, what they eat, move, sleep like etc etc and then you write them programmes based on getting the most out of life for them based around their own priorities.
THIS was gold. I LOVED working with people on this level, I LOVED that what I did with them enhanced their enjoyment of life and made them see what was really possible for them.
Creating the SHIFT Life Transformation System™ is hands down my biggest highlight though. Watching women transform their lives using this framework is beyond fulfilling. It’s the stuff dreams are made of. I want to spread the word about these tools and strategies that are available to us all to help us cope, to help us thrive, to feel genuine fulfilment and inner peace – whatever that looks and feels like for each and every one of us.
I’m on a mission to guide women to build confidence, recognise their capabilities and channel their strength into creating lives they love. We are powerful and incredible. I want us all to recognise that and bring it to the fore.
What one thing do you believe has been a major factor in you achieving success?
So much has brought me to where I am. It’s mainly about genuine self-love and personal growth. Something that takes practice and dedication but is so worth the effort. Meditation and gratitude—these practices have not only helped me, but are now the backbone of what I teach and practice daily.
The depths of the most despairing pit, the pain, the panic, the terror, led me to a profound awakening. I knew how to heal myself and I want to guide others on how to achieve this too.
I read all the books possible, listen to endless podcasts, anything to educate myself, alongside taking crucial courses. One of the books I read was ‘You Only Live Once’ by Noor Hibbert. This inspired me so much to believe I could be whatever I wanted and I am 100% capable. I just had to bring my passion to the world. Another inspiring book was ‘I may Be Wrong’ By Bjorn Natthiko Lindeblad. Learning to tune into and be guided by our intuition is huge.
How do you feel about mentoring? Have you mentored anyone or are you someone’s mentee?
I am a huge believer in mentoring.
My own mentor Lisa Johnson has helped me to create a business model and move away from being a life coach, which didn’t fit to finding my place as a Life Design Strategist. Lisa was someone already helping thousands of others to build successful online businesses and she recognised in me that I was indeed not a mindset coach, but instead providing practical tools and strategies to help women design lives they love – and so Georgie -the ‘ Life Design Strategist’ was born.
This work with Lisa led to me embracing the impact I was making – and taking ownership of my role as ‘Life Design Strategist’, and the creation of the SHIFT Life Transformation System™.
Alongside being mentored, I also mentor others, supporting them has significantly influenced my purpose in life. I realised after many sessions with clients, that people were facing struggles in achieving fulfilment, in so many areas of their lives. I began to see that it was not their circumstances stopping people achieving their dreams and desires, but their own internal limitations. You can sometimes just be in your own way and not realise it until someone observing from the outside tells you and shows you a way to get out of it!
If you could give one piece of advice to your younger self what would it be?
“We are strong, and we can do this!
Trust the process – every twist and turn, every tough bit, all contributes to personal growth and you’ll be grateful for it all.
Each time you go through difficulties you genuinely grow, you become bigger, bolder, brighter, more confident, more secure in the knowledge that you can make anything happen. You feel lighter. You can create and live the life of your dreams. You really can.”
My whole story is ultimately one of self-love and personal growth – a testament to resilience, recovery, and the unwavering commitment to self-improvement, with a desire to guide others on their own paths of self-discovery.
What is your next challenge and what are you hoping to achieve in the future?
My next challenge involves expanding my reach to help more women through my online group programme and 1:1 sessions. Growing a safe community where midlife women can share their struggles and successes. where they are understood and supported, lifted up by each other and emerge as their truest big, bold selves. I aspire to spread the message of genuine empowerment on a much, much broader scale. Writing a book is on the cards, and engaging with schools to instil in young people the belief that they have the power to shape their destinies, working within corporate industries too to help people overcome and manage imposter syndrome and work to balance out the ever present gender divide. It’s all incredibly exciting. I cannot wait to see the impact in life changes this will bring about.
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