- Hi! I'm Zoe, I am a Business Coach, Motivational Speaker and Virtual Assistant. My goal in life is to help people, to make them smile and just leave them a little bit happier than when we met.
- One thing i come across often are the words "I can't". I can't do this because I have x,y,z wrong with me... I can't because my Great Aunt Norma twice removed told me 200 years ago that she couldn't do it so i wouldn't be able to....
- So let's start squashing that mentality shall we? Let's break down these negative barriers and show you that actually you can do whatever it is you decide you can do. The only person that sets your limitations is yourself!
- Can you remember when you were first diagnosed? Or maybe you have so many diagnoses it's hard to remember you're very first - in that case just pick one that is easiest to remember.
- I want you to take a moment - sit, close your eyes and just think back to that moment - how did you feel? Were you ok? Were you scared? Were you blasee? Were you happy? YES it is absolutely ok to be happy to have a diagnosis! How long did you feel like that? How long until reality set in that life will never be quite how you knew it again?
- A little about me.... since i was about 14 i have spent my life in and out of hospitals - both personally and professionally... i know the lingu, i know the drill... i know just how uncomfortable the trolleys in ae are. So therefore i laughed when upon once admission the Drs tried to tell me that my blood pressure was raised because i was in a hospital environment.... I knew that they were absolutely wrong... as a patient for years and then nurse i lived and breathed a hospital environment.
- It's the little things that want to put you back into bed and back under the duvet. It's safe there right? It's dark and it's snug and the outside world can't hurt you, because it's cruel and harsh and people use words like weapons - not always deliberately, but they hurt just as much as if it were.
- When i was 16 i had an accident which left me temporarily paralysed from the waist down, i spent a long time in hospital and was discharged in a wheelchair. I loved school up until that point - when i became different. I would go into the disabled toilet at school and there in big black letters would be "Zoe Plumley is a cripple" written on them. I relied on a support worker to take me from class to class - they would often forget and i would be left stranded - one time for the entirity of lunch after a GCSE exam and i was left in the hall, only found when an examiner came in to set up for the next one.
- However through all of this i would be repeatedly told one thing - that i always had a smile. Hopefully this remains true today (albeit maybe not until i've had my morning coffee - i am human after all!)
- I would always try to see the good side of any situation, or at the very least i would challenge myself to find a silver lining. There is always, and this is somewhat controversial, but i stand by it... always someone better off than you, even if it doesn't seem like it at the time.
- So i made a choice - i made a choice to be happy. I made a choice to not accept the limitations bestowed on me because of my health. I made a choice to not let disability define me.
- When my eldest was born i held him that first night when we were both alone and i promised him that i would give him the world. Have i been able to live up to that? No, there have been times when i have done the absolute opposite, but i remember that promise and i keep striving to uphold it. To make life as brilliant as i possibly can, to fill him with happy memories. To instill into him to never give up, no matter what anybody else says. If you can dream it you can do it - you might just have to take a different route, or a longer route, but never give up.
