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Tracey’s Story
From Data, Deadlines and Burnout… to Mud, Mountains and Real Wellbeing
If you’d met me fifteen years ago, you probably would have described me as “disciplined”, “driven”, maybe even “inspiring”.
What you wouldn’t have seen were the spreadsheets behind the scenes. I tracked everything – kilometres, calories, heart rate, macros. I was a health and fitness professional, a mum, a marathon and ultra runner, a Master of Nutrition specialising in women’s health. My partner and I had started our adventure travel company to get more people outdoors and moving. I was the person people came to for plans, performance, and “being good”.
My life made sense as long as I was moving fast, achieving, and in control.
Then my body pulled the handbrake.
Just before COVID, I got injured. Not a “take a week off” injury – the kind that stops you walking properly for months. Overnight, I went from running adventures, managing my busy life, and leading training sessions to shuffling across the lounge room and wondering who I was if I couldn’t run up a hill.
And then the world joined me.
Gyms closed. Our coaching community disappeared. Travel, adventures, real-life connection – all gone.
For someone whose whole identity was built on movement, achievement, and supporting others, it felt like the rug had been pulled out from under me. I watched our local gym and Take Shape Adventures grind to a halt, and at the same time I watched friends, clients, and colleagues quietly fall apart behind their screens.
The numbers didn’t lie. Global wellbeing scores dropped. Burnout rates spiked. In Australia, psychological distress hit record highs. The people who had always “managed”, “pushed through”, and held everything together were suddenly running on fumes.
People like me. People like the women and professionals I’d always worked with.
I had spent years telling people how to eat, move, and “get healthy”.
In that moment, it wasn’t enough.
If wellbeing isn’t about control, discipline, and smashing goals – what actually is it?
That question wouldn’t leave me alone.
I realised something I’d known quietly for a long time, but never properly named: the moments I’d grown the most weren’t the smooth, impressive ones. They were the messy chapters – the point in a race where I wanted to quit, the failed business experiments, the days in the rain halfway up a mountain with a pack that felt too heavy and a group who weren’t sure they could keep going.
Challenge had always been where the good stuff lived.
Not punishment challenge – meaningful challenge. The kind that makes you doubt yourself a bit, then discover something new about who you are. The kind that reminds you you’re more than your job title, your inbox, your weight, or your step count.
So, instead of trying to get “back to normal”, I went further in.
I went back to study and completed a Master of Applied Positive Psychology and Wellbeing Science to sit alongside my Master of Nutrition. I became a researcher in wellbeing science, focusing on something I knew in my bones from years on the trail:
How do we develop and understand human potential – and help people truly thrive – through challenge?
While the world was obsessing over quick hacks and workplace yoga sessions squeezed between Zoom calls, I was quietly reading, writing, and testing. I led walks where we didn’t just talk about fitness – we talked about fear, identity, perfectionism, and what it means to be “strong” in midlife when you’re tired of holding everyone else up.
I watched middle-aged professionals – CEOs, teachers, project managers, HR leaders, carers – arrive on a walk looking exhausted and slightly sceptical, then leave a few hours later standing a little taller, clearer, and more connected.
At the same time, my research showed what I was seeing in real time: physical challenge on its own is good, but when you combine it with psychological education – things like growth mindset, self-compassion, and guided reflection – something bigger happens.
People don’t just survive the tough stuff.
They grow from it.
That’s when my work shifted
Take Shape Adventures stopped being “just” about hiking and fitness
and became a vehicle for something deeper:
Guided adventures as live laboratories for resilience and leadership
Nature as a co-facilitator rather than a backdrop
Challenge as a tool for wellbeing, not a punishment for what you ate on the weekend
Today, this is where my work lives
I’m still the CEO of Take Shape Adventures. I still love a good map, a sturdy pair of hiking boots, and watching someone conquer a hill they were sure they couldn’t climb. But I’m also deeply embedded in wellbeing research – exploring how structured challenge and simple psychological tools can build resilience and psychological capital, especially for women and leaders in midlife who are quietly carrying a lot.
I work with:
Organisations
Who want their wellbeing strategy to actually mean something
HR & People Leaders
Who are tired of tick-box programs
Leadership Teams
Who need space and structure to think, reset, and reconnect
High-Achieving Individuals
Who are done with burning out, fixing themselves, and pretending they’re fine
Some come for a Walk Day, some for a leadership offsite, some for a women’s program or an ongoing series of walks and workshops. The format changes – the core doesn’t.
We step outside the usual environment.
We add a dose of purposeful challenge.
We anchor it all in wellbeing science and real, honest conversation.
The goal isn’t to make people tougher.
The goal is to make them more human
More resourced, more connected, and more confident to navigate uncertainty without losing themselves.
If you’re reading this as an HR leader, a business owner, a wellbeing professional,
or a slightly exhausted overachiever with 17 tabs open in your brain…
This is the work I care about
Helping people – and organisations – move from just coping to genuinely thriving,
using nature, challenge, and evidence-based wellbeing as the path up.
The mountain is still there. The mud is still there.
But now, instead of limping alone, I get to walk alongside others
as we figure out better ways up together.
Ready to explore what’s possible?
Walk Days • Leadership Offsites • Wellbeing Adventures • Custom Programs