A year of The Health Effort

By Sarah Walsh

We have just careered past one year of The Health Effort. Passing this milestone, I’ve found myself reflecting on what got us here.

Leaving my last role felt like a novel kind of heartbreak. It was like finding a huge rip in your favourite pair of jeans, the ones that had shaped to you perfectly over years. The role had been my dream job. I’d built it from the ground up, had been trusted to create great things, and I genuinely didn’t know who I was without it.

That workplace had been my home since I graduated and gained full registration. I had invested almost a decade of my adult life. My colleagues were the first to know about almost every significant event in my life during that time, and in turn I had been there for them.

Despite having supported many clients through major life transitions, I felt naïve when it came to navigating my own impending career move.

I had recognised the misalignment, the discomfort of it. Boy was it uncomfortable. I flailed trying to ground myself, and I tried to lean into my inexperience. I stopped my autopilot and made a conscious choice to change gears.

I tried really hard to interrupt familiar patterns of hustling and started being open, I started listening, really listening to those around me. It felt vulnerable and scary.

I made the decision to do what I do best and get curious. I approached entrepreneurs, sought support from patient peers, re-started therapy, connected to the things I was sure of and waded through the human experiences of those around me. My favourite experience was asking one of my first mentors from some time she replied “We are both busy mum’s, let’s go have a soak”.

I sat back and absorbed (or in some cases soaked in) everything.

The process felt like some kind of brutal lobotomy of my aspirations, removing where I thought I was headed and re-wiring to move towards the unknown.

And then, I jumped.

I spent four hours on the phone with colleagues the afternoon I resigned. At one point I said to a director, “It is a credit to your business that there are so many incredible people I feel compelled to call personally.” He replied, “No Sarah, it’s a credit to you.”

That kind of leadership is what raised me. Leaving it was overwhelming. A feel a lump in my throat thinking about it.

What followed was the emotional void between “ending something” and “building something.” It was deeply dysregulating. I found it fascinating to observe as a psychologist, and terrifying to experience as a human. This in‑between phase rarely gets attention in transformation stories, but it deserves it. It’s so exposing and feels incredibly vulnerable.

At the start of 2025, after some time escaping to the mountains, I found some blind courage and met with my accountant to start setting things up. I discovered nothing could move forward without a name.

I had lists upon lists of options. I researched what was available, what was registered, and what surfaced on Google. One night, while reflecting on how challenging being therapy can be I looked up the word effort.

I loved that it described both an individual’s experience and a collective working toward a shared purpose. I wanted to honour the path we support our clients to walk.

The Health Effort wasn’t on a single list. But in early February 2025, I registered the name.

I felt like such a fraud. A “director” of nothing… yet.

It was just me, in my ugg boots, seeing clients online, writing policies, talking to lawyers, drafting employment contracts, designing a website, creating social content, reading rental agreements…

And then days turned into weeks, months and now over a year.

I realise that now I have a new favourite pair of jeans.

Not suddenly, not dramatically. We built slowly, intentionally and with consistent effort.

The heartbreak has eased.

All I feel gratitude, for where I’d been, and where The Health Effort is going.

Sarah x