From Despair to Delight

As the clock ticks towards the New Year, it can feel like you’re stuck in despair, weighed down by unmet hopes and disappointments – but what if this could be the year you move from despair to delight?

I know what it feels like to stand at that threshold with little other than despair. At the start of 2011, I was soon to turn 39, terminally single, broke, and running a business that was in tatters. Christmas had been unbearable and I was seriously contemplating ending my life.

But I had the thought: “what if I were to give myself one more shot?” Just one. I told myself, if this doesn’t work, I’m gone. I can’t live like this any longer.

Standing at the Threshold of Despair

Despair has a way of stripping us of belief in ourselves. I’d reached a point where I could no longer imagine things getting better on my own. I had been fiercely independent since leaving home aged 17, so asking for help was not something I was used to doing. But, as I was giving myself one last shot, I told a close friend my goals and asked if I could borrow £3,000 to try to make them come true. Knowing I couldn’t make it alone, I used the money to hire someone to coach, mentor, and, frankly, reparent me. He was living the life I wanted: steady, kind and successful.

When I met him, I told him I had six goals, and they were huge.

By the end of that year, I wanted to be:

1. Living with the love of my life (I’d spent years thinking I’d missed the boat on this one).
2. Living in my dream home.
3. Running a profitable business that truly served others.
4. Loving the body I lived in.
5. Pregnant.
6. On my way to transforming a million lives with my War to Peace® work.

When I shared these goals, my coach raised his eyebrows. “Chloe,” he said gently, “any one of these would be an enormous challenge to achieve in a year. But six?”

My reply was simple: I need you to believe in me when I can’t believe in myself.

The Power of Audacious Goals

And he did. Week after week, he championed me, challenged me, and never let me off the hook. I told everyone I knew about my goals, so I couldn’t quietly quit on myself. And little by little, the impossible started to happen.

By September 2011 – just nine months after setting those goals – I had achieved all of them. I was living with the love of my life (who, I might add, ticked every one of the 49 traits I’d listed and brought some incredible bonus ones too!). We were living in my dream home. My business was thriving in ways I’d barely dared imagine using War to Peace®. I’d started loving my body for what it was, and I was pregnant! Whilst, ultimately, that didn’t work out, I knew I was still on the path to becoming a mother.

The Breakthrough Year: September 2011

It was a whirlwind of transformation. By the time the New Year came around again, I felt like a different person. In January 2012, I married that wonderful man. My coach – the person I’d trusted to help me rebuild my life – conducted our wedding ceremony. My father, the man I’d spent 17 years hating and had cut out of my life for so long, proudly walked me down the aisle.

It wasn’t just a wedding. It was a testament to the fact that life can turn around in ways you can’t imagine, even when it feels like everything is falling apart.

Looking Back—and Forward—With Gratitude

Now, as we step into 2025, I look back on that year with awe. I’m still married to that wonderful man and still very much in love. We still live in that beautiful house. We adopted an incredible six-year-old who is now 15, and fills our lives with joy and challenge in equal measure. My body is softer than it was back then, but I love it for all it has endured. And while I’ve still got work to do on transforming a million lives with War to Peace®, the journey is well on the way – and one I’m delighted by!

Your Turn: One More Shot

So, if you’re standing at the start of this new year feeling hopeless or lost, I want you to know this: it’s okay to have big, audacious goals. It’s okay to be scared. And it’s okay to let others hold belief for you when you can’t hold it yourself.

Sometimes, all you need is one more shot.

If you have a goal in your heart – no matter how big, no matter how impossible it feels right now – I believe in you. And if you’d like some help along the way, you know where to find me.