Tracey Leslie Coaching

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Tracey Leslie Coaching Supporting women in engineering & science ready to trade anxiety, doubt and exhaustion for calm, purposeful direction.

You said no to something last week. Maybe another project. Maybe covering for someone again. Six months ago you would've...
02/10/2026

You said no to something last week. Maybe another project. Maybe covering for someone again. Six months ago you would've said yes automatically, not even thinking about it. But this time you said no.

And now you've spent two days feeling guilty about it. Wondering if you should have just said yes. Wondering if you sounded too harsh, too cold, too difficult.

Here's what that guilt actually means. Leaders who shrink don't say no in the first place. They absorb it, accommodate it, then quietly resent it later. The fact that you said no, even with your voice shaking, even with the guilt screaming at you for two days straight, that's not failure. That's the sign.

The guilt and discomfort you feel isn't proof you did it wrong. It's just the old pattern protesting the new one.

Leaders who don't shrink protect their capacity. They set the terms. And yeah, it feels uncomfortable at first. Because you're unlearning a lifetime of making yourself smaller so everyone else stays comfortable.

If you immediately knew which "no" I was talking about, you're already becoming a leader who doesn’t shrink. You just haven't been shown that guilt is proof, not punishment.

29/09/2026

I was in a project meeting with 12 engineers. I had the answer. I stayed quiet. Someone else said it 10 minutes later and got the credit. I went home and replayed that meeting for three hours.

If this sounds familiar, here's what's actually happening. Your body learned somewhere along the way that speaking up wasn't safe, maybe you were talked over, corrected harshly, or watched someone else get punished for saying the wrong thing. So your nervous system filed it away: stay quiet, stay safe.

That's not a confidence problem. It's a nervous system imprint. And you can't think your way out of it, you have to teach your body that speaking up is actually safe.

Regulate your nervous system first, then practice speaking from calm presence, not braced anxiety. It takes time and practice and it probably won’t be comfortable…

But this is how you get your ideas out without staying quiet and then replaying every word you didn't say for the rest of the day.

Share this with a woman who needs to hear it, because the world needs her voice, not her silence.

You're not the only one in the room who's uncertain. You're just the only one fighting yourself about it.Swipe through f...
25/09/2026

You're not the only one in the room who's uncertain. You're just the only one fighting yourself about it.

Swipe through for 4 ways to stop comparing your insides to everyone else's outsides.

23/09/2026

I was dealing with serious health issues. Symptoms that stressed me out and made everything harder. I tried managing my stress, controlling my emotions, thinking my way out of it. Nothing worked.

Then I started one practice. Whenever an emotion came up, anxiety, fear, frustration, whatever it was, I stopped and just felt it. No fixing, no managing. I'd pause, close my eyes, and ask where it was sitting in my body. I'd let it be there, sometimes 60 seconds, sometimes longer, and let it move through instead of pushing it down.

A few months in, something shifted. My symptoms started to reduce, not because I was managing them better, but because I wasn't adding stress on top of them anymore. I was focussing on what I actually wanted and my energy shifted. My anxiety quieted. I stopped bracing for criticism that hadn't even happened.

The part I didn't expect was how much I softened. I let myself be vulnerable with my friends instead of hiding what I was going through, and those friendships got deeper because of it. Real connection. Real presence. Not the performed version of me they'd been getting before.

Here's why it works. Your emotions aren't the problem. Resisting them is. When you try to fix or suppress a feeling, it doesn't go away, it just gets louder and sits in your body as tension and overthinking. When you actually feel it, it moves, and it doesn’t get stuck. And when emotions aren't stuck, your nervous system can finally settle.

You stop living in a constant state of bracing and you start trusting yourself, because you're no longer afraid of what you might feel.
If you're tired of the constant overthinking and second guessing, try this. Next time an emotion comes up, pause, notice where it's sitting in your body, and let it be there for 60 seconds. That's it.

I'm opening a small group program soon for women in engineering and science ready to move from self-doubt into quiet self-trust. Comment “COMMITTED” for more details.

This work changes everything…

If your brain won't stop replaying every word you said at 2am, this one's for you.Swipe through for 3 ways to trust your...
21/09/2026

If your brain won't stop replaying every word you said at 2am, this one's for you.

Swipe through for 3 ways to trust your decisions again, even the ones you're still editing in your head.

Save it for the next time the replay starts.

Suppressing your emotions at work isn't professionalism. It's what's actually exhausting you.Swipe through for what to d...
18/09/2026

Suppressing your emotions at work isn't professionalism. It's what's actually exhausting you.

Swipe through for what to do instead, and why feeling it is the thing that finally makes it stop.

16/09/2026

5 things women in engineering and science deal with every single day and don't talk about.

Overthinking every email. Downplaying wins. Waiting to feel "ready" before saying yes. Staying quiet in meetings until you're 100% sure. Taking feedback personally instead of as information.

None of this means you're not capable. It means you've been holding yourself to a standard no one else has to meet.

Watch till the end. If this hits home, you're not the only one.

Follow for more on moving from self-doubt to self-trust.

15/09/2026

To the client who told me: "Not knowing why I was feeling a certain way used to cause me so much stress and anxiety."

You were brilliant. Technically solid. Early in your career, already proving yourself in rooms that didn't make space for you.

But underneath it, you were drowning. Anxious all the time, and you didn't know why.

I taught you that your emotions aren't random, they're data. I gave you tools to stop being scared of them. To feel them instead of fighting them.

Then you used them.

You faced a nasty family situation, the kind that could have spiraled. You took a breath. You met it with a level head. Afterward you said, "If I can do this with family, I can do this as a professional."

You got confident enough to handle conversations that used to terrify you.
But the biggest shift? You stopped performing for other people. You came back to who you actually are.

You told me, "I feel like I've gotten back to the core of who I am."

That's when it hit me. This work isn't a nice to have. It's necessary.

Brilliant women in engineering and science are drowning in self-doubt they can't explain, and no one is teaching them their emotions aren't the enemy.

You don't have to be scared of your own emotions anymore. You're allowed to feel them.

And when you do, you come back to yourself.

I used to soften everything. Adding "just" or "maybe". Apologizing before I even made my point.One question changed that...
11/09/2026

I used to soften everything. Adding "just" or "maybe". Apologizing before I even made my point.

One question changed that: whose voice am I hearing when I soften this?

Self-censoring isn't you. It's programming. A parent who called you too intense. A boss who punished you for being direct. A field that taught you to stay small.

Next time you catch yourself mid-edit, name whose voice it is. Then ask what you'd say if that voice wasn't there.

Say that instead.

Save this for the next time you catch yourself softening.

I used to think saying "I feel like a fraud" out loud would make it true. So I kept it to myself.Now I know that’s not t...
08/09/2026

I used to think saying "I feel like a fraud" out loud would make it true. So I kept it to myself.

Now I know that’s not true.

The fear isn't irrational. It's your nervous system protecting you, especially if a manager or a project once taught you that uncertainty gets used against you.

But silence is what keeps the belief in place. Nothing challenges it, so it just grows.

The first time I said it out loud, the other person didn't agree with me, if fact, they’d felt the same thing. And that was more convincing than anything I could have told myself.

If you're carrying this right now, you're not a fraud. You're just scared of what happens if you admit you're not sure. And that’s not the same thing.

Save this for the next time you need to hear it.

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Ashwood, VIC
3184

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