Alex Bakowski

10/09/2026

09/09/2026

Most business advice assumes the founder is fine.

That if she just improved her strategy, marketing or time management, things would shift.

But what I see is different.

The business isn’t always the bottleneck. It’s the internal capacity of the woman running it.

When something wobbles… a quiet launch, a slow sales cycle, a client who pulls back - what shifts first?

Your strategy…

or your nervous system?

Because that might be the real problem we’re not talking about.

Not focussing on yourself enough? Try it, you’ll be surprised what changes in your business (and its growth).

08/09/2026

Yes, grow yourself, grow everything else around you.

A client who has seen transformation shared this with me (yes, it is a long one and she wrote this directly to my Google Reviews page!)

"I have been working with Alex Bakowski since March, and the progress I have made in such a short period of time has been remarkable...

Although our formal sessions are fortnightly, her support extends well beyond them. She checks in by message and offers a quick call when something needs to be worked through rather than waiting for the next session. At one point, she even met me face to face at 5:30am to help me kick-start a morning routine I was struggling to establish. I was genuinely blown away by that level of commitment.

She's incredibly thorough. She holds me accountable, tracks my progress, and creates visual memory boards documenting important conversations, insights and action plans. At the same time, she's extremely dynamic. We might arrive with one plan for a session, but within five minutes she can recognise there's another layer to explore and confidently take us there.

She challenges me, effortlessly identifies when I'm self-sabotaging or being unnecessarily hard on myself, and isn't afraid to hold me accountable. At the same time, I feel completely safe being my authentic self with her. I trust that she has my back, no matter what comes out in a session.

If you're looking for a coach who will not only support you but challenge you, understand you and genuinely move you forward, I couldn't recommend Alex more highly."

This is what I am about. No flashy promise, just the actual work, and the actual impact.

That's the version of this I'm willing to keep building. Link in bio if you want to talk about what real support looks like.

07/09/2026

My mum's in her 70s and still gets up at 5am to run around a lake before sunrise. Something I really admire about her.

But one night over dinner, she said she "had" to get up and do it. I suggested a reframe. She dismissed it as semantics and went back to her earl grey. Fair enough.

I don't give up so easily with my own kids though. I've been slowly, consistently reinforcing a different way of talking about our lives, not always sure if any of it's actually sinking in.

Then I got a story from my husband, after a physio appointment with our son, that answered that question for me.

In this week's Optimal You, I share what happened, and why I think there's real power in the words we use to talk about the lives we've building.

You can read it here:
https://www.alexbakowski.com/optimal-you?utm_medium=organic%social&utm_source=facebook%&utm_campaign=always%on&utm_content=educational &utmc_placement=post

02/09/2026

There’s a moment I see all the time.

A woman who owns her own business who has done everything “right.”

She’s invested in strategy, marketing, systems and business courses. She’s not lazy, unclear or incapable.

But she is carrying something invisible.

The constant mental rehearsal, the quiet self-doubt and the pressure to prove herself. She also has the inability to switch off.

And that internal load slows ex*****on far more than any marketing funnel ever could.

Most business advice assumes the founder is fine. But sustainable growth doesn’t start with another tactic. It starts with strengthening the woman running the business.

If you want to understand what is really holding you back from scaling your business, book in a free coaching diagnostic via the link in my bio.

01/09/2026

Burnout isn’t always about hours worked.

More often, it is about the weight you are carrying in your head.

The constant tracking, anticipating and problem-solving. The invisible planning that runs in the background of your day. The sense that if you do not think three steps ahead, something important will fall through the cracks.

For many high-achieving women, that vigilance has become second nature. It feels responsible, necessary and like leadership.

But over time, living in a state of permanent responsibility keeps your nervous system slightly elevated. Even when you stop moving, your mind does not. Even when you sit down to rest, part of you is still managing.

If you have learned that your value comes from holding everything together, then of course letting go feels unsafe.

Of course delegation feels risky and slowing down feels indulgent.

Flow Coaching works at that deeper level. It is not about squeezing more productivity out of an already stretched system. It is about updating the internal patterns that keep you in vigilance mode, so that performance becomes sustainable rather than exhausting.

If you are tired of carrying so much alone, there is another way to operate.

27/08/2026

You lie there at 11pm, body still, mind running through tomorrow's to-do list for the fourth time.

You call it disorganisation.

You tell yourself you just need a better system, a proper wind-down routine, more discipline.

But that's not what's actually happening.

Your nervous system has learned that staying in problem-solving mode feels safer than switching off.

And actually, doing exactly what it was built to do… protect you. It just doesn't know how to stop, because somewhere along the way, being switched on became the thing that kept you safe.

This is what I see over and over with the women I coach. They're capable, successful, they've built something real.

And underneath it, their inner operating system is still running on high alert, long after the actual threat has passed.

Two questions worth sitting with tonight.

Where does your mind actually live? Replaying the past, the conversations, the things you should have said differently? Running worst-case scenarios about the future? Or, even occasionally, actually here?

And is your inner voice a critic or a coach? If it had a job title, what would it be? "You're falling behind, you're not doing enough" running the show, or something steadier, something that tells you the truth with kindness?

This isn't a discipline problem, and no productivity hack fixes a nervous system that's stuck in survival mode. It starts with understanding why it learned to do this in the first place.

That's the work I do with the women I coach.

26/08/2026

You are getting ready for your second shift… aren’t you?

This is one of the most common conversations I have with female founders.

From the outside, everything looks successful. Revenue is coming in, clients are happy (most of the time) and the house is running.

But internally?

The nervous system never fully switches off. You tell yourself you’ll rest when the next milestone is hit.

When things feel more stable, when you’ve “earned” it.

But stability never quite arrives because the pattern isn’t external. It’s internal.

The always “on”, background anxiety and the belief that if you relax, something will slip? That’s not a time-management issue or a discipline flaw.

Actually, it’s an operating system that has learned to equate pressure with safety.

And until that shifts, no strategy will feel light.

So what actually changes it? Not a better evening routine, not another productivity hack. It starts with understanding why your nervous system learned that switching off wasn't safe in the first place, and building a new relationship with rest that doesn't feel like a risk.

That's the work I do with the women I coach.

25/08/2026

Here's the thing most women business owners do.

They pour money into courses, strategists, tools, tactics, hoping something out there will finally make it click.

And none of it addresses the real problem, because the real problem was never external.

It's the overthinking that turns a simple decision into a two-hour spiral.

It's the perfectionism that keeps a post sitting in drafts because it's not quite right yet.

It's the yes you give when your body is screaming no, because saying no still feels like letting someone down.

Here's a question worth sitting with: when something feels uncertain in your business, what's your first instinct?

Do you reach for a technical fix, a new system, a new hire, a new tool?

Or is the truth that what you're facing was never a problem any of those things could actually solve?

This is exactly the work I do with the women I coach. If you've recognised yourself in any of this, let's talk.