SHOW NOTES

In this episode of 'Becoming No Ordinary Woman', Joanna explores the concept of 'golden handcuffs'—the invisible constraints that come with success, which can lead to feelings of entrapment and unfulfilment. She shares her personal journey of breaking free from these constraints and offers practical strategies for women who feel stuck in their careers or identities. The conversation emphasises the importance of self-discovery, redefining one's identity, and taking actionable steps towards liberation and fulfilment.

Takeaways

• Golden handcuffs are a prison we create for ourselves.
• Fulfilment is the key difference in feeling trapped.
• It's not about being trapped in something terrible, but attached to something admirable.
• Identity shifts are always uncomfortable but necessary for growth.
• You don't break golden handcuffs in one dramatic leap; it takes stages.
• Clarity reduces the psychological weight of fear.
• Start living as the woman you're becoming now.
• Each small act rewires your capacity for risk.
• Golden handcuffs tighten when decisions are vague or delayed.

Strategy - How to break golden handcuffs

Step 1: Separate Reality from Fear

Grab a piece of paper and write two columns:

Column 1: What is objectively true if I leave?
Column 2: What am I imagining might happen?

Most women realise that clarity reduces psychological weight.

Step 2: Identify – think about What You’re Actually Attached To

Ask yourself:

Is it the money? Or the meaning you attach to the money?

Is it the title? Or who you get to be because of the title?

Name the attachment precisely. You can’t release what you haven’t defined

Step 3: Rebuild Identity Before You Resign

This is critical. If you wait until you leave to decide who you are your nervous system will panic.

Instead Start living as the woman you’re becoming now.

Step 4: Increase Your Tolerance for Discomfort

Expansion and evolution require discomfort.

If you are going to live you dream beyond the handcuffs you have to:

• Start saying no to what no longer serves who you are becoming
• Setting new standards and boundaries for yourself
• Making small courageous decisions, one step at a time. They compound!
• Investing in yourself
• Let people misunderstand you – people will fall away because they liked the old you and that is ok.

Step 5: Create a Decision Timeline

Golden handcuffs tighten when decisions are vague or keep getting put off and delayed.

Set a date. Not to leap. To decide.

SOUL Journal prompts

• If no one was watching, what would you choose?
• If all the status, the salary and the success was to disappear overnight, what would you be choosing next?
• Who are you protecting by staying?
• What part of you feels unseen in your current life?
• If you stay five more years, how does that feel in your body?
• Are you loyal to your comfort…or loyal to your potential?

UNIVERSAL GUIDANCE — The Devil

The Devil in tarot isn’t about evil.

It’s about attachment.

It’s about the illusion of bondage.

In the traditional imagery of The Devil tarot card, the chains around the figures are loose.

They can step away.

But they don’t.

Because the cage feels familiar.

Because the attachment feels comfortable.

Because freedom feels uncertain.

This card asks:

Where are you giving your power away to something that isn’t actually holding you?

Golden handcuffs are rarely locked from the outside.

They’re agreements.

And agreements can be renegotiated.

The Devil is not a warning.

It’s an invitation.

To reclaim your authority.

🙌🏼 Loved this episode?

If this resonated with you, I would be so grateful if you could:
✨ Follow or subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode
✨ Rate and review — it helps more women find this space
✨ Share this episode with a friend who’s on the edge of something extraordinary

🌐 Connect with Me

Let’s keep this conversation going!

📸 Instagram: @becomingnoordinarywoman
🌍 Website: www.joannapetrierout.com
💌 Email: support@joannapetrierout.com

Summary

In this episode, Joanna reflects on the impact of limiting narratives imposed by others throughout her life. She shares personal stories of overcoming expectations, particularly regarding her health, education, and personal life. Joanna emphasises the importance of self-discovery and breaking free from societal norms, especially as women age. She provides practical steps for listeners to identify and dismantle these limiting beliefs, encouraging them to trust themselves and pursue their true desires.

Takeaways

• It's important to recognise when others' narratives shape your life.
• Self-trust is built through listening inward instead of outward.
• You can redefine what your life looks like at any age.
• Identifying borrowed voices can help you reclaim your narrative.
• Desire can feel blurry; simplify by asking what you want more or less of.
• Taking small self-trust actions can dismantle limiting beliefs.
• You are not behind or late; you're at a crossroads.
• Your life will expand as you release limiting stories.
• Courage and a decision are key to personal growth.

Strategy

1) Spot the Borrowed Voice

2) Track Your ‘Should’ Hotspots

3) Separate Fear From Truth

4) Re-centre on Desire With One Clean Question

5) Make One Self-Trust Move This Week

SOUL – Journal prompts

Whose voice do I hear when I imagine changing my life?
What story did someone else write for me that I never consciously questioned?
What version of me did I become to stay safe, approved of, or accepted?

What is it costing me to keep listening?

UNIVERSAL GUIDANCE – Two of Cups

This card is often associated with partnership, harmony, and mutual choice.

But today, I want you to see it as something deeper.

The Two of Cups is about inner union.

It’s the moment you stop abandoning yourself.
The moment you choose alignment over approval.
The moment you meet yourself honestly — and say, I choose you.

This card asks:
Can you trust yourself enough to walk forward without external validation?
Can you honour your truth, even if it disrupts the life you’ve carefully built?

This isn’t about burning everything down.

It’s about coming back into right relationship with yourself.

And when you do — everything else begins to rearrange.

Are you to experience The Shift?

The Shift is a 90-minute private mentoring session where we slow everything down, get radically honest, and create clarity around what needs to change — so you can move forward with intention rather than momentum.

It’s for the woman who knows she can’t walk the same path this year and doesn’t want to wait until December to realise that nothing changed.

You can find out more information and book your session HERE

🙌🏼 Loved this episode?

If this resonated with you, I would be so grateful if you could:
✨ Follow or subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode
✨ Rate and review — it helps more women find this space
✨ Share this episode with a friend who’s on the edge of something extraordinary

🌐 Connect with Me

Let’s keep this conversation going!

📸 Instagram: @becomingnoordinarywoman
🌍 Website: www.joannapetrierout.com
💌 Email: support@joannapetrierout.com

Summary

In this episode of Becoming No Ordinary Woman, Joanna discusses the importance of approaching the new year with intention rather than self-judgment. She emphasises the significance of identity over goals, introducing the concept of a 'word of the year' as an anchor for personal growth. Joanna encourages listeners to focus on creating meaningful memories instead of merely achieving milestones and to consciously choose between a default path and a soul-led path. The episode concludes with a call to commit to an extraordinary year through intentional choices.

Takeaways

• This year is not over. You have not failed.
• Extraordinary years are chosen, not stumbled into.
• Your word is an identity anchor.
• Memory-led years change who you are.
• What memories do you want to create this year?
• Choosing the soul-led path doesn't mean life becomes easy.
• What you don't change, you choose.
• The friction you feel this year doesn't mean you're on the wrong path.
• This does not have to be just another year.
• Let's choose extraordinary together

Strategy - The Three Tools:

1 - Choose a word of the year that serves as your context for 2026

2 - Create a year of memories - Make a list of the things you would love to intentionally experience this year

3 - Choose your path - The default path or The Soul Path

Soul - Journal Prompts:

• What tone are you choosing to live from this year?
• What word feels like an identity shift for you?
• What intentional memories do you want to create — and why do they matter?
• Which path are you consciously stepping onto?
• What are you no longer willing to carry into this year?

Universal Guidance - 5 of Wands

This card is often misunderstood.

It’s not about chaos.
It’s not about things going wrong.

It’s about friction during growth.

The Five of Wands appears when:

• Old identities and new identities are co-existing
• Different desires are alive inside you
• The familiar self and the emerging self are negotiating space

When you choose a new path, harmony doesn’t arrive first.Dialogue does. Tension does. Questions do.

And that is not failure.

That is initiation.

The friction you feel this year doesn’t mean you’re on the wrong path.
It means something new is forming.

An invitation - Are you ready to experience The Shift

The Shift is a 90-minute private mentoring session where we slow everything down, get radically honest, and create clarity around what needs to change — so you can move forward with intention rather than momentum.

It’s for the woman who knows she can’t walk the same path this year and doesn’t want to wait until December to realise that nothing changed.

You can find out more information and book your session HERE

🙌🏼 Loved this episode?

If this resonated with you, I would be so grateful if you could:
✨ Follow or subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode
✨ Rate and review — it helps more women find this space
✨ Share this episode with a friend who’s on the edge of something extraordinary

🌐 Connect with Me

Let’s keep this conversation going!

📸 Instagram: @becomingnoordinarywoman
🌍 Website: www.joannapetrierout.com
💌 Email: support@joannapetrierout.com

In this episode, Joanna shares how she intentionally enters a new year rather than rushing into it, and why January is a powerful threshold for choosing the same path or the soul path. She introduces the four rituals she uses each January to create an extraordinary year — including her word for the year, reflective review, designing a year of memories, and vision boarding — alongside powerful journal prompts to uncover true desires and universal guidance from the Strength tarot card. This episode is an invitation to slow down, listen deeply, and consciously choose your No Ordinary Woman era.

The Rituals:

1 Chose a word for the year to create a powerful context to help lead yourself forward

2 Review the year that has just passed - what were your lessons? What were your strengths? What were you most grateful for?

3 Create memories - what memories do you want o look back on when you reach the end of the year. Be intentional about the memories you wish to create.

4 Create a vision board - vision board are powerful tools, they are not just magic. In a later episode this month we will explore the science behind creating a powerful vision board

SOUL - some journal prompts for you:

1. If no one else’s expectations mattered this year, what would I secretly want more of?
2. Where in my life do I feel most alive — and where do I feel most constrained? What is that showing me?
3. What desire keeps returning, even when I try to ignore it?
4. If I trusted myself completely, what would I choose next?
5. What kind of woman do I want to be at the end of this year — not what do I want to achieve, but who do I want to embody?

A bonus one…If you were to fully embrace your No Ordinary Woman Era, what would that unleash for you?

Universal Guidance - Strength

As always, I pulled a tarot card to support this episode — and I pulled the Major Arcana card Strength.

And I love this so much for January.

Because Strength is not about force.
It’s not about pushing.
It’s not about proving anything.

Strength is quiet confidence.
Inner steadiness.
The courage to lead yourself with compassion rather than control.

This card reminds us that the most powerful kind of strength comes from trust:

Trust in yourself.
Trust in your instincts.
Trust in your ability to meet whatever this year brings.

Strength asks us:
Where can you soften instead of harden?
Where can you choose self-trust over self-doubt?

This year doesn’t require you to become tougher.

It asks you to become truer.

Is it your turn to experience The Shift?

The Shift is a 90-minute private mentoring session where we slow everything down, get radically honest, and create clarity around what needs to change — so you can move forward with intention rather than momentum.

It’s for the woman who knows she can’t walk the same path this year and doesn’t want to wait until December to realise that nothing changed.

You can book your session HERE

🙌🏼 Loved this episode?

If this resonated with you, I would be so grateful if you could:
✨ Follow or subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode
✨ Rate and review — it helps more women find this space
✨ Share this episode with a friend who’s on the edge of something extraordinary

🌐 Connect with Me

Let’s keep this conversation going!

📸 Instagram: @becomingnoordinarywoman
🌍 Website: www.joannapetrierout.com
💌 Email: support@joannapetrierout.com

Happy New Year!

This is the final in the Festive mini series designed to help you close out 2025 and step powerfully into 2026.

I share 5 questions to help you step into the identity you want to embody this year. Grab your journal and have fun exploring these questions...

QUESTION 1 — “Who do I refuse to be anymore?”

QUESTION 2 — “What desire have I been too afraid to admit?”

QUESTION 3 — “What emotional state will I no longer negotiate with?”

QUESTION 4 — “What identity do I need to embody to hold the life I want?”

QUESTION 5 — “What becomes possible when I lead myself?”

UNIVERSAL GUIDANCE — Ten of Wands

The card that came through for this episode is the Ten of Wands, and its timing couldn’t be more aligned with the beginning of a new year. This card is a mirror — showing us the weight we’ve normalised, the responsibilities we’ve absorbed, and the invisible emotional loads we’ve been carrying out of habit, not necessity. The Ten of Wands arrives when a woman has taken on so much that she can no longer see the path ahead clearly. And its message for you is simple but liberating: You were never meant to carry it all. This is the year where you stop dragging old expectations, outdated identities, and inherited pressures into your future. The questions you’re reflecting on today aren’t just about vision — they’re about release. They’re about choosing what is yours to hold, and gently setting down everything that blocks your capacity to rise. The Ten of Wands invites you into a new level of self-leadership — one where you lead from clarity, not overwhelm; from intention, not obligation. Your next chapter requires space. Let this be the moment you create it.

If you would love my support to help you develop deep clarity and confidence about the woman you are becoming in 2026, why not book a Complimentary Discovery Call?

I will gift you an hour of coaching to help you move forward with clarity and confidence and avoid living the same year on repeat. You can book the discovery call HERE

🙌🏼 Loved this episode?

If this resonated with you, I would be so grateful if you could:
✨ Follow or subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode
✨ Rate and review — it helps more women find this space
✨ Share this episode with a friend who’s on the edge of something extraordinary

🌐 Connect with Me

Let’s keep this conversation going!

📸 Instagram: @becomingnoordinarywoman
🌍 Website: www.joannapetrierout.com
💌 Email: support@joannapetrierout.com

Thank you for listening — and for choosing to become No Ordinary Woman.

See you next week.