How to Pivot in Midlife Facing Fear, Finding Purpose, and Launching Your Passion with Cassandra Dawes (Ep. 14)

What if the thing that’s been nudging at you for years — the one you keep putting off out of fear — is actually the key to your wellbeing?

In this inspiring episode of Confidence Unfiltered, I sit down with Cassandra Dawes, a passionate wellness advocate who decided to stop waiting for the “right time” and finally go all in. At 51, Cass is pivoting from a decade-long career and stepping boldly into her purpose — launching her very own health and wellbeing podcast.

We talk about:
 💬 The fears that hold us back (and how to move anyway)
 🎙️ Starting something new in midlife
 💡 Why purpose and connection are critical for long-term wellbeing
 🔥 How to take small steps even when you're scared sh*tless
 ❤️‍🩹 Ditching perfectionism and trusting your gut

If you’ve ever thought “who am I to do this?” — this one’s for you.

This episode is raw, real, and a reminder that confidence comes through action.

Connect with Cass
Instagram & Facebook: @mindyourbeingpodcast
Website: mindyourbeing.com.au

👉 Hit play, take the challenge at the end, and tag @skymareesteele on Instagram to share your thoughts.

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Break free from the 'Nice Girl' rules, set strong boundaries, and reclaim your power to achieve meaningful results in 2025.

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Transcript

0:00

Welcome to Confidence Unfiltered. I'm your host, sky Marie Steele, a clinical psychologist, business owner, A DHD, and recovering people pleaser. If you spent your life trying to keep everyone else happy while feeling like you're never quite enough, you are in the right place. Here we ditch the people pleasing, silence, the self-doubt, and have real unfiltered conversations about confidence, boundaries, and building a life that feels unapologetically yours. No fluff, no perfection, just raw, real talk to help you trust yourself, show up fully and own your dam power. Let's dive in. So, hey, beautiful humans. Welcome back to Confidence Unfiltered. This is the space where we ditch the mask, drop the rules, and talk all things confidence, courage, and doing life and business on your terms. So today's episode is for anyone standing at the edge of changing something in their life, but feeling the fears and anxiety of the unknown. So today I am sitting down with Cass. She's a woman who is doing just that. She's shifting gears and leaning into her passion of wellbeing and launching her own podcast. So before we dive in, I would love for you to introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about like what lights you up and also what led you to wanting to start your podcast. Thank you. So a bit about myself. I'm currently 51. I love learning. I love, uh, everyone has a thing they're interested in. For me, it's health and wellbeing and, and that includes physical fitness, but also I'm very fascinated by psychology and why people do the things they do. Probably about eight years ago or something, I had the idea to start a health and wellness blog because I was following some blogs at the time. I wrote a heap of notes, did some research, looked at other people's and thought about what it might look like. And then I just never did anything with it through fear, like who am I to write about such things? Who wants to hear my voice? Um. Yeah, what will people think? All the things, right? But you know, I kept learning and um, then podcasts came along for me. I was introduced to them. I started gravitating towards the psychology ones or the health and wellbeing ones. A lot of medical podcasts. I just love it. Then, um, I kept taking notes and things and thinking, oh, I'd really love to get away from my day job. I'd really love to do something with it. Prior to COVID, I started, I did two of the introductory units in a Bachelor of psychology, because that's what fascinates me the most, I guess, and I loved them, but I was mid to late forties, and I'm like. Realizing that I'd have to finish the degree, and if I wanted to be a clinical psychologist, I'd also have to go on and do another few years of training, and I'm like, I just didn't see myself doing all that you had to do. Two statistical models we're really. I dug deep and the real part is I enjoy the counseling part. I enjoy the connecting and talking to people and want to help people. Yeah. So then I went on to, I didn't finish the Bachelor of Psychology. I went on to do, um, a diploma in counseling. I think it took me like 18 months to two years part-time. I was still working and everything. Really enjoyed that. I love that. Then just like I said, listening to podcasts and stuff, I'm like. Ooh. The feeling just never went away from me to do like the blog or the, but it evolved into, well, I love talking to people. Always got in trouble at school for talking too much, and you know how like all the things sort of combined together. So it's my love of health and wellbeing, my love of learning, my love of connecting and talking to people. I'm like, there's this little thought maybe I could create a podcast. And I have, I've started to create it. I took steps aged 50 at the start of this year. Just started, you know, creating a website, creating a logo.'cause I thought I need all that to be able to pitch, um, health and wellness experts to be able to come on the podcast. They have to see that it's legitimate, right? But all the time. I kept taking the steps forward despite the fear, but those niggling doubts would still come in, but who would listen to it? You know, like, what are people gonna say? And I'm like, you know, all the work I've done over the years for myself, I'm like, just take some steps forward. Just keep doing the thing. And ultimately, regardless of whether anyone listens or not, I wanna do it. I wanna speak to inspiring people. I wanna keep learning. And I'm gonna share it and we'll see how it's received. But yeah, just taking those steps forward and also just that feeling of, I love it. You know how you're getting that flow state when it's your thing. Yeah. The amount of hours that goes into it, it doesn't matter. I act I'm loving it so much. I love that. That's perfect. So I'm curious, 'cause you talked a little bit in there about like the self-doubt and the fear. Was it like shifting your mindset? Was that what supported you in kind of being with that and taking those actions? Like how did you help yourself in those moments? When the fear got really loud, it was just weighing it upright. I was 50 at the time when I started this. I'm now 51. I'm like. Go back eight years to when I had the idea about a blog, go back to doing all this learning. The idea had never left me. It's this internal, it's kind of like a pressure, like this voice going, you, you should do something with that. That's what you enjoy. And this other voice going, uh, no, but who's gonna listen? And you know, all the doubt. But at this age, I'm like, if I don't do it now, when would I do it? Yeah. And what does it matter? Like if I'm doing it from a place of, I really enjoy it and I'm trying to help people like raise awareness of, you know, important issues. What's the downside really? I didn't wanna have the regret in 10, 20, 30 years time. Why don't you give that a go? Yeah. So that's the real. So I'm really curious, like why do you think it's so important for people's wellbeing to actually do things they're passionate about? Because what I heard in you there is like there was just this inner knowing or this kind of niggling about just I have to do the thing. So why is that important for wellbeing to follow that niggle, do you think? I think. Because it's that internal conflict is one thing. You should try and trust your gut. I think if something persists in you, if there's no particular downside apart from the fear or worrying what other people think, what's the downside to giving it a go? Giving, spending some time in it. But the other thing is one of the most important things that the research shows about. Wellbeing over the long term in our life. There's a few factors, but one of the important things is purpose and connection. And that's a big thing that this is giving to me. I think that's really important for people to reflect and think. Yeah, what are they passionate about?'cause otherwise, if you ignore it for too long. Uh, for me, the internal conflict, it just never went away. So that didn't feel comfortable, you know? Yeah. So you are kind of stepping into, I think, your own voice through your podcast as well. Um, are there particular messages that you are wanting to share on your podcast? Like, who is your audience? Who are the people that you wanna speak to? I would like to say, you know, there'll be something for everyone. But particularly I think I'm really passionate about people in the midlife stage and beyond where the cultural message seems to be, well, once you get to a certain age, you're over the hill. Or you know you, your life's done, right? Yeah. Yeah. And I wanna refute that and like offer a different narrative, right? We know so much at this age. You still dunno everything. You never know everything in life. But we can still thrive if we pay attention to a few areas in our life and look at, you know, where we maybe need to put a bit more investment of time in. A little bit of prevention goes a long way with regard to. Both physical and mental health. Yeah. So yeah, I think for people who are, I just wanna raise awareness as well about we are living longer as humans than we've ever lived. It's not just about the number of years you live your lifespan, it's also about the quality of your life, which is called health span. It's about, I love that. That's a powerful sentence. Yeah, it's, yeah, we are gonna be living for longer thanks to technology and medical, you know, pharmaceuticals and stuff like that. Mm. But what is the point of living longer if you're not living a life as best you can, a life true to yourself, and a life of the best quality that you can have. Oh gosh. I love that. So as you've kind of gone through this journey for yourself, like what does wellbeing kind of come to mean to you for your next chapter? For me, um, continue to push through those little doubts. Just keep taking steps forward to things that light me up. But, um, as I've expressed before on, uh, the Mind of Being Podcast website, I have struggled with perfectionism. So I'm always mindful of that. I tend to want to do a really good, a perfect thing with things, right? But that perfect doesn't exist. So my current, and I'm guessing it will be my future challenge, is to take care of my own wellbeing at the same time as, you know, creating and producing the podcast and everything else that goes in life. Really realizing that good enough. Is good enough. There's no perfect to be achieved anyway, but really taking care and taking time out to do all the things that I say to other people to do, you know, take some time out for rest, take some time out for, you know, I like mindfulness and meditation, exercise, all the things. Balance, I think. I think that's like just your sentence there is one of the reasons why I think like I'm, I'm drawn to always talking to you and wanting to connect is because you are real. Like, it's not that you never sit there and go like, you know, things are perfect. You're like, while I'm aiming for perfectionism, this is what I know is real and this is where I know my struggles are. And I actually think by you sharing your struggles and what you do to manage them. It actually supports other people to do the same because they're like, oh, like it's me too, rather than like, does that make sense? Yeah, yeah. Thank you for saying that. Um, a hundred percent. Who you look at online these days, it's so filtered. A lot of people's accounts, they're presenting their best life, right? Their best holiday shots, their best filtered photo shots. But really, how does that help anyone? Because you know, we do tend to compare. It's not a good thing to do, but I think people can't help it when you're looking online. So do you know what you get to our age and, you know, everyone has stuff. Yes, everyone has things. No one's life is perfect. I don't care how much money you have or whatever. And do you know what the, the base of. All of you know, having a happy life is your health. If you don't have your health, it's really hard to thrive in other areas of your life. I think it, like when you were just talking then what came into my mind is that like we started out talking about like pivoting and doing something different and changing something midlife, but equally what I hear is the. What you're saying in that is if you don't actually have your mental and physical health, you can't actually support yourself even in the pivot. Yeah. No. No, you can't. And they're both equally important. Mm. They're both part of health, like I know mental health. It seems to be changing, but there's still a stigma around people saying, do you know what? Mentally I'm not as healthy as where I'd like to be. And I mean, who is? Right? Like, we're life, you're always constantly striving to improve things. And I mean, at different times, different seasons of your life, you're gonna have different challenges. But I think there's always room for improvement. But yes, they're, they're both so important. We were talking about mental and physical health, and while they're important as a foundation to pivot, right? Yeah. Well, yeah. I guess pivoting is flexibility, right? Mm-hmm. And if you don't have that, especially that psychological flexibility to whenever you pivot, I guess there's gonna be some, it's a change. So with any change comes. Maybe some internal critic voices start coming in and going, oh, but you know, we like to keep things safe here. No change here. Yeah. So you are always gonna be sort of dealing with, yeah, I'm looking forward to that change, but also something is trying to hold me back. And I think it's just taking the little steps forward to get you to where you do really want to be, despite any fear. Love it. So for anyone sitting on an idea at the moment, and like you said, they've been kind of sitting on it for years, they're going through it on their mind. They're like stuck in the not doing, they're scared to take the leap. What would be a piece of advice that you would share to them about starting. I would say just take a small step towards that thing that you're aiming for, because if we try and you are not gonna achieve everything in one day, just take a small step and see how that feels. And if you feel like inside, like it really lights you up or you are really enjoying it, then follow that gut instinct rather than like keep making, taking little steps forward despite the niggling fears. And you always talk about confidence comes with action. And I have found that to be so true because. Again, like I said, at the start of this year, I started creating the podcast and despite the doubts, keep doubts, keep taking the steps forward. And then I started pitching, sending out some emails to health professionals and it took 12 before someone said, yes, I'll, I'll come on the podcast and she's a great guest, and I'm like, wow. So yeah, the confidence has come gradually. And then when I was. Telling people around me and they're so supportive, like that has given me confidence when people are so supportive and open to the idea. So definitely just take some small actions, um, that you can take. Beautiful. And so if people are listening and they're like, we wanna know more about you, we wanna know more about your podcast, we wanna be able to listen to it. When it's out in the world, where do they find you? Okay, so. I'm hoping to release the podcast in July this month, but on Instagram and Facebook, you can find me at mind your being podcast, and I have a website for the podcast. Mind your being.com au. And the podcast, when it is available, I'll be updating social media, but it will be available on Spotify, apple Podcasts, and probably some other platforms. And you can also listen on the website as well. Beautiful. And if somebody's listening and they are like a health professional or they are in the wellbeing industry, is it okay for them to reach out to you if they would like to be part of the podcast as well? That would be wonderful. Yes, always open to new guests and across the spectrum. I've made the scope of the podcast quite broad because I'm interested in all the things, health and wellbeing, so that would be great. Beautiful. Thank you for your time today. I've really enjoyed talking with you. Thank you so much. I've enjoyed it too.