The Woman Behind Joyfully Honest
Meet Becky Lacey, professional coach for women in Surrey and online.
I didn't need to reinvent who I was. I needed to reconnect with the woman who'd been there all along.
About Becky
I’ve always been a naturally happy, optimistic person. I grew up in a small town in Northamptonshire in a close, stable family, did well at school, went to university, built a career and met the man I would marry. We bought a home, got engaged, got married and started a family.
Until then, life had largely followed the path I expected it to.
But when I was 30, my marriage unexpectedly ended while I was pregnant with my son, Jack. In what should have been one of the happiest chapters of my life, everything I thought I knew about my future suddenly fell apart.
I was shocked, scared and completely blindsided. Overnight, I found myself questioning everything — not only my marriage and my future, but myself.
How had I got it so wrong? How could I have believed so completely in the life I thought we were building together?
I doubted my instincts, questioned my decisions and wondered if I would ever truly trust myself again.
I had this beautiful new baby boy who needed me. There wasn’t really the option to stop life while I worked everything out. I had decisions to make, responsibilities to carry and a life to create for the two of us.
So I got on with it, because I had to.
I put on a brave face, kept moving and did what needed to be done.
Looking back now, I can see that wasn’t the end of my story. It was the beginning of a very different one.
What changed me wasn't one dramatic breakthrough.
It was a decade of small, meaningful moments.
I climbed the Three Peaks. I learnt floristry. I launched an artisan food business. I bought and renovated my first home alone. I completed a half marathon. I started saying yes to experiences that challenged me, stretched me and reminded me what made me feel most like myself.
None of those moments changed my life overnight, but together they slowly rebuilt something I'd lost: trust in myself.
They reminded me that I was capable, resilient, creative and endlessly curious.
I realised I felt most like myself when I was learning, creating and making time for the things that quietly sparked joy in me.
Looking back, I can see those experiences weren't random at all. They were gently leading me back to myself.
I didn't need to reinvent who I was.
I needed to reconnect with the woman who'd been there all along.
As I reconnected with myself, life began to open up in ways I could never have imagined. I found love again, blended a family and became a mum to two more beautiful children.
After fourteen wonderful years at John Lewis, redundancy gave me the opportunity to turn something that had been quietly growing in my heart for years into reality.
That became Joyfully Honest.
The experience I bring
Before becoming a coach, I spent nearly two decades working across sales, relationship management, buying and commercial roles.
Fourteen of those years were at the John Lewis Partnership, where I worked as a buyer across categories including beauty, jewellery, home and travel. Much of my work involved understanding what customers wanted and needed, listening to what was changing and turning those insights into commercial decisions, products and experiences — often in categories with a largely female customer base.
I’ve also experienced business from the other side. Alongside my corporate career, I founded and launched an online marketplace bringing together more than 70 independent food and drink producers — and today, of course, I’m building Joyfully Honest.
That means I understand both the reality of working inside organisations and the particular experience of creating something of your own: making decisions without always having the answer, holding responsibility, managing competing priorities and having to keep moving when you’re not completely sure what comes next.
I bring that experience into the room, but I don’t impose it on you. I don’t assume my experience is your answer, but it means I understand much of the context in which those questions arise.
People sometimes ask why I became a coach, but when I look back, I think the clues had always been there.
I’ve always been fascinated by people — what shapes us, what drives us, how we make decisions and what’s happening beneath the surface.
Long before I trained as a coach, I was the person drawn to meaningful conversations, endlessly curious about human behaviour and wanting to understand people more deeply.
Becoming a coach didn’t feel like becoming someone new. It felt like coming home.
I created Joyfully Honest because I wanted to offer the kind of space I had needed myself.
Not somewhere that tells you who to become, but somewhere you can slow down enough to hear yourself again — to reconnect with what you need, what matters to you and the things that make you feel most like yourself.
I don’t believe women need fixing.
You might be raising a family, leading a team, running a business or navigating a change you never expected. Your circumstances will be different, but so many of us are capable women with full lives — used to carrying responsibility, making decisions and keeping things moving.
And amongst all of that, it can be surprisingly hard to find enough space simply to hear yourself.
That’s the woman I’m interested in.
The woman behind the mother.
The woman behind the job title.
The woman behind the business.
The woman behind it all.
Sometimes she doesn’t need a dramatic reinvention. She simply needs enough space to hear her own voice, trust it and work out what feels right for her.
Whether that’s through coaching or a thoughtfully designed experience, my hope is the same: that you leave feeling more like yourself again.
Ready to begin your own next chapter?
If my story resonates with you, id love to hear yours.
Or if you'd like to explore how we might work together first:
