The Great Pivot
By Sandra Mottoh | Guest Contributor
January often feels overwhelming. Everywhere I look, people are setting new goals, trying to change their bodies, start businesses, or even reinvent themselves. It’s like we all start the year as a blank page!
The biggest change in my life happened five and a half years ago, and you won’t find it on my CV: I became a mother.
Last Sunday night, just before my twins returned to school after the holidays, we had family time. My daughter said, “I pray for me and my brother that we will have a good time in school and see all our friends. I pray that daddy will go to work and have a good day at work. And I pray that mummy will drop us at school and go home and relax and maybe watch some TV".
What stayed with me wasn’t the TV part. It was when she said, “mummy will go home.” That’s how my life looks from the outside: the kids go to school, Daddy goes to work, and Mummy drops them off before heading home. The truth is, I don’t even watch daytime TV.
My days are full. I’m building a business, working on my doctorate, writing, thinking, designing, and taking Zoom calls. It’s all strategic work, but to a five-year-old, it’s invisible. To her, my biggest professional change isn’t there. That realization didn’t feel like an insult. It just gave me something to think about.
Anyone who knows me knows I’ve always been financially independent. I care a lot about women having a voice, authority, and choices. I talk to my daughter about being independent, about money, building something for yourself, and not shrinking your world.
Still, in her story, Daddy goes to work, and Mummy goes home. That’s why this moment stuck with me. I was born in the UK and went to boarding school in Africa. I’ve lived and worked in Europe, North America, and now the Middle East. In my career, I’m legally qualified, but I’ve also worked as a car sales executive, cabin crew wedding planner, and postnatal massage therapist. For the past 20 years, I’ve been a Compliance Director, which brought me to the UAE almost 10 years ago. Even in that job, I’ve moved from banking to oil and gas, and then to the gaming industry.
Now, I run my own compliance consulting business, and I’m working on my PhD. None of these changes happened just because it was January. They never start when you announce them. They begin when something inside you shifts quietly, even if you try to ignore it. For me, every real change started as irritation or restlessness, a sense that I couldn’t keep giving my energy to the same things. By the time my job, country, or industry changed, the real shift had already happened inside.
This brings me back to my daughter. Children don’t copy what we say; they copy what they see. They reflect the world around them. A lot of women’s work today isn’t easy to see. It happens on laptops, in documents, in our minds, through emotional and strategic effort, and in building things without offices or set hours. So, it often goes unnoticed, even by us.
This is where motherhood became a different kind of change for me, not just a career shift, but an identity shift. Many women live this quietly. They love their children and feel grateful, but they also have thoughts they rarely share. “I’m not unhappy. But I am not fully fulfilled either.” “I love them. And I miss myself.” “How did I end up here?” “I don’t want my children to grow up thinking this is all women are or can become.” “Is this it now?”
Most days, there’s nothing wrong with my life. My children are loved, my work matters, and I feel grateful and capable. Still, that prayer made me realise something I hadn’t admitted to myself: somewhere along the way, I became the woman who goes home, not the one out in the world, building something others can see or being recognised.
I love my children, but I miss myself. I don’t want my kids to think women fade into the background instead of stepping into influence or shaping their own lives. So this isn’t about a January reset, a pivot, or a “new me.” It’s about not letting my life keep happening in the background. My children are watching, and whether we say it or not, they’re learning what happens to women. The real question is: are you comfortable with the lesson your life is teaching right now?
Sandra is a highly accomplished Compliance Executive with over 20 years of Director level experience in the UK, USA and now in the UAE. A passionate advocate of female well-being and financial independence. Born and raised in England, currently based in Abu Dhabi for the past 9yrs.
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