Two Bodies of Work. One Central Question.

Life and dating might look like two completely different areas of work.

To me, they often come back to the same question:

Are you giving yourself permission to choose what you genuinely want?

I’m Mia, a Life Rebrand Expert and Dating & Relationship Strategist, founder of The Emergent Woman® and creator of Life After NO®.

Today, my work spans life, identity, dating and relationships. But before any of this, I spent more than 20 years in the corporate world of finance and became very good at continuing with a life I was succesful in.

It took a surprisingly simple question from a stranger to make me look at that differently.

THE Question in the Back Seat of an Uber

I was sitting in the back of an Uber, having left Bank in London when the driver asked me about my work and then:

“Do you like what you do?”

Simple question. Very easy answer for me but surprising at the same time. For us both.

At the time, I had already left a marriage that wasn’t right for me. Professionally, though, I was still in the world I had known for more than two decades.

Finance was familiar. I understood it. I had built experience, success and a life around it.

But did I actually like what I was doing?

That question haunted me for weeks because it was never really just about work.

It made me think about how easy it is to continue with something simply because you know how and you do it well.

You have responsibilities. Other people understand the life you have. You’ve already invested years or decades becoming the person who can handle it.

And you do handle it.

But being capable of continuing doesn’t answer the more important question:

Do you still want to?

I Changed Careers at 45

Eventually, my answer became clear enough that I had to do something about life as I knew it.

I stepped away from the corporate world and changed careers at 45.

Choosing differently doesn’t automatically remove the fear or uncertainty that comes with it. When you change something as significant, you can disrupt an identity you’ve spent years building and a life everyone around you already understands.

I knew how to succeed in the world I was leaving.

What I had to decide was whether being capable of continuing was a good enough reason to continue. It wasn’t.

I began studying coaching in 2016 and eventually became a full-time coach in 2021. I became a certified life coach and professional dating coach with a background in relationship psychology. But credentials are only part of the story. 

Those decisions became part of the foundation of The Emergent Woman® and Life After NO®, my work with women who have spent years being capable, dependable and shaped by cultural conditioning and societal expectations and are now asking:

“What do I truly want for my life now?”

Life and Dating Aren’t as Far Apart as They Look

The circumstances are somewhat different but I see a familiar pattern across both sides of my work.

In life, a woman can know she wants something different and still keep saying yes to something else because she doesn’t want to disappoint anyone.

In dating, a smart, accomplished woman can know she wants a genuine lasting relationship and still remain in something that isn’t becoming one.

Different circumstances. The same need to be honest about what you want, recognize what is actually in front of you and give yourself permission to choose accordingly.

One belief sits underneath everything I do:

“Every single decision you make in your life is influenced by the value you place on yourself.”

Choosing yourself means you stop automatically leaving yourself out of your own decisions.

Why Situationships Became Personal

My work through Mia Fields Dating centres heavily on situationships (formal and informal) and what I call The Unofficial Girlfriend™.

And I don’t only understand that dynamic professionally.

I too have lived it. By choice. Intentionally.

I know what it is to give relationship-level access without receiving relationship-level security.

There can be chemistry, affection and wonderful moments while the one thing you actually want, a shared decision to build a genuine lasting relationship, remains absent.

That experience shaped my determination to help women recognize what they are actually being offered before hope, potential and emotional investment make it harder to exit the “invisible trap” of a situationship.

I have since coached women across eight countries and written multiple articles about situationships and modern dating for News24, South Africa’s most trusted online news brand and its most widely accessed online news title.

My perspective has also been shaped by leaving a marriage that wasn’t right for me, changing careers at 45 and learning firsthand what it means to choose differently when continuing would have been easier and more familiar.

A Little More About Me

I’m originally from Barbados and an island girl at heart, although city life has been a significant part of my story too.

I spent almost two decades in London and have also lived and worked in the United States and Switzerland.

Away from work, I’m happiest near water and nature.

I love tending my garden, travelling, trying another tea and spending time with my dog, Waffle.

I’ve deliberately built a life with enough freedom to follow my curiosity, rearrange things when the right opportunity comes along and occasionally respond with:

“Say less. I’m in.”

Perhaps that is part of choosing yourself too.

Not creating the life someone else thinks you should want.

Creating enough room to recognize what you want and being willing to choose it.