About Lucy
I'm Lucy. I live in Birmingham with my husband and our two kids.
I've always been a bit of a "right, how are we going to make this happen?" person.
If you tell me you really want to start running, I'm probably not going to send you a podcast about running. I'm going to ask whether you've got trainers, when you're free and whether you want to go tomorrow.
I didn't really think of that as a particular strength until fairly recently. It was just how I approached things. If I wanted to do something, I'd usually find a way of putting something around it that made it more likely to happen. A date in the diary. A class booked. A friend involved. A WhatsApp group. Someone expecting me to turn up.
A few years ago, my friend Rebecca put a message in a WhatsApp group asking if anyone fancied cycling from London to Paris. I said yes. Afterwards she told me, "I knew you'd be my strongest link."
Not because I was some incredible cyclist. I wasn't. She knew that once I'd said I was doing it, I'd work out how to make it happen.
A friend who's known me for years calls me my bossy best friend. I've decided to take that as a compliment.
And the more I've thought about it, the more I've realised that's a pattern that runs through a lot of my life. I'm quite good at turning "I'd really like to do that" into "Right, what needs to happen to make it possible?"
Because so many women are brilliant at getting shit done. We work, organise families, remember what everyone needs, sort things out and generally keep a ridiculous number of plates spinning. And yet the things we want to do purely for ourselves can be incredibly easy to put off.
Not because we don't know what's good for us. Most of the time, we know. The interesting bit for me is what happens between "I'd really like to do that" and actually doing it.
And that's what eventually became Do The Thing. It's not about giving women more information or pretending I've cracked some secret formula for life. It's about putting some structure around the things we already want to do, making them feel possible and having other women there doing their Things alongside us.
So why listen to me?
I'm not here to tell you what's good for you. There are thousands of podcasts, reels and books for that, and most of the time you already know anyway.
What I'm good at is the bit in between. The plan, the nudge, the group, and the "so, did you do it?"
I spent my twenties working in London PR agencies, where the job was mostly getting lots of different people to pull in the same direction. Turns out that's quite handy for this too.
What I believe
Doing beats planning to. Most of us already know what's good for us. The hard bit is actually doing it.
Small counts. Twenty squats while the kettle boils is still twenty squats.
Falling off is normal. Getting back on is the bit that matters, and it's much easier when someone notices you've gone quiet.
And I do every month alongside everyone else. The squats, the breaths, the lot. I'm not standing at the front with a clipboard.
What do you want to do? Right. How are we going to make it happen?
And then we do it together.
Right then. What's your Thing?
A new Permission every month. A bit of structure, plenty of accountability and a whole club of women doing it alongside you.
£37 a month, minimum three-month commitment.JOIN THE CLUBNext month starts Monday 23 November. Join by Friday 20 November.