Your Life After Tech

Ep 009: Tonia Bartz - From UX Research to Holistic Wellness

• Life After Tech • Season 1 • Episode 9

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Curious about making a major career shift? Meet Tonia Bartz, a former UX Researcher turned holistic wellness coach, who shares her journey from the tech world to the realm of integrative nutrition and wellness. 

Embrace your imperfections! Whether you're staying in tech or considering moving to a new career, Tonia reminds us to listen to that little persistent voice. There's a reason we keep imagining alternative futures for ourselves.

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Debbie:

Welcome to the your Life After Tech podcast. This is episode number nine. I'm Debbie Levitt. Don't forget to check out our lifeaftertech. info multiverse, including our book, discord, community coaching and more, because you might be done with tech, tech might be done with you, or you're thinking about adding non-tech work to your tech career. Today's guest is T Bartz, t-o-n-, i-a-b-a-r-t-z, and she's from ImperfectAF, that's I-M-P-E-R-F-E-C-T-A-F dot com. We'll be talking about her journey from UX into personal health and wellness coaching. Let's get to know Tnya.

Tonia:

My name is Tnya and I am a UX researcher turned holistic wellness coach. Researcher turned holistic wellness coach. I've always kind of described myself as very curious and optimistic, as well as a wanderlust. I always kind of like to explore. My mission is really helping humans live their best life possible, and that's kind of followed me through my professional journey and my personal journey as well. Me as a human. I am a pickleball player. I am a Stephen King enthusiast. I have a quest to read and watch everything he's done, which is going to take me a very long time years. I'm an adventure seeker. I love just going on random explorations, whether they're an hour or a weekend with my partner, whether they're an hour or a weekend with my partner, and on that I live my best life, try to practice self-care every day and feed all of my outdoor animals.

Debbie:

Love it, absolutely love it. So let's roll back the timeline a little bit. Let's talk more about tech. How long did you work in tech and what kinds of roles did you have?

Tonia:

Yeah, so I have been in tech for over 15 years. After I graduated, I started as a UX generalist doing pretty much a little bit of everything, and during that time I ended up going on a four-month observational research trip and that kind of pushed me or, I guess, showed me how much I really love research and how it really speaks to my curiosity allows me to display empathy with people and really truly understand what they need, and so I kind of pivoted into pretty much most of my life being a UX researcher solely of working solo as just the sole researcher in a design team, as well as building up research teams, being part of large research teams and helping them get started and find best practices within companies.

Debbie:

Cool. Thank you for that timeline and for where you are now and we're recording this uh just around, uh late November 2024,. Would you say you've completely shifted out of tech or are you still doing some tech or UX work?

Tonia:

So right now I've completely shifted out um focusing on my wellness coaching practice. Um, you know, all small business owners probably feel at some point it's like, well, maybe at some point may have to, because I still love research, to be honest, and so I think of like the right kind of opportunity that fit me. That was maybe short term might still pique my interest somewhat, but, but I don't think I'll ever completely go back.

Debbie:

yeah I think, I might it could become the side hobby, I think, perhaps right for the most part sorry, I was gonna say reminds me of when my uh, when I was in university, I was pre-med in music and I dropped the pre-med and my evil grandmother said well, can't you be a singer and be a doctor on the side?

Tonia:

So you could be the researcher on the side.

Debbie:

Yeah, so when did you start thinking about shifting out of or away from tech?

Tonia:

Yeah, I think I've always been one to ponder what other kind of professions or activities interest me, and I've been wanting to have a lot of interest. But I think my first glimpse of imagining work outside of tech probably came in 2018, when I began working towards my coaching certification in holistic health coaching. It stayed in the background until about 2023, when I had a health situation come up and that's when I needed to decide what I was going to do next and that kind of became my catalyst for re-evaluating where I wanted to be.

Debbie:

Can I ask which certification you went for or got?

Tonia:

Can I ask which certification you went for or got? Yes, so I have a certification in integrative nutrition coaching from the Institute of Integrative Nutrition. Another important factor in my decision to, I guess, be done with tech, or to put tech on the side, really came around a couple years ago, when I had to make a decision, make a decision. I had some health conditions that had caused me to need to take a break from work, and I was essentially on leave, and so at that point it was do I want to return to work? Or, you know, do I not? And for a while it was a really almost. I had a hard time believing I was asking myself this question, because, of course I'm going back to work. What else would I do? Um, and I really started to think about what that meant.

Tonia:

So going back and returning to tech meant travel. It meant being in the office or even, if I'm working from home, doing a full 40-hour week, which, as we all know, is not 40 hours. It's always more. Even when you're trying to put boundaries in place, it's just unrealistic to think that it's 40 hours. I started thinking about everything that that entailed and you know, for me, a lot of this was a really hard decision because I had to come to terms with the fact that doing a lot of travel and having a having a hectic, potentially hectic schedule where I was on the hook for things other people needed was not accessible to me at the moment.

Tonia:

Um, and that took a lot of inner work and I think that's something that's a good reminder is that, you know, I had to tell myself that I wasn't failing and that this new path is just a different path that also has really good opportunities to help people but also help myself, and so it's given me that space to be able to do things at my own pace and start to slowly kind of ramp things back up again.

Tonia:

But I think it's a good reminder for everyone potentially to really think about, like, what serves you and, you know, trying I know that sometimes this isn't a possibility or an option for people and I recognize that everyone's stories are different but to take a moment and just think about what is causing you a lot of anxiety and stress or what you really have a hard time almost making yourself do, and and how you might be able to just shift to a different perspective. It might not mean leaving tech, but just how can you put your own boundaries in place and protect yourself because you, this is your life, it's not anybody else's life. You know it's yours and you know I think it's it's hard, but you know we got to try to find some way to be be happy and comfortable in the life that we're living.

Debbie:

Put your own oxygen mask on first. Yes, put your own oxygen mask on first. Yes, got it Okay Interesting, and so how did you get started on that path towards nutrition and wellness coaching?

Tonia:

Yeah, it's been a pretty long journey. About a decade or so ago, I really started getting curious about what types of different factors or metrics impacted my health and how, and it started with, you know, getting a fitness tracker those were just becoming big on the market. Really, trying to look at those metrics and see, you know, everything from how I was sleeping to the activities I did in what time, what type of foods I was putting in my body, what my stress levels were all sorts of different factors. Essentially, I think I've become my own research study, to be honest, and from there, as I was doing that, I found that people that I knew started reaching out to me asking for advice or to talk through their own wellness, and that kind of led me to getting my certification or looking into, you know, trying to understand a little bit more about what I was exploring on my own.

Tonia:

Um, and for a long time I kind of helped people in the in the background I would coach, based on referrals and word of mouth and recommendations. And you know I really started realizing that wellness is a lot more than what people typically perceive it to be. It's a lot more than sleep. It's a lot more than how much you work out. It's a lot more than the food you put in your body. There's a lot of different impacts, from finances to where you live to you know where you're working, how you're spending your days, and realizing that made me really eager, like how I wanted to show up in the world and how I wanted to, and what types of things I felt were important for people. To know that maybe you know they weren't realizing could make an impact.

Debbie:

Yeah, thank you for that. So we've got in the show notes. Your website is imperfectaf. Letter A. Letter F dot com. Tell us about your business.

Tonia:

AFcom, Tell us about your business. Yeah, so Imperfect. Af is really kind of a lot of my personality and thoughts on wellness and my mission is really helping humans make realistic, healthy changes, as well as meeting people where they're at. I think a lot of times when people are trying to have these goals or resolutions or think about how to essentially quote unquote fix their health which I don't really subscribe to but they're coming from a place of like, oh, I'm going to have to now change my life, Like I got to do this so I can get up earlier and I got to do this to make sure I have enough water and I got to do this to make sure I'm meal prepping and thinking about that is very exhausting and I really think that the way it works best is if you're finding a way to fit wellness into your life and your realities, rather than the other way around. It's not about doing it all. It's about integrating it into your rhythm and your rituals and meeting people where they are awesome.

Debbie:

Well, people can certainly check you out there. Um, now we started the conversation. You were talking about some of your personal qualities, like your curiosity, and I wonder if the coaching business you've gotten into, how it ties into some of your core personal qualities or personality traits personality traits.

Tonia:

Yeah, I think that I'm a person that loves to hear other people's stories and things that are important to them. It's something that I really I think helped me when I was a researcher and continues to help me as a coach is being engaged and truly being curious about other people's situations in their lives. I've also think that bringing empathy into these conversations is really important and you know, understanding people as humans and also sharing my lived experience and bringing my humanity to the table as well. I am definitely an imperfect human. I have tried things. I have failed. I continue to practice my own wellness and fitting it into my life every single day, and so you know I consider myself to be on that journey, along with my clients and every other human and creature that's getting out of bed or staying in bed all day.

Debbie:

That's everybody. And thinking back to starting this business or transitioning into it, was there a mistake or a regret that you wish you could do over?

Tonia:

um, I'm a person that really kind of values all of my experiences and parts of my journey, but I think, if I had to think about some like key learnings that I learned from my previous self or past experiences is, you know one to protect my energy and my boundaries?

Tonia:

I think that it's very important to know what your limits are and to spend different moments during the day checking in with yourself to see where you're at and respect that, and that it's okay to pursue non-traditional careers. This, I think, even goes back to when I was a UX researcher. This is like the early 2000s. I decided to go get my master's in UX IA and it was very new. The program I was in only had one, didn't even have a graduating class yet, and you know, I think some people in my life were skeptical about whether that was really going to pay off, and so sometimes I think I needed to maybe listen to myself a little sooner. That you know, this is also a non-traditional career path that I'm on now, and it's just another example of me really needing to like trust myself and where I feel like my energy is best put.

Debbie:

Great example. Yeah, thanks for that. Great example. Yeah, thanks for that. Our listeners or viewers on YouTube might be considering leaving tech or maybe adding some non-tech work to a tech career, or, for some of us, what's left of it?

Tonia:

What advice would you give someone thinking about adding non-tech work? Yeah, I think it's definitely something that if you're really thinking about it and it ends up, you know, taking a bit of space in your mind or maybe you just your mind just wanders back to trying something new. I think it's just it's important to know that that exists and not ignore it. Maybe that's a spot for you to find something that maybe starts as a hobby and maybe that's where it needs to live. It could be something that you want to pursue even further, but I think allowing some exploration and play with things that you're pondering is never a bad idea. It could be short lived, it could be long lived. You know everyone's life has chapters and places. It's like a choose your own adventure, and I think when you're curious about something and it doesn't really go away, that maybe that's a sign to just see what it feels like and where it might live in your life, whether it's plays a bigger role, or maybe it's just something you do in the background to give yourself a little self-care.

Debbie:

I love that.

Tonia:

Thank you so much. Any other advice for our listeners and viewers? Yes, I definitely think that there's a. You know there's a lot going on. Things are very heavy right now and have been for a while, and so I think it's important.

Tonia:

You know a lot of people talk about work-life balance and I really just like to call it life balance, and I think you know taking time to acknowledge what else might be, you know causing some sort of burden or taking up a lot of time. And you know monitoring your energy levels, knowing when you have the energy to do certain things when you don't. Um being sure to watch for signs of burnout that could be in the workplace, that could be with something going on in your life. It's really not limited to just work, but watching those and taking those as a sign to maybe look at some boundaries you need to put in place, and making sure you make time for yourself and what matters. I think it's always important to do something that makes you happy, makes you laugh, brings you joy, gives you some sort of play in your day, even if it's just for five minutes. Yeah, just make sure to take care of yourself.

Debbie:

Yeah, just make sure to take care of yourself. Yeah, thanks for that. We, we all need that reminder and the reminder to put aside a little time for play or creativity or something away from devices and troubles. Yeah, um, I also wanted, before we do our closing question, I also wanted to ask if you can tell us a little bit more about some of the services you're offering in your coaching universe yes, so, um, a lot of my coaching focuses on the whole self and seeing wellness as more than exercise, diet, sleep.

Tonia:

I offer everything from just simple one or two hour workshops and activities that focus on different specific parts of your wellness, such as setting boundaries, maybe even how to support others with empathy. I also have a more well-rounded coaching program. It's four months and it's called the Perfectly Imperfect Wellness Method, and that's really an opportunity to dive extremely deep into all different areas of your health stress, sleep, work, your home life, all of that and we start that with looking at your whole week and what's taking up space in your week and what's overwhelming you, and we work from there, diving one-on-one into each of those. So there's a lot of different, a lot of different opportunities. I really focus on topics such as boundary setting, you know, financial wellness, body acceptance, toxic workplaces or situations, home environments and really kind of diving into those areas.

Debbie:

Super, thank you. Well then, the next question is the perfect follow up. How can people get in touch with you, follow you or maybe do some business with you?

Tonia:

Sure, yeah, as stated earlier, you can always find information on my services, more about me and links to other things on my website, which is imperfectafcom. I am on all the socials Instagram, facebook, blue Sky, linkedin and those handles are at liveimperfectaf and I'll be sure to maybe add those. Give those to Debbie to add. Yeah, and you can always stay connected with me there about upcoming workshops openings in my coaching program as well, as I occasionally will offer some free workshops that you can look for, and I also have an Etsy store with supportive products that you can buy to kind of help support your journey into wellness water bottles, stickers we all love stickers and more I love stickers.

Debbie:

Well, thank you so much for being on the show. Good luck with the new and growing business and keep us posted, yeah.

Tonia:

Thank you, thank you.

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Debbie Levitt

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