Get your life on track with Anna Geary

Sports star and broadcaster Anna Geary is looking forward to starting her new column in ‘Feelgood’ next week, she tells Esther McCarthy

Fri, 17 Aug, 2018 - 13:00

Sports star and broadcaster Anna Geary is looking forward to starting her new column in ‘Feelgood’ next week, she tells Esther McCarthy

Anna Geary is a woman on a mission. The GAA star who won seven senior club and county All-Irelands, displays her competitive streak in Ireland’s Fittest Family, and jived and tangoed us through the winter in Dancing with the Stars, wants to share her healthy living secrets.

Joining Feelgood next Friday as our new guest columnist, Anna has the life experiences of 12 years of top-flight sport. She’s also a lifestyle and performance coach and currently studying as a personal trainer.

Anna Geary at the Castleknock Hotel. Photo: Moya Nolan

“I want to work with people, I want to help people, and I want to help people fundamentally improve their lives,” says the vivacious and chatty Co Cork woman when we spoke following her Feelgood photo shoot at the Castleknock Hotel.

She’s determined to personalise the column.

“My column is going to be mainly based around life hacks. I’m going to talk about a lot of areas whether it’s goal-setting or the fear of failure, getting out of your comfort zone. I’m going to try and tell people my own stories, my own experiences. And in plainer terms for people how they can use what I’m saying and put it into practice.

“I want people to sit down with a cup of tea or coffee and read through it and take something from it. I’ll be very open in terms of ‘sometimes this has worked for me, other times this hasn’t worked for me’.”

Aged 31, Anna also wants to bring her business background to an increasingly busy career — as well as TV and radio work for RTÉ Sport, she’s in growing demand as a motivational speaker.

Her original career path is a great help in this regard. “My background was business, my degree was in business, and I worked for seven years in the corporate world, until three years ago. I’ve always had an interest in the area of business, of strategy, of planning for success.

“I did a course through the Women’s Gaelic Players Association on leadership. It was a one-year, highly intensive course. We got to understand leadership and what it is — or rather what it isn’t.

One of the best decisions I made was to undertake this course. The network of brilliant people that I met, the speakers, the insights, the knowledge shared, the learnings and the craic. For those players that can, take the opportunity 🙌🏻 #WGPA #Madden https://t.co/ztlFYXbf4x
— Anna Geary (@AnnaGCork) July 30, 2018

“Lifestyle and performance are two areas that I’m really interested in as a person. With performance, it could be anything, not just sports performance or business performance. It could be how people manage their energy better. How they set goals and actually reach them.”

Warm, quick-witted, and straightforward, she jokes that in 2015, she made so many changes in her life that her mum, Ellen, with whom she is very close, thought she was going through a crisis. But she knew in her heart that it was time for some big changes, she says.

“As a teenager, I wanted to help people in the working world. When I qualified I worked in human resources. I wanted a job that would provide me with daily interaction with people, that would help me to build relationships with people.

“I started in HR and recruitment and moved into performance analysis and marketing. I wanted to get a fundamental understanding of a lot of different aspects of business, not just the one area. When I was younger, starting out, I had aspirations to be the CEO of a company. That quickly changed when I realised how many hours CEOs put in,” she says, laughing.

2014 was one of the busiest years of her life. Along with captaining Cork to All-Ireland victory in the Camogie Championship, she was also the Cork Rose, working full-time, and studying for a post-graduate. She looks back now and wonders how she managed it all, but the following year it was all change for Anna.

“During May 2015, a lot of big changes occurred in a very short space of time,” she says. “I retired from Cork, two weeks later I left my job. And a week after that I moved to Dublin. I think my poor mother might have thought I was going through some sort of late-20s crisis.

“It was a time when I was starting to re-evaluate my values and what was important to me. Cork had been at the fulcrum of my life for 12 years. Nothing trumped it, the centre of my world was camogie. Then I built everything else around it — including work, including relationships, including family at times. When I was in it, I was completely 100% in it.”

Like many people for whom sport and competition is a way of life, she wrestled with when to leave and wondered about what she would do next. Nothing will replace the buzz of running out into a stadium of people for a big match, and she still misses the feeling.

“Making that decision to leave was extremely difficult, because your identity can become immeshed in who you are as a sports person. To walk away from that… many sportspeople will attest that they have identity crises after they retire. They have been known for something for most of their adult lives. Then suddenly they’re not that any more."

“It’s still one of the most difficult decisions I made, and every now and again I walk down Páirc Uí Chaoimh on Sundays, working on the other side of the fence as a reporter (for RTÉ Sport) and I’ve got this little tightening in my stomach. ‘God I miss this. I miss running out on big days’. Having that adrenaline rush, that buzz that comes with playing top-level sport.

“But I also look back and think, ‘Look at all the opportunities I’ve got since retiring’.”

It wasn’t long before her experience, work ethic, and personable nature led to offers coming in, and though she says she didn’t know what she wanted to do when she left the safety of a permanent job, she embraced that time with an open mind.

“I was very fortunate that Kite Entertainment asked if I’d be interested in getting involved as a coach in Ireland’s Fittest Family. Marty Morrissey asked me to work with him on Sunday evenings on Radio One.

Back with a bang 💥💥💥
Delighted to be back with the @irelandsfittestfamily crew for another series! Some new & old faces in the wolfpack! It’s edge of your seat stuff already 🙈 Deliberations over, prayers said, families chosen... Now let’s get to work… https://t.co/qrto20YI5F pic.twitter.com/fL8dEypAFe
— Anna Geary (@AnnaGCork) July 31, 2018

"Thankfully from there, it’s snowballed, and three years on I’m able to pay my rent every month and buy the odd nice pair of shoes. I get up every day and I love what I do.”

The love of shoes and retail therapy is one she shares with her mother Ellen, who she speaks to on the phone at least twice a day. Anna sees her as her dearest friend and advisor and the woman she would turn to first if anything happened.

“Mam loves shopping but she would be more controlled, she’d be happy enough to browse, but I would see it as a failed day out unless you came back with something. My godmother Teresa, mam’s sister, would be like that.

“I’d like the shoes and the bags and the coats.

“When I was a sportsperson I was very much strong and determined and fit. But I also loved clothes, I loved make-up. Anyone who saw me playing camogie over the years would think I grew up on the Costa Del Sol because my legs wouldn’t be the actual natural colour.

“Tan makes me feel better about myself, and if it gives me a half a per cent of more confidence about myself on the pitch, taking on some of the best camogie players in the country…you can be really dedicated to your sport, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be into other things, like clothes or make-up.”

She’s all loved-up with boyfriend Kevin Sexton, but feels no rush to bring their relationship to the next level.

“In terms of children and marriage, yes of course down the line I want it. I want it to happen organically. I’m thankfully not succumbing to this: ‘Oh you’re in your 30s now. When is the ring? When is the baby?’ We like to do things our own way. A lot of my friends are getting married but I’m really happy with where I am.

“I came home from Galway the other day and I’m a bit of a clean freak. I love coming home to a clean house. And I was like: ‘Oh my God, you’ve cleaned the house!’ He gets me.”

She says she still works hard to keep in shape, training at the gym at least twice a week and combining this with a new activity she never thought she’d embrace. “I started to get into running just this year. I couldn’t fundamentally understand why anyone would want to go for a run, I just didn’t get it.

“I’m very proud to say now I can run for 50 minutes without stopping which is a massive deal for me. I’ve never been able to do that. And I’m starting to appreciate running to clear the mind, from an enjoyment point of view.

“Now I’m older, I have an appreciation for my health. If you eat nutritious food that’s unprocessed as much as possible, then your skin will look better. You’ll sleep better. For me, it’s about how I feel.”