Looking up at a half-full room of students and followers in the massive T101 lecture hall, Siobhán admitted how crazy it was to be there, in a room she once avoided every Friday for maths lectures, to tell her story of success.  

Accumulating over ninety five thousand followers on Instagram, running her own online business and giving talks to students on health and happiness, Siobhán O’Hagan returned to DCU last week almost unrecognisable from the girl she was when she graduated only a couple of years ago.

Siobhán O’ Hagan is a personal trainer and social media star, known to many as ‘Instagram Goals’. Over the course of a few short years, she has traded in a life of working in an office crunching numbers Monday to Friday to become an online influencer and work for herself in her dream job.

Most students filling the seats had some sort of gym gear on, meaning most were probably there to avail of her coaching expertise. However a few of us were intrigued as to how someone studying maths ended up as a sought after PT with her own online coaching course.

“Initially the change came from a place of misery,” Siobhan said when asked why she left her old life behind.

Once a financial and actuarial maths student, Siobhán always felt something was missing and knew deep down it wasn’t for her.  She joked about how she thought it would be a good decision. “Actuary was the top paid job in Ireland” she said, but still she found herself booking a flight to Portugal to escape her own reality at any chance she got.

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