Welcome to On Her Own
A place for the woman who has herself together and is just messy around the edges AND the woman who aspires to be that woman
- Jane Smith
Personal Coach

Popularity sells, but at what cost?
I’m angry today. I’m angry that companies will sacrifice your safety and your life on the altar of sales. Unsafe carry methods, like gimmicky self-defense products, are often marketed as clearly being effective because so many people have bought into them. The problem is that popularity won’t save you when your tools are the very

Site news and updates
Hello, lovely, appreciated, and valued followers of OHO. I have some brief real talk and admin updates for you today. Some of you may have noticed that the pace of content here has slowed down a bit recently. There are several reasons. OHO began, somewhat coincidentally, in the early days of COVID with its reduced

Budgeting for the holiday season
Not sure if you’re aware, but we are now officially under two months to American Thanksgiving. The holiday season is going to be hitting us fast and hard soon, and if you’re feeling as overwhelmed as I am about the way the year’s been going, then let’s start doing some planning so it will be

If not me, then who?
Gabe White asks this question in each of his Pistol Shooting Solutions classes, where he gathers students for two days of high-level shooting with a focus on skills and tactics appropriate for regular-person concealed carry and armed self-defense. It’s an excellent class and I took it for the second time earlier this month. I could

Ch-ch-ch-changes
Change is hard. Almost nobody enjoys having to leave their comfortable ruts, with their predictable routines and familiar habits. We stick with them because they’re what we know, because being surprised by an outcome is potentially unpleasant and we’d prefer to avoid disappointment even if it might mean missing out. It’s understandable that we would

Night Driving: Lessons from Aimee Willard [updated September 2022]
Every time I take Exit 5 off the Blue Route, a major highway in the Philadelphia region, I think of Aimee Willard. A star college athlete, she didn’t make it home from a night out with friends back in 1996. Her still-running car and a pool of blood were found that night at that exit.