An empowered Jana Pittman has embraced the challenge of deciding her own Olympic destiny.

She knows the doubters are out there.

But, buoyed by the memories of her extraordinary 2007 campaign when she overcame two serious foot injuries to win a second world 400m hurdles title eight months after giving birth to son Cornelis, Pittman still believes she can do something special at the London Olympics.

"Because I've won so many titles, at the back of your mind you never go in with anything other than gold," the 29-year-old Pittman said on Friday.

"But I would be quite satisfied with a medal or top five because the best I've ever done at an Olympics is top five.

"And then there's another part of me sometimes when I go to sleep that thinks I'd just like to make the final, I'd just like to make the team.

"I've got to take baby steps and the first thing to do is get the qualifier and get myself onto the team and then get through the rounds and get myself into the final.

"And I know when I get into the final that I'm a very good competitor."

Due to a litany of injuries, Pittman has hardly raced since that golden night in Osaka five years ago.

Now back running pain-free for the first time in what seems like forever, she categorises 2011 as the year when everything that could go wrong did go wrong.

"There were times when I thought 'am I even going to make it to 2012?'" she said.

"But you look back and think you survive.

"It is literally that saying, I love that saying, where I felt it so many times and it's my new quote - when you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.

"I was swinging on the end of that knot for a long time."

With a new year came the difficult decision to part ways with coach Phil King for a second time.

There was no bad blood, with Pittman saying the husband and coach of 1988 Olympic 400m hurdles champion Debbie Flintoff-King remained a great mentor whose "no compromises" approach had rubbed off on her.

She is now receiving advice from a team of 15 including Athletics Australia high performance manager Eric Hollingsworth and former chairman of selectors Peter Fitzgerald, while taking many of the important decisions herself.

"I am a very emotional athlete, everyone knows that, it's not rocket science," she said.

"So I need to have an unemotional program and that's why I think having a bigger team involved in the major decisions is a good thing.

"I have been through a hell of a lot in the last 15 years both athletically and emotionally and I think at some stage you have got to wake up and say, 'it's time to take the reins and have a bit more control of it all and the decisions made'."

Pittman is under no illusions about how far her pet event has moved on in the five years since her second world title.

Jamaican Melaine Walker won the Beijing Olympic title in 52.64 seconds and American Lashinda Demus clocked a scorching 52.47 in the world championships final in Daegu last year.

The Australian says it's ridiculous that her personal best remains the 53.22 she clocked nine years ago en route to her first world title in Paris.

"That is so slow," said Pittman, who plans to stay in the sport until the 2016 Olympics.

"So I want to run a PB and I still believe I have got nowhere close to the ability I have to run.

"I just don't know if it will happen this year or not, but it will definitely happen in the next four years."

Pittman plans to return to racing over the hurdles in February, with the aim of bettering the Olympic qualifying standard of 55.50 at the national trials in March.

The last time she bettered that mark was when she clocked 55.34 in Lucerne in 2009.

AAP