Imagine hiking up a mountain under a full moon with fresh snow under your feet, breaking through the tree line and feeling that warm glow of sunrise hitting your face. Riding a sleigh pulled by huskies in a winter wonderland, cross- country skiing through villages nestled in the Austrian Alps, tobogganing down a mountain at sunset, swimming in a frozen lake or ski-touring up a mountain and descending through the trees. Imagine ending your day in a rejuvenating thermal spa before dinner and a well-earned sleep, to wake up and do it all over again. Welcome to winter holidays in Austria!
Not many thoughts enter my mind apart from what I am doing. I wish everyone could do something like this once a year, or even once in your lifetime. We need it! I switch off from everything. A challenge like this is so all encompassing that I don’t have space for much else. All my energy goes into the challenge, and the micro world I create with the adventure I am on, the world directly around me and the people I am with. My world becomes small but this gives me freedom to become bigger than I’ve ever felt. My mind is not filled with events going on all over the world, with emails, news, social media, and the need to reply to messages, my mind is filled with fresh air and miles, hills, sweat, tears and food stops. My mind is filled with views so dramatic and mind-blowing, I am speechless. My heart flips a bit with each corner I turn and the awe that the NC500 route delivers again and again.
It’s been a year since I started the project of creating my dream van ↠ @theonelifevan ↞ and as I get a lot of questions about it, I wanted to share the process and some resources with you! If you are thinking of building or buying a van i can say it’s ONE HUNDRED PERCENT as awesome as you might think it is! And my journey with van life is only just beginning... However, it can be a bit of a minefield and hard to know where to start. I hope this helps :)
There are preciously rare occasions in life when you are handed an opportunity to go somewhere or meet someone that truly inspires you. Somewhere that shifts your centre of gravity, allowing you to refresh, refocus and restart. Or someone that has the capacity to capture your imagination and transport it to places you aspire to go but don’t quite know how to access. When your mind has gone there, the chances are your body will follow…
In October 2019, I took 10 girls sailing for five days on a Tall Ships Youth Trust sailing adventure proudly sponsored by KEEN footwear. It was magical and lives were changed!
We stepped off the boat with a different perspective. With love in our hearts, faith in ourselves and confidence to go forth and grow into the women we know we can be. I asked the girls to capture their experiences and what it meant to them…
It’s been a year since I started the project of creating my dream van ↠ @theonelifevan ↞ and as I get a lot of questions about it, I wanted to share the process and some resources with you! If you are thinking of building or buying a van i can say it’s ONE HUNDRED PERCENT as awesome as you might think it is! And my journey with van life is only just beginning... However, it can be a bit of a minefield and hard to know where to start. I hope this helps :)
If there is one feeling I wish I could package up and share with the world, it would be the way nature makes me feel. I have never felt more alive, free and strong in myself than when standing on top of a mountain. The wind blowing around me, clouds shifting to give way to a beautiful sunset, my heart and lungs beating. I literally feel on top of the world. There’s something about the wind, the flow of water from rivers and the vast expanse of the wilderness, that makes me feel afraid and protected, vulnerable and confident at the same time. It’s almost as though, in the whispers of the wind, I know everything is exactly how it should be and I don’t need to worry about a thing.
I love it when a few of my favourites things in life blend into a moment of total magic. On this particular occasion it was a wondrous combination of London, whisky and adventure.
Last week I was invited by Talisker and Secret Adventures (who organise unusual adventures in London and beyond) to take part in a kayaking challenge down the River Thames.
Myself and a group of fellow adventurers set off from St Mary’s Church in Battersea and finished at the historic Mayflower pub in Rotherhithe for a dram of celebratory whisky as the sun set.
Every day I wake up with a fire inside driving me to crack on with my mission to fight for the change I want to see in the world. It didn’t always used to be this way. Life was the complete opposite for many years. I lived for the weekends. I felt bored and unfulfilled at work. I felt this nagging feeling inside me saying “Is this it? Is this really what you were born to do with your life?” I would spend hours sitting behind my computer, scrolling through the internet, dreaming of another way to live, another way to feel about myself and my life. But for years I didn’t do anything about it because I was too scared of failing and I didn't know how to make the change.
Last week whilst delivering my 'Be A TrailBlazer' talk and workshop to 150 girls in a school in Kent one of the girls asked “What advice would you give to your younger self?”
Imagine a world where the first thought in everyone’s mind is “I’m going to achieve something outstanding today.”
We are often weighed down with the pressure of the expectations we put on ourselves. Ambition can be squashed by people around us who feel threatened by our brilliance and don’t want to see us shine. We can feel inundated with an overflowing inbox, meetings, social engagements, family commitments and a never ending To-Do List, to really create the drivers we need to produce our best work day after day.
After all, that’s what we are aiming for, right? It’s no good doing great work for a day, a week, or even a month, if after that we let our standards slip. Consistency is king. We want to be the person others rely on to show up, deliver and make it happen. Be a doer not a talker. Be someone that makes it happen TODAY and doesn’t wait for that ever-illusive ‘one day’.
How often do you tell yourself “I am doing the best I can”? It’s all too easy to fall into the habit of talking to ourselves in negative manner or publicly putting ourselves down. This fuels self-doubt and gives rise to the self-critic in each of us. The self-critic serves a purpose but it cannot rule us. It’s there to keep us in check. It can be the catalyst for positive change, but on the other hand, it can rob us of our light. It can pull us under in a downward spiral of low self-esteem, concern about social acceptance, dislike of ourselves, and fuel the belief that “I am not enough.”
At the end of last year I started to break free from the sadness and turbulence of 2016. I looked towards the bright future I dream of creating, and felt Scotland calling me. I was drawn by the idea of immersing myself in an environment where I could focus on creating content in a place that inspires me. Scotland has always opened up my heart, soul and creativity to produce my best work and I couldn’t think of a better way to kick off 2017.
2016 was the year that I broke through the ‘film making’ wall that had held me back for years. I used to watch films created by other adventurers and content creators in awe. Sometimes I would film my adventures and challenges, but rarely would that content get edited into a film and shared online. I didn’t know where to start with editing - it seemed daunting and time consuming.
I think many of us have these things that we can’t currently do, but want to be able to. We don’t know where to start or how to break down the barriers we’ve placed in the way. Always start with the lowest hanging fruit.
