Life lessons learnt while skiing

I could not be happier! In 24h I will be heading to the airport to hit the slopes in French Alps 🙂 If I could live there, I’d be skiing every single weekend… But this is not a blog about my love of skiing, but rather what skiing (surprisingly!) taught me in life and business. I love skiing now, but the beginnings were not easy.

1. Feel the fear and do it anyway! 

Three years ago I went for a weekend skiing trip with my then new boyfriend and his friends. No idea what the hell I was thinking. Never skied before, and there I am with a group of advanced skiers. Biggest objective of that weekend: do not make a total idiot of myself.

I had a 4-hour crash course to skiing and then I just had to go ahead and ski…. I was *paralysed* with fear. And I mean PARALYSED. I could stand on the piste and be so terrified that I could not move, too scared to face the mountain downhill. I was counting down the hours to après-ski so I could indulge in couple of glasses of mulled wine and finally relax.

But eventually it would always come to the same point: ‘I can’t do it, I can’t do it, I’m too scared, I can’t to it… [half an hour later]… F*ck it! I CAN do it’ and go down easily. Every. Single. Time.

It’s incredible how big effect fear has got on our lives. For some it is motivating, but for most – paralysing. It stops you from doing things, that deep down you feel you should or actually want to do. Every hour I stood there on the piste scared was an hour wasted. Don’t waste your time on being scared. You will do all those things anyway, it will just take a long time to overcome the fear. So screw it, feel the fear and do it anyway!

For those interested in the subject more, there’s actually a great book titled ‘Feel the fear and so it anyway‘ which I read few years back.

2. Practice makes the master

Initially, each piste would be a massive challenge, with many stops and ‘I can’t do it’- type monologues. But every single time I came back to the same piste, I noticed that I would be little bit more confident, faster, with fewer stops and eventually I would be able to do the whole piste in one go after few tries.

It applies to everything. If you’re scared of something or are not good at – do it frequently! This is the reason why I started this blog. I was very bad at writing so I decided to practice regularly by writing blogs and become better at it. And there you – now I even have you reading it! If you’re terrified of public speaking, sign up for Toastmasters or other public speaking meet-ups. If you’re not applying for jobs because you’re scared of interviews, then just go to a few for jobs that you’re not that interested. You can become great at anything. Research says you need 10,000 hours of practice to master something, but even few hours will help you to become better than you are now.

3. You can trick your mind

Few days ago at a dinner with friends someone asked me how after a year of not skiing (since last winter) I could still do it well or even better than last year. And I responded that it’s because I practised in my dreams! They all laughed at me a lot. But the truth is that because I was looking forward to the next skiing trip so much and thinking about it all the time, I would dream about skiing very often. I would do my best turns and be able to go really fast in my dreams. And then when I hit the slopes, I would do just that in real. I was amazed. I know this sounds very silly, but think about the last important meeting or presentation you had. The time when, on the way to work, you were going over and over through what you want to say in your head. See – you do it as well – you practised in your head. Your mind usually doesn’t differentiate between something happening in real life and something in your head (either thoughts or dreams). You can trick yourself. Not really sure yet how you can apply it in your life, so I’ll leave you to ponder on this idea…

Not enough time? Try this.

‘I don’t have time’ is our best excuse for almost everything, especially our dreams, aspirations, or New Year resolutions. Isn’t is sad? We sabotage ourselves and make this lame excuse to not do things that actually make us happy. So what’s the solution? I’d like to share my 3 ‘time-stretching’ strategies I have and also recommend 2 best books on the topic:  4 hour working week by Tim Ferriss & No BS time management for entrepreneurs by Dan Kennedy. The books helped to organise myself better and work more efficiently, but the techniques I want to share with you today go beyond working hours. So here we go…

1. Wake up earlier.

Do not dismiss this idea too soon. I am a night owl and my favourite time of the week is Sat & Sun lie-in… but believe me it is possible. When I was doing my masters while working full time, the only time I had free was before work. I forced myself to get up 2 hours earlier than usual to study, research and write my thesis before I began my usual work. I already finished my degree, but I continue doing this as it gives me extra 2 hours to work on my own business ideas. It takes discipline to develop this habit, but it’s great – you can do your morning workout, do your writing, or whatever it is that you don’t have time for. Here are 3 things that  help me to get up:

a) UP Jawbone. I got it for Christmas and I love it. Not only it tracks my physical activity but also sleep patterns. It shows my deep and light sleep phases. I programmed it so that it vibrates to gently wake me up within 30 mins of my selected wake-up time. It smartly chooses the best possible time to wake me up, as it’s easier to get up if you’re woken up from a light sleep, than deep sleep (when dreaming).

b) Philips Hue lightbulbs. I have them installed in the bedroom and programmed to slowly light up in the morning to imitate sunrise, way before the sun is up on those winter mornings… It  helps to wake up more naturally, the light will trick your body into thinking it’s daytime and become more awake.

c) Coffee machine with a timer. It’s so nice to wake up to a smell of coffee mmm… I’m very lucky that I usually find a freshly brewed cup of coffee by my bedside when I wake up, because my boyfriend beats all the records in waking up early. But you can also have it done by programming coffee machine for brewing few minutes before your wake up time. Make sure it’s close enough so you can smell it!

I also set a normal alarm, just in case all of the above fails! And I have cats who climb on top of my head if I don’t get up soon enough to feed them 😉 Whatever works!

2. Eliminate something.

You can only stretch a day by little bit, but the simplest and harshest truths is that if you want to make time for something, you’ve

Watching the time go by

got to eliminate something else. Write down things you do within a week. How much time do you need to do things you want? How can you eliminate something else? Let’s say you want to learn to play piano and you need 3 hours of practice a week. Maybe you could ask your manager to work from home once a week and that will save you 3 hours of commuting time. Maybe you can hire a cleaner to save you 3 hours of weekly cleaning? Maybe you could not go to Fri after-work drinks? You get the idea. But make sure that once you make time/financial commitment – you stick to it!

3. Plan for the future.

I always get disappointed when I can’t squeeze enough into my schedule; or spread myself too thinly not achieving anything. One good solution which gives me psychological comfort is planning for the future. So let’s say there is no way I can find those extra 3 hours a week to practice piano right now. The earliest I could start is in April when my dancing courses / important work project/ language classes finish. Then book it for April. Or next year or whenever you can. At least it gives you a feeling that you have it planned and will do it in the near future. You can go as far as creating a 3 year plan of all the things you always wanted to do. I got this idea from Barbara Sheer’s book What do I do when I want to do everything? and I must say it works. As silly as it may sound in the first place, it does help you to prioritise your ideas and make an actionable plan on how to make them happen.

Good luck. I hope some of my tips will help you stretch the time a little bit so you can make your dreams happen. I am super curious to hear what works for you, so please share that in response!

Photo credits: http://psd.tutsplus.com/articles/inspiration/conceptual-photo-manipulations/

We all need to do a lot more leaning in

I hope you’ve all read Sheryl Sandberg’s book ‘Lean In’. If you have not, go to Amazon, order it and read it right now; and I mean ALL of you. The book is not only for women. If you are a man, but manage or work with women, or would like to support your wife/girlfriend or daughter in their careers – you have to read it too. You can also watch her amazing TED talk on ‘Why we have too few women leaders?’.

Straight after I read the book back in April last year, I handed it over to my boyfriend and ask him to read it. He was confused… ‘why should I read it?’. My answer was ‘because you run a business and employ women, you need to understand how they think and work’. So he read it and soon after he put it on the ‘suggested reading list for new joiners’. No kidding. Now everyone in his company needs to read the book (95% men). On top of that, they were trying to figure out how to attract more women into their business. They’ve increased their efforts to attract more female graduates, but they realised that at this stage it is too late. Much fewer women study mathematics, statistics, engineering, and science in general; and these are the kind of backgrounds they’re looking for. They realised they need to help much younger girls before they make a choice on what to study. To be proactive, they got involved in organising Stemmetes hackathon taking place in Oxford in October. It was an event aimed at attracting more girls age 7 to 21 to science and IT. It was a great success and I was just so proud they made it happen. They continue to make efforts to attract more women to work with them and give them equal chances – and it all started with a man reading ‘Lean in’. What an incredible ripple effect.

When it comes to the effect the book had on me, I can certainly say I’ve become more confident and outspoken about what I want and need. I asked for a promotion and pay rise in 2013 and I got it. I leaned in, I took initiative, I sat at the table. Initially people ‘discount you’ – you’re a women and you’re young. Why should you have a voice in the room full of older, more experienced men (if you work in IT, like I do)? But I remembered the lessons learnt from the book and did my thing anyway. I was called arrogant and aggressive. I didn’t get upset because I realised that if I was a man no one would call me like that. They would call me ambitious.

According to Sandberg, an average salary for women and men is at ratio 77:100 – exactly the same as last year. This hasn’t increased since 2002. But here I need to explain that it is an annual median salary of all women to men, and not a ratio of woman’s salary to man’s in the same position. It is easier to explain the gap this way, because more women are in part time jobs or freelancing and more men work in highly demanding and rewarding jobs with huge bonuses. So 77% might not be a good reflection of reality, but the gap is there. Another study measured earnings of young professionals a year after graduating from the same university. Women were getting 93% of what men where getting. That just shows we value ourselves much less than men and we’re worse at negotiating entry salaries (or any salaries in fact). What can you do about it? Well, there’s no point asking or campaigning for equality and if we don’t start from ourselves. So, go on, lean in. I’ve got a lot of work to do on myself as well.

Photo credit: http://leanin.org/

How do you develop a habit?

There we go – 3rd blog post and that’s where it’s stops. For the 3rd time. Coincidently, we’re now in mid January and some time soon people will start breaking their New Year resolutions. This one started before NY, so no excuses! I have promised myself to keep writing and there’s nothing worse than failing your own expectations. At least for me.

Btw. this is the soundtrack to this blog post is: Linkin Park, Breaking the Habit. The song is about breaking bad habits, not developing good ones, but still it’s stuck in my head right now.

While trying to self-analyse myself as to why I stopped something I wanted to do so much , I pondered on how much does it take for people to form their habits. According to research from UCL it takes on average 66 days. Which would take me till the end of March… Long time, yes. Challenging, not really – if you’re taking small steps. I noticed that people focus too much on the end goal, e.g.  want to lose 10kg, want to set up a business; rather than thinking about what would be the process of getting there, what would bring them one step closer.

So this year, instead of grand plans of who and what I want to become I focus on the small, realistic and actionable steps. That includes 10 mins a day clearing clutter to make the space around me more organised; getting up at 6am, so I can work for 2 hours on my own projects before work; going for a run 3 times a week, so I can feel healthier and stronger. So far it works – but let’s see if I last till end of March. I should schedule in my diary blog writing too. If you have any proven methods of developing habits – share them in the comments!