think highly of yourself...

For many years now, people have told me how lucky I am, or it's alright for you. And, yes, I consider myself lucky, very lucky, but a lot of my luck has come from my own self talk. In my era this was called "showing off!, which came with a huge negative conotation.

As I have written in my profile, I have always loved colour and creativity, but I also love the outdoors and enjoying the different weather and landscapes.

Growing up in Edinburgh, I became aware of the artificial ski slope and I was desperate to learn how to ski. I ended up working a Saturday job in Safeway, which I hated - the meat wrapping department!!!...but I was determined to be able to ski. I spent everything I ever earned, for many years, on skiing. I was truly terrible at it, and scary to myself and others. However, I persevered! Instead of concentrating on my studies, I was either sewing, knitting or skiing!

Then I got to my late teens, working several jobs, and managed to save enough to go hitch-hiking round the USA. The picture here shows the very fragile handrails to get to the top of half dome in Yosemite, no ropes and a long drop below. Same day I met a bear face to face!

Following many challenges in this journey I arrived back home and took up a job made in heaven - ski instructing in the Highlands. That didn't last long because I got an amazing offer to teach in Italy and left this job and flew, the following day to Italy. Lots happened in between times but having arrived in the winter wonderland of Austria, I came across the USA luge team who invited me to train with them. That led to me training with the British team which was incredibly exciting, exhilarating and downright stupid! Through my travels and challenges, I eventually landed up in Cornwall looking through a whole new lens of possibilities.

This is when I decided to launch my Colour Me Beautiful business, before most people had ever heard of it. This role harnessed my passion for colour and creativity, yet in a place that wasn't ready for it!

I'm getting to the point - life is for embracing, loving yourself and enjoying the "skin" you are in!  Don't look in the mirror and wish you looked different, or look at other people and want to be like them, or dwell on negativities that have been passed to you by other people who are living with their own fears.

Self esteem is an upward or downward spiral and what you do affects the way you feel and how you feel affects the things you do.

​By understanding how to look great you will reap the immediate benefit of feeling great and then, the only way is up!