Have you ever thought about turning challenges into adventures? I didn’t until this week – it’s #UpSkill month at work and I tuned into an awesome inspirational speaker Alastair Humphreys – one of many sessions held to help us #UpSkill at NatWest. The presentation wasn’t necessarily about upskilling but more turning challenges into adventures and taking small steps, that work for you, to achieve them.

Alastair’s job title is ‘Adventurer’ – pretty cool right? Yet, we can all be adventurers and it’s really easy. Don’t get me wrong, Alastair has cycled the world which is definitely an adventure and not easy but he started off small and worked towards his goals simply because he wanted to get outdoors more!

A few years ago I undertook what I used to call a challenge but I’m changing it to an adventure – I wanted to #UpSkill. I wanted to improve my cooking skills, learn about new ingredients and also new techniques – all recipes also had to be 100% gluten free. In addition, I wanted to understand and learn about Instagram – so every post had to be shared on the platform. In the end I completed 260 posts out of 365 – that’s 260 new things I learnt. Was it hard? Absolutely! Was it worth it? Hell yes! I was so proud – yes, I hadn’t met my goal of 365 posts but you know what in my mind I smashed it. Do I have a huge amount of recipes to use now? Yes. Do I know how to use Instagram? Yes. And guess what? My friends started asking for recipes so I even learnt how to build a website to share my recipes. It all came from me having the desire to learn and develop – you can too. Check my website out here: http://www.365freefrom.com

What was your next adventure I hear? I wanted to get outdoors more but my time was limited. I decided to sign-up for the Berlin In-Line Skating Marathon – it would get me outdoors, I would get my exercise in whilst learning a new skill. Was it hard? Yes. Was it worth it? Yes! I completed the marathon in 2 hours 38 minutes – I never thought I could skate 26 miles but I did and so can you!

This year’s adventure? Getting married (I’m learning a lot with this one 😉).

So, what’s my point? There are so many resources out there to help you learn and develop but you have to decide that you want to and then you have to plan it in because we are all busy. Why not block time out in your diary to have those adventures? Or you could even use your commute to #UpSkill as an example (I’m writing this on my commute home). Alastair says we don’t need to worry about the 9-5 but the 5-9 – when you finish work you have 16 hours to have adventures (not including weekends). Use it wisely – I certainly will be! Happy adventuring!