PRESENTER AND 'STRICTLY' STAR HELEN SKELTON ON CONQUERING CHALLENGES ONE STEP AT A TIME

When life throws down the gauntlet, there’s a favourite mantra that Helen Skelton often calls upon: put one foot in front of the other.

- LAURA BENJAMIN

Be it kayaking solo more than 2,000 miles along the Amazon, running an ultra-marathon in the desert or winning a place in the final of Strictly Come Dancing last year, the 40-year-old former Blue Peter presenter has used the same strategy through many a challenging escapade.

A busy working single mum to three young children, Helen has had to learn how to go with the flow – and now she’s sharing her life lessons in a new book, In My Stride, which is just as bubbly and positive as the woman herself.

“In this book, I’ve put lots about random adventures that I’ve been lucky enough to be part of, like walking on a high wire over Battersea Power Station in 2011. People often say: ‘I couldn’t do that,’ but one hundred per cent anybody can,” Helen insists.

PERSISTENCE PAYS OFF

“When I was on the high wire, I knew I wasn’t a high-wire walker, so I literally took three steps at a time and kept doing it again and again,” she says. “I think things like that give you a really good perspective – that sometimes you just have to keep going and see where you get.”

For Helen, being adventurous doesn’t mean jumping out of aeroplanes or being the first person to ride a bicycle to the South Pole, as she was in 2012. It’s looking forward to fresh challenges when presented with them.

“I see the opportunity in everything and I think that’s what being adventurous is about,” she says. “It doesn’t mean you’ve got to be climbing up mountains; it’s about making the most of everything that’s put in front of you and taking the positives out of every situation.”