Bucket List Living

Despite her countless triumphs within cricket and broadcasting, the 37-year-old’s view of success has evolved over the years, and she now believes that there’s still a lot more work to be done in order for her to experience true personal success. “I used to think [success] was outward, in other words what people think you’ve achieved. It could be a certain job, car, house or status in society. But then by speaking to so many people, I realised that [success] was more about connecting with creativity, doing what you love and being inspired, which is much more of an internal thing,” she explained. “I wanted to achieve things that others would congratulate me on rather than really thinking about what’s right and what I wanted. These achievements may not impress anyone else but as long as I consider them a success, that’s all that matters.”

As such, learning to salsa dance, riding in a helicopter and campervanning across New Zealand are some examples of Ebony’s new goals. Working on ticking off this ever growing bucket list has forced her to regain focus. Although bucket lists are often a personal commodity scribbled into the back of a private diary, the former England star felt that it was always something she wanted to put back into the world. “It’s all about living for me,” said Ebony. “I was nearing the end of my career and I thought ‘I’m retiring, I’ve got to get on it!”

And it’s that positive mindset that she felt inspired to adopt after a piece of advice from fellow British athlete, Kriss Akabusi. “He told me about something called the ‘Cycle of Renewal’ and it changed my whole perspective on the world,” she explained.

“It’s a psychological cycle that we all go through. Inevitably in life we will experience loss – a job, partner, income, freedom, and so on. Following this, you go into a cocooning phase where you reflect on what’s just happened, then you go through a phase of coming back; becoming better as a person and reflecting. It’s important to ask yourself questions through the process to understand how you can turn it into something powerful,’ she gives an example: “When I started as the Director of Women’s Cricket, I had anxiety about being the only woman, but I thought ‘okay, this is just part of the cycle’ and I started recognising my achievements in a different way.”