What nearly dying taught me about living, by electrocution survivor Milly Pickles

"I'm sorry to interrupt but I've made my decision, it needs to go," 20-year-old Milly Pickles told the surgeons who were hovering around her hospital bed, alongside her family, weighing up the pros and cons of amputating her right leg.

It had been just two months since the sporty university student had been electrocuted and nearly lost her life in an accident in which 35 per cent of her body was burned. Yet to detail the incident itself publicly, London-based Pickles is still processing the fragments she can remember and will take the time to explore it more in a book she's writing about her experience.

After making the decision, a few tears followed, but Pickles' strong mindset revealed itself, immediately telling her parents: "At least I can be in the Paralympics now.

"I was quickly trying to think of something I couldn't do before that I could do now that would make me feel better," the Brit told Olympics.com in an exclusive interview.

Goal-setting also included learning Spanish, taping up words on the wall in her hospital room, and treating each trip to the operating theatre for one of 25 surgeries, as a mini day-trip away from her room.

The comment about the Paralympics and "wanting to get back to her life" was not a bout of bravado either. Just months after the incident, Pickles was not only back at her work experience job at Chelsea Football Club – "I didn't want to miss out on the experience" – but also getting up at 5am to train as a 100m sprinter.

Those first weeks were the pattern for how Pickles would crack on with her life, altered but not changed, lessons learned the hard way that she wants to share with others, "so they don't have to go through nearly dying to find out for themselves".

So, on 3 January, International Mind-Body Wellness Day, we share some of Pickle's experiences, how she managed them, and the lessons that can be implemented into your life too as we start the year of 2024, an Olympic year at that.

• Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games

If a decision scares you, it's probably right

Two years into her sprint training, and Pickles was having second thoughts.

"I never competed or anything," she says now. "It just took that long to actually learn how to control my blade and get the strength."

Training four or five times a week, she'd go to the gym at 5am, start at Chelsea at 9am at a job she'd been offered after graduating with a first class degree – something she's "extremely proud of". For four hours in the evening, she'd do social media content on her own platforms, detailing her new journey through life as an amputee.

"I did that every day for months. I actually lost my period for four months due to stress and my mum and dad were like, 'We never see you'," despite the fact she was living with them during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown.

Something had to give, and it was the goal she'd set herself in those early days after her accident, borne of her sporty childhood, to compete in the Paralympics.

"It was a very hard decision for me to make because I felt like I was letting myself down from that initial moment in hospital. And I'd focused on it so much that it was quite terrifying thing to stop and admit to myself."

To help make the decision, Pickles tried journaling, writing down how she felt every day, and exploring her emotions. Ultimately, she finds, if a decision scares you, then you should probably go for it.

"I think if you check in with yourself and your feelings and you can feel a certain type of resentment or, whenever you go into a session or if you just don't feel that excited and it feels like a chore, if you just take note of how you feel rather than ignore it, then the signs are there to tell you."

By freeing up her time, Pickles has been able to find joy in other physical pursuits, becoming the first amputee to complete the world's hardest 400m race up a 37 degree (75%) incline being one. Training for the 2024 London Marathon, another, one-off events that suit her better than the day-in-day-out grind of being a Paralympian.

Another hard decision was to leave Chelsea to work full-time on her own platforms.

"I cried my eyes out," says the social media content creator and motivational speaker, "because my whole life I had envisaged, working for a company like Chelsea, becoming SEO manager, that was always my focus, and so to completely have a life-changing experience and then go in a direction that I never thought of, that was hard for me to do as well."

Giving herself two years to see how it worked out gave Pickles the out she needed to make the break.

"I always take the jump rather than run away from it. And I think that's what people need to do. That's the sign to me, if I'm scared, this is a good thing."

Test yourself to build self-belief

If Pickles were to pick the worst gradient and surface for running with a prosthetic leg, which has very little give in the 'ankle' joint, it would be on an uneven angled slope. So, taking on the RB400, running up a snow-less ski slope, was a challenge Pickles was excited to take on. Until an hour before the race when she wondered what she'd got herself into, having seen the result the race had on her boyfriend, fitness trainer Liam Cavanagh, who had completed it first.

"I was going up to the top of the ski lift to see him and he was an absolute mess when I saw him at the top. The videos online don't even show the level of struggle that he was going through, and he's really strong physically and mentally. So then I was freaking out. I was just like, 'What am I doing?', because in hospital, when I came out, I couldn't do a five-degree angled slope. So I thought, here I am doing the world's steepest race, and I was just so emotional on so many levels."

As the first amputee to take on the challenge, Pickles' name reverberated around the startline as the announcer highlighted her attempt, and all eyes turned toward her. As someone who likes to take time to prepare herself mentally, and with the race start an hour sooner than she'd planned for, Pickles was reeling.

"So, I remember the buzzer with 10 seconds to go, and I literally just focused and I was just telling myself positive affirmations, like, 'Milly, you've got this, you've been through worse, you can do this'. Then you can see in the video, I'm just dead focused.

"And then when I was doing it, I wasn't thinking about the bigger picture. I was doing various like mindset tactics. I was thinking, 'Okay, where can I look for foot holes?' And I was focusing on that. And then I was like, 'Oh, it feels like rock climbing'. And I just kind of distracted my brain.

"Then I was counting to 50 and then starting again from zero, and I kept telling myself, you've only got 20 steps left. And then when I got to 20 steps, 20 more, 20 more, and so that got me through.

"When I got to the top, I couldn't believe I'd done it, because I had no idea if I could do it or not, because technically hills and rocks are so impossible for an amputee. So, I was taking on something that we're told to avoid and the fact that I actually did it, I couldn't believe it."

Pickles describes such challenges as 'fun' for her, so an incredulous Olympics.com asks her to explain why.

"Because having done something like that, I just prove to myself I've done the impossible," she smiles. "If I can do that, I can do anything.

"Even in my day-to-day life, if I'm in the gym, I'm like, well, I can do one more because I climbed that hill. This is a good reference point for me to be like, I'm strong and I can do a lot of things. That then drives me forward to do more.

"My accident happened six years ago and yes, I coped really well and I tried my best every day but I think it's important to do regular challenges and check in with yourself to remind yourself how strong you are or to prove to yourself how strong you are. And doing that just gives you this innate confidence and self-belief to then do more things in life.

"I just think it's so powerful and I genuinely think if people were to do stuff like that more, I think it would really help if people were depressed or anxious because it just is just the most incredible thing ever. It just makes you feel so great, and so that's what I enjoy."

Reframe your mind to stay positive

"Mindset stuff," shares Pickles of what has helped her most in her physical and emotional adjustment.

"Your brain is a problem-solving device," she says, "so no matter what question you give your brain, it will find the answer.

"So, if I was to ask myself negative questions like, 'Why did this happen to me?', my brain will tell me why and then I'll feel rubbish. So, I was always trying to be like, 'Okay, well, I can't change anything, but what can I do?' That's why I started doing Spanish and whatnot. And it was like, 'Okay, this isn't great, but what can I do now that I couldn't do before?' So just constantly asking myself those questions and reframing my mind is what helps me stay positive," smiles Pickles.

"It's been six years and I'm still genuinely the exact same, if not happier because I've gone on this journey in this growth and I've been doing my overarching goal, since losing my limb, to help other people.

"(Losing my leg) has never really made me sad or hit me, I just feel so grateful and lucky to be alive, whether I have a limb or not, that doesn't define me. And that's why I just want to keep pushing and showing people that if you put your mind to something, you can achieve it. And don't give up even though you might have limitations because your mind's stronger than your body.

"So, I think the way I view things, I've never really seen it too much of a negative because I'm just so grateful to be alive."