Maria Sharapova famously won Wimbledon when she was 17 years-old and went on to win five grand slam singles titles, become world number one, earned the most money out of any female athlete11 years in a row, even set up her own sweet brand, Sugapova and amongst her many endorsement deals Maria is still the global ambassador for evian.
When it comes to resilience, determination and ambition it would be hard to find someone with a better manifesto for life than Maria Sharapova. So who better to join us for the latest GLAMIFESTO for life than the 34 year-old who retired from tennis in early 2020, herself?
WATCH: Maria Sharapova’s GLAMIFESTO
My daily mantra is…
…one step at a time. As basic as that sounds, I feel that sometimes I get way too ahead of myself with my goals and my priorities, and sometimes that certainly gets in the way of being present.
…must be a workout. I usually start my day with a sweat and whether that’s 15, 20 minutes – or an hour or hour and a half, if I want to push myself 0 I definitely feel better on the other side. My spirits are lifted, I feel healthier, I ended up eating much better during the day, and I stay hydrated when I’m doing my workout. I feel like it sets a really good base for the rest of the day. With working out, I get bored very easily as I think we all do with our workout routines, but you must be consistent so I try to mix up two or three different workouts. I start with strength as I believe that strength is the foundation of everything you do, especially in the core. And after retirement, I feel like I work on my arms a little bit more because that came so naturally in my sport and I don’t really do much of that in my everyday life.
…Mental health is carried with us throughout the entire day. From the moment that we wake up to when we go to sleep. I feel like we want to place ourselves in all these different buckets and I like to set those goals and those buckets can be as easy as thinking, ‘okay, today I have my small to-do list. I want to spend time with my family, I want to get my work done, I want to take care of my body,but it always starts with myself. ‘How am I feeling? Am I energized? Am I fresh? What is my body lacking?’ And a good night’s sleep. I think that the following day begins when you have a good night’s sleep.
Staying hydrated is one of the keys to life…
…I start my day with one litre of water. I learned that with my sport because when you travel around the world, you face jet lag and different conditions and heat waves from the summer to the winter. You never know where you’re going to be playing and how your body’s going to react during the day. I’ve carried all those routines post retirement, because they really help in my everyday life. I feel fresh. I know that from working with evian for the last nine years!
I feel my truest self when…
… I am true to who I am, when I lead a life that is authentic to me, when I spend time with my family and feel grounded because those are your roots. I think as you get a little bit older, you realise maybe you don’t have as much time as you did when you were very young and a teenager. So you really cherish those small intimate moments with your family and I have done so much in this past year.
The one thing I couldn’t live without is…
…honesty. I think honesty is a really important quality to have about your mindset, about who you are, about the people that you’re with, that all comes down to authenticity and then the purity that you carry yourself with, and your life with, and your outlook on life with.
The best thing I’ve learnt in the last year is…
…that you can get too far ahead of yourself. It goes back to the mantra of one step at a time and not thinking about the future so much. It’s important to visualise and have goals and I’ve always done that in my life and in my career, but sometimes it’s best just to get things done on the day and don’t let your deep true goals get in the way of every single day, because the present is what you’re going through. But we always say that the journey is so much better than the destination and we perceive success to be this incredible feeling on a pedestal. And it is, but it’s very small and it’s very short. The journey is what gets you through it and it’s much longer so if you can find those beautiful moments along the way that are occasionally challenging and if you’re able to get through them, I think, the beauty is on the other side and it’s very exciting.
I deal with failure…
… in many different ways and there’s no perfect formula to it because sometimes it gets to you and sometimes you handle it differently or more appropriately. But I do think that the lessons that you gain along the way of facing failure and overcoming it eventually help you for the challenges that come your way in the future.
The book that changed my life is…
…I’m a huge fan of Adam Grant and I’ve gotten to know him personally over the last few years. His take on life is very human and his way of connecting stories to real life experiences and the way that he puts his words on paper, I find incredible.
The best piece of advice I received is…
…it usually comes from my parents during tough times. In sports, there’s so many ups and downs and we have victories that are followed by losses. I remember my mother telling me that life is like a zebra line, you have the dark lines and there’s always going to be sunshine around the corner in any way of life. Maybe not professionally, but personally, it will come and then you also have to be realistic enough to know that it’s not going to last. But then you’re going to be faced with challenges and potentially failure again, so make sure you stay sturdy in your thought process and that when you succeed, you don’t think of it as the highest point in your life or in your career. Or when you have a moment when you’re down, you don’t think that it’s the lowest that you are. Celebrate your victories, make sure that you take care of yourself when you’re down, but most of all, just, just be steady with your emotions and then your thought process.
I would like my legacy to be that…
…I stayed true, real, and authentic to what I believed in and what I wanted to represent. I’d say at the core of everything I did was this belief that I wanted to give everything that I had until the very last moment and the very last point. I wanted to be the person that, although I played in a very individual sport, a teammate would choose to get you out onto the field when it really matters. When things are not going well and they need to choose a leader to go out there and play for them and compete for them. I always want it to be that person.
