Can you share with us a little about your background, experience and your passions in life?

My name is Senem Anataca, I am the founder of 180UTC Lifestyle Coaching and a writer. I am married to my best friend and we are blessed with 2 daughters. I am originally from a small town called “Çal” in Turkey and have been living in Dubai for 13 years.

My close circle is very dear to my heart and my freedom, too. My values of freedom and connection are at balance so that I have my me times, my kind of bubble and connection & warmth of my close circle, too. They are must to have, in my life. I am a reader, always hungry for books, good music, quality art. I am also playing instruments and painting. I also enjoy hiking, kick-boxing, car-racing/tracking, indoor shooting (no harm shooting).

I studied law in Turkey, completed masters in law in UK and a mini MBA program in Telecommunications in UAE. I believe in continuous education so I have been mastering new skills all the time, such as, including but not limited to, Reiki, breathing techniques, co-active coaching, energy balancing, tarot reading, mindfulness, human psychology, mind shift, mind mapping, public speaking, intuitive leadership and so on.

Before 180UTC, I was working at legal services and contract management field in Middle East and Africa Region.

180UTC’s motto “Live Your Authentic Potential Boldly” reflects my true passion in life. I believe that every person is born with an authentic potential and humankind may achieve things beyond imagination by actualizing it. Knowing thyself -as it comes from one source- helps people to understand humanity. Hence respect, integrity, authenticity, accountability and compassion are honored more. We create a better place than we found.

180UTC exists as an example of living authentic potential boldly, partners with the coachees for them to discover and actualize their authentic potentials and shares the philosophy behind 180UTC with the colleagues around the world to grow, serve and inspire together.

So 180UTC has been one of vehicles to actualize my potential. And it did at personal level. As you know, potential grows as much as you reach it. It evolves. It transforms. So from a life philosophy, it turned to be a dream to serve the community and I am giving my all to make it happen.

What would you say are your top 3 core values in life?

My core values are respect, integrity and authenticity.

If you could choose any new skill to have, what would it be?

I am currently learning about nutrition. While still having plant based food, how can I make sure my kitchen is still equipped to feed the needs of different age groups in the family. It is very challenging, I have professional support.

If you could select one piece of advice that you feel the world needs to listen to and bring into reality, what would it be?

I do not believe in advices. I have not seen one piece of advice that was listened by the whole world and came to reality. It could be lovely if it would. Let us take the Adam and the apple as a metaphor, here. A great advice from great source did not work and humankind made all the way from Heaven to the Earth. What else may work? And another perspective is that whose experience is superior to others to make his/her advice shed a light on others.

When you listen to those stories, you get tears, goose bumps… Even though the story may be in a different country, different time, you feel like it is your story. It resonates. You get inspired, provoked. It touches. People are already resourceful, they are capable, we all are.

I think advices are getting stuck at the brain level and mostly not being absorbed at the soul level.

So I am not giving advice. I am sharing my own true stories when asked or I am holding the space when people need to be listened or I am asking questions in case if outer world is too loud that people can not hear their own answers for a while.

Who is your virtual coach/mentor, and why?

As a virtual role model, I always follow Senem of my inner journeys. I find inner journeys so powerful and inspiring. For me, it is important to find my authentic best version of all times, all the time, actualize. Then enjoy and next…

As a coach, I am in partnership with many colleagues around the world in peer coaching agreements. They are all on their ICF journeys. It is a great support mechanism and experience.

And lastly, I have a MCC level mentor coaching me on my ICF journey.

Balance is key.

Which habit do you think is making you a better, happier and healthier person?

I am true believer of holistic approach. Whenever I am off the track, out of balance, I am not that good, happy and healthy so what does it tell me? I need balanced habits.

My life is balanced, grounded, centered, happy, fulfilled with the following habits:

Waking up before sunrise,

Morning Routine (Morning walk before sunrise, Breathing Exercise, Gratitude),

Plant based food,

Evening Routine (Sunset Meditation, Journaling)

Having Good Sleep

How did you build this habit?

They are all interconnected. It started years ago with a healing dance course called Dance of Wholeness. When I was a student at the course, I learnt about the yoga, meditation, breathing exercises and many other healing and mindfulness elements in very small bites.

Our instructor is an authentic, wise woman and I am a person who is always hungry to knowledge. You give me a drop of knowledge, I seek the ocean. It does not mean that I can embody them all the time as wisdom. Sometimes I may grasp, sometimes not… But I do seek the information and do my best trying to be good practicing student as much as my capacity at the time lets me.

Then I picked it up from there, attended many other workshops, trainings, read many books, travelled to the cities like Rishikesh and Bali to be able to learn more about mindfulness, meditation and many other related topics.

Building habits for me works like building muscles, first I check my strength. For instance, I knew nothing about meditation. So first I have gained knowledge as much as possible (I am still gaining, there is no end to the knowledge, there will never be).

Then when I felt ready to practice, I tried. Let’s give an example; for the first try, I could only stay still for 1 minute. I tried to build consistency around this duration; everyday 1 minute. Then I increased the duration for a while and quality for a while and so on. Then there were maintenance days that I do nothing for this habit but work on another habit.

What helps you when you are stressed or anxious?

My habits and routines help me in normal conditions.

If there is something extraordinary going in my life and I am not able to follow my habits, I am humble enough to ask support from my close circle as well as from professionals.

We are all human, it is all normal and valid. We shall never give up on speaking our truths. Healing starts with speaking up. I speak up, I need x, y, z!

Or sometimes I may not even figure out what I need at that specific moment but I am bold, true, authentic enough to say loud what I feel such as I am stressed or I am anxious or I am in love or I am scared or I am ashamed whatsoever. I express myself, every feeling is valid and deserves to be witnessed.

What book changed your life, and in what way?

There have been many authors /poets and books shaping my life since my childhood.

I guess it was 3 years ago, (I am so grateful that) Masnavi by Rumi came to my way. I have been reading it since then. It is very deep, meaningful, soft but also heavy. Each time I read, I am discovering something new. It is full of wisdom, love, respect and compassion about life, connection and greater picture.

The first time when I read the first book of the series, I was in tears of noticing my own ignorance about life.

Are you into journaling/bujo? If yes, in what way do you journal?

Yes, I do. I have different journals for different purposes although I do not write to each of them every day. It depends what I am really needing before I go to sleep to lock and close the day.

1) Save the Date / Keep the Energy Journal

2) Lessons Learnt / Moving Forward Journal

3) Gratitude Journal

4) Messages to My Daughters Journal

And I do have a vision wall where I have my life purpose statement and values and many others.

Do you practice mindfulness? If yes, why did you start and what do you like about the practice of mindfulness?

I think we covered a lot about how I practice and why. What I would like to add more is what I like about the practice.

I do not know if there will ever be a time that we will go back to wild and free nature and whether that extreme will really be serving us anymore. But, in this pace of life, we are missing a lot for sure. We are missing the connection. Connection with other livings, feelings, beauty, greater picture and even thyself. We are getting sick energetically, mentally, physically and we do not even have time to notice it.

What do you do when you don’t know what to do?

I connect to one and ask for guidance. It can be in many different forms that may serve at that time.

What is the most unusual thing you are grateful for?

I do not know if it is unusual but water is always in my gratitude list.

What makes a “Good Day” a good day for you?

I no longer label days good or bad, I am open to experience all days.

Additional Notes

Discover more about Senem on her website, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.