WHEN Paul McGuire sets herself a challenge she certainly thinks big.

She had never been involved in sport so after the London Olympics, the 33-year-old from Riddrie in the East End aimed to try all 17 Commonwealth Games sports before the event in Glasgow last summer.

Then she turned her focus to the world of work and her latest project is a dream job challenge in which she aims to try out 15 roles, from farmer to teacher, fire fighter to astronaut.

It is hard to believe this bright and bubbly young woman was once so eaten up by anxieties she couldn't go to the shops on her own or even contemplate eating out.

"I wanted to do this next because people kept saying how inspired they were by the sport challenge, so I thought, 'Scottish kids tend to have really low aspirations and maybe think there's not much out there for them. When do we lose that dream of wanting to do something we really love?'" says the electronic note taker, who provides communication support for people who are deaf and hard of hearing.

"So I thought I would do 15 different jobs."

She has already tried her hand at being a writer and produced in 94 hours the thriller The Between Lines, now available on Kindle.

This month she will have a go at acting with a walk on part in the panto Treasure Island at the Pavilion, Glasgow. And she has a day booked in her diary with the Blades Aerobatic Display Team, made up of former Red Arrows, who will take her up in the air and show her how to perform a loop the loop.

She agrees that an astronaut might be a tricky role to set up. Though she aims to reach for the stars and approach Nasa first.

In a bid to overcome her fears Paula's sports challenge saw her compete in a triathlon, train with Commonwealth Games athletes and book a flying lesson with an aerobatics display team.

Once she decided to take matters into her own hands, she planned to think big.

She wrote about her experiences in the blog Paula Must Try Harder and won fans along the way, eventually being nominated as a baton carrier during the Queen's Baton Relay this year.

"I've been in a few schools talking to kids about my sports challenge and also about aiming high and not letting yourself be undersold," adds Paula. "It has been really positive."

She says the blog and the new adventures have been great for her mental as well as her physical health. She has also appeared on BBC Radio 4's Women's Hour to talk about how she overcame her fears.

"I was a really anxious person, I wouldn't go into shops on my own, I wouldn't eat in public and since then people, particularly women who have fears, have got in touch to say, 'If you can do this and try all these sports then I can maybe take up swimming again or I can maybe go out for a run' which is lovely.

"I couldn't cycle and I was terrified of water so I'd never learned to swim.

"It took me about three weeks to build up the courage to even go in and ask for cycling lessons. Then the Kilmarnock Weightlifting Club invited me down to train with the Olympian Peter Kirkbride. Two of the women from the club and Peter were in the Glasgow Games, so I trained with some of the first Commonwealth athletes.

"I really enjoyed the triathlon, though I thought it was sneaky because they had three sports under the guise of one.

" I had to learn to cycle and swim. I was aqua phobic since I was a toddler. On the day of the triathlon I still couldn't swim properly and I had only just learned to cycle but I went along anyway with my big pink float.

"That was the first finish line I had ever crossed and my family were there. After that I thought, 'Well, if I can do a triathlon when I can't swim and I can't really cycle there's pretty much nothing I can't try.'"