Confidence Course

3/12/2012 challenge , conquer , overwhelmed 0 Comments

I was talking to Kevin on Saturday about being overwhelmed with my job and life in general. Afterwards, he told me a good analogy about life.

It’s a confidence course, just like in the military.

But before I get into that analogy, I’m going to give you an idea of what I’ve been going through lately.

I had been doing the block-of-time (remember that post?), and I was able to crank out chapters for my third book. But then a monkey wrench was thrown into my life, right in the center of it all. It was as if the Norse God of wind Njord, stuck his head in my life and blew, scattering everything I needed to do away from me.

But the thing is, I’ve handled similar situations like this before; however, this time is different.

I don’t think I’ve ever been so challenged in my life like I am now, and I have no idea how I’m going to pull everything I want to do off.

Take this job for instance. I manage an office and do the bookkeeping, which involves a lot of accounting work.

I’m not complaining about it, I’m just saying there’s a lot of information getting thrown at me during the day. And when I get home my brain is too tired to do anything but worry if I’m retaining the information at work well enough to do the job on my own.

And then there’s that little annoying fear in the back of my brain that I might not be living up to their expectations, and omigod. . . . What if they fire me because of it?

That would be so humiliating, especially living in a small town where everybody knows your business.

Then there’s my book I’m planning on publishing soon. That takes a lot of work to do, which I don’t mind. In fact, I rather enjoy it. But I need to find time to do it, and finish writing my third book. I also need to revise and edit my second book because I want to publish it before the end of this year.

Oh, and another thing I want and need to do is to start going back to the gym. I used to go four times a week but stopped because truthfully, I rather stay home and write instead of working out.

That’s so bad, huh?

But I totally need to get my butt back in shape because on Saturday I went to South Dakota (that’s where our closest shopping center is at) to get some much needed clothes. . .

No, really. I do need clothes.

Anyway, I still wear the same size as before, but when I saw myself in the dressing room mirror, I didn’t like what the mirror reflected back at me. So I have to get back on a workout schedule before my backside grows a shelf where I can reach behind myself and grab a book.

Ya know what I’m saying?

So how in the hell am I going to be able to do everything I want and need to do? And why–oh–why all of a sudden, I’ve been dog piled with all this stuff I need to do?

Now we’re back to the confidence course analogy.

When I had expressed to Kevin, my above concerns, one of the things he told me during that conversation was this: What I’m going through right now is my own confidence course.

During our life, we all go through our own confidence course. If we succeed, we feel good about ourselves knowing we conquered whatever challenge(s) we went through. By doing so, we’re rewarded with a confidence we never had before. Just like the confidence course in the military.

The only way I’m going to get through this and succeed, is to change my thinking from: I’m so overwhelmed. How am I going to do all of this? This is too much. Why did I take on this challenging job? To: People in my community are counting on me, and now I’m up to bat to do my part for them. I can do this job, along with all the other things I need and want to do. I will succeed in this job, in my writing, and in getting my ass into shape.

I wrote this post because it’s part of my self-publishing journey. We all go through our own personal struggles, and it’s up to us to rise above it in order to accomplish our dream.

I don’t care who you are.

It’s the same for all of us because we’re all human.

So whether I make some extra money off of my books or make it big. I’ll still be the same person as I am now, but with a different confidence course to go through.

But it’s up to me to overcome my personal struggles.

Nobody is going to carry me through it. If they did, it would hinder my growth and enable the behavior of, I don’t want to do this, or I can’t do this so I’m not going to.

On that note, I’ll go and conquer this Monday, at my shiny new job, do the best I can, and work on my writing stuff later tonight. And then I’ll do the same thing the next day, and the next day, and the next day, and the next day . . .

Well, you get the point.

Oh. Wait. I need to add the gym in there, along with household/life duties.

I knew I was forgetting something. :)