The Eye Of The Hurricane – The Climb #261

Monday 9^th October 2017

I feel a bit like I’m in the eye of a hurricane at the moment.
Around me, everything is chaos. There’s the eternal stress of worrying about the book (a feeling that I never feel will change, only the book I’m stressing about). Then there’s upcoming tournaments and trying to pull away from placing pressure on myself to perform better. And then there are plans I’ve been making for the next stage of my journey.
And yet, this week, I’m surprisingly calm. I feel that at any minute something could happen and the eye wall slam into me and tear me to pieces.
I realised something today and at first I was worried it was a negative thing. Whenever everything is going well, I have this habit of throwing a virtual hand grenade into my life. When Action-Figure was going well, I just walked away. And then after Leggeddon had thrown its own hand grenade at me and I’d spent years getting myself to a stage where things were under control and manageable, I went and decided it was time to sort out my nutrition, to up my fitness, and work towards becoming a better fencer.
Every time I’ve done this it has turned my quiet, under-control life upside down. Within a few weeks I find myself wondering why I did something so stupid. It’s like I’m on some crazy self-destruct.
Except, I realised today it’s not. It’s how I level up.
I go, give myself an impossible challenge, work towards it and complete it, only to then throw in the virtual hand grenade to set me off on an even greater one.
I made a decision of where I wanted to be some years ago and was prepared that to hit those stars would take a long time. And I realised that everything is working towards that goal, either directly or in support of it. Getting good at swordfighting has taken me 18 months and yet even that is only, at best a medium term goal. Even getting Black As Knight published is just one step towards a larger goal.
I constantly analyse, looking at patterns and my own market intelligence to show me that both those medium and long terms goals are correct and don’t need adjustment.
But sometimes that adjustment means me. I might need to be fitter or a better editor, or just a more patient person, or less serious. And that might manifest itself in some crazy, seemingly unrelated goal. But I’ll make it and then proceed to works towards it.
This is my journey. This is my climb.
It’s those that take risks that succeed. I hear that so often. Admittedly, I often jokingly think that the reason we hear that is because those that took risks and didn’t probably died in a huge fireball of failure.
So there’s always fear when I look towards the new goal. I question myself. I ask myself why can’t I be happy with what I’ve got. I question whether I still have a fever and maybe should not trust my own sanity.
But then I look at the long term goals and realise that those goals were always there. Maybe the specific challenges to reach those goals have changed slightly but the goal was always there.
There was a time, when my goals were as simple as “this person did X to achieve Y, I will do X”. I liken it to following a trail someone else made up a mountain. But I’ve reached the stage in my writing and personal development where I’m now making my own paths. And it’s scary because there’s this feeling that at any moment you could slip and fall off.
And so I look at every single challenge I’ve placed before me, and how I’ve always accomplished them, and how things have always ended up where I wanted them (especially in the years since Leggedon). And I tell myself that I need to trust myself, that I’ve got myself here and self-doubt is only natural, especially when the goals are as crazy as mine.
But I’m calm. I’m viewing the hurricane from the inside. And yes, at some point the eye wall is going to slam into me and for a while it’s going to feel like hell.
But then… then I’ll conquer it like every single other goal I’ve laid before me.
If you want to follow more of my journey, then be sure to check me on my social channels. Likewise, if you’d like me to expand on any point mentioned above, please say so in the comments.