Wearing balls of steel to Woburn Safari

Wow, my life is FULL ON right now.

I love the life I lead. I love the work I do. You may already know that because I shared my love and my passion in a post just last week. However the girls are off school and while I’m working hard on the business launching The Confidence Oasis, talking to business mums about my new mastermind, the publisher is chasing me for the final proofs for the book, AND I’d promised to take the girls to Woburn Safari.

So what do I do? I get sick. Now if you are familiar with Gay Hendricks, The Big Leap, you may well be wondering (as was I) ‘Hey Sherry, is that your Upper Limiting Belief telling you to stop, because you’re not good enough, you’re not worthy, you don’t deserve this success, you’re not working hard enough for this to be valuable, you’re just a working mother?’

Hell no. It’s just a throat infection.

Yes we all got up really early on Friday for the 2.5 hour drive to Woburn Safari. A fantastic day out. I’d highly recommend it. We had an amazing day and you are SO close to the animals.

      

I collapsed into bed when I got home, and stayed there for the next two days. I knew that I needed to finish reviewing the final proofs for The Confident Mother book. However my analytical brain kept reminding me … there’s no point reviewing the proofs for accuracy and detail when you feel rough. Stop worrying. If you miss the agreed deadline by a couple of days, so what. The world is not going to stop. Your publisher will not fall out of love with you (is she even in love with you?). Everybody gets sick from time to time. Even Superwoman.

Today though … I am using all my overwhelm strategies to march on through. I am no longer feeling really ill. Just a bit tired. I dusted off my balls of steel and I am ploughing through the final proofs and making magically impressive progressive. [This blog post is being written in a short 20 minute break, honest guv.]

What are these balls of steel that I wear so well?

Near the end of the book writing process, I was struggling. Really struggling. I knew what to do but it felt so hard. Overwhelming. I shared my struggles and fears with my book coach and publisher, Alison Jones. We first met through running. We have both run London marathon (she is considerably faster than me, I might add). She reminded me that I have to just think about those last two miles in the marathon, along the Embankment, when the crowds are really shouting and cheering you on, calling out your name, calling out “You can do it”.

“You mean those miles when I just want to turn round and tell the crowd to SHUT UP. I know it’s not far. I know I can do it. Now please leave me alone.”

“YES those two miles – the miles when you just have to get on and do it. When you just have to put one foot in front of the other and keep on doing it. When it hurts, it’s hard, you’d like to stop, but you can’t, you won’t.”

She went on to share a quote from ‘Do The Work‘ by Stephen Pressfield:

‘Finishing is the critical part of any project. If we can’t finish, all our work is for nothing. When we ship, we declare our stuff ready for prime time. We pack it in a FedEx box and send it out into the world….. It takes balls of steel to ship…. It requires killer instinct. We’ve got the monster down; now we have to drive a stake through its heart.’

That was the best thing she could have possibly have said to me because I put on the balls of steel and cracked on to finish the manuscript, on time (just).

So today again, I am wearing my balls of steel to get those final proofs back to her on time (well not quite, two days late but what are two days between friends).

 

What about you? Do you want to borrow my balls of steel? If you know there is something you really must do … and yet you are struggling with overwhelm, check out my downloadable resource on how to cope with overwhelm which you can access here.