I realise more and more that what I’m doing becomes less and less about the money, the publishing, and the end result but more importantly about the process.

At first I was so anxious to get somewhere – until I realised there wasn’t anywhere to “get to.” There is no ending point, no levelling off place. There isn’t somewhere you get to where you can just say, “I did it all! I’m done!”

Then I became anxious about being published; thinking that was what would make me a “real writer.” That is until I realised that by just writing, I was a writer and that outside validation couldn’t do anything if I didn’t believe in myself first.

After that I became anxious about money. It was (and still is sometimes) a huge issue and I thought if I’m worth something, I should make money. Then I realised that what I’ve received from doing this, you can’t buy. Things such as new friendship, opportunities, kind words, feeling of satisfaction at the end of each day, happiness, excitement, feeling good about who I am, amazing emails and the ability to live out my passion.

Then I became worried about people’s reactions to me and my work. Then I found out that I can’t control others reactions to me, and even though someone may not like what I’ve done there are probably 5 that did. I learned that writing is more about my needs, than that of others.

Worrying about end results left me miserable. Writing seemed like a chore because there wasn’t just the writing to think about, but all these other things. Each attempt I made at writing I felt had to be perfect and meaningful. Every attempt I made I wondered if I could get paid for it and how much. Instead of writing how I wanted too, I’d first ask if it was publishable, and if anyone would like it. I was no longer writing “in the moment” but instead, for the end result. That lead to me being neither happy nor proud of all the work I was doing and not wanting to write at all.

So I stopped thinking about what would happen to my writing when I was done. Instead, I went back to basics and wrote as though no one was ever going to see it, and that didn’t matter.

Almost instantaneously I felt more free, alive, creative and the passion I thought I was losing came back. I was able to once again enjoy the process of writing because I didn’t have all this weight baring down on me. It’s hard to sometimes not worry about the outcome of something I’m doing, but for my own sanity that’s what I need to do. If I’m doing what I love to do and am happy with the work I’ve done, then really, then end result doesn’t matter as much.

Writing, art, creativity – it’s so much more than words on a page or a painting on the wall. It’s about emotion, joy, fear, struggle, learning, accepting, happiness, compassion, friendship, play and everything in between. It’s a process, and I hope I don’t forget that again.

When I first began all this, I thought all I had to do was simply quit my job and declare myself a writer and that was that. The only work I’d have to do would be that of putting pen to paper and writing up some stories.

If only it was that easy.

The truth is, there are several battles you have to face when you begin a journey and I found out that the first one was against myself.

I had to battle my insecurities, my fears, and my ideas. I had to challenge what I believed in and if I was strong enough to continue with those beliefs. I battled my ideas of what a writer was, and how I fit into to the writing life. I quickly learned that my journey wasn’t just about putting words on the page but about really finding out who I was and how to move forward. That was a very hard battle that took me over eight months to sort through.

Once I began to feel comfortable with using the word “Writer” as my title, and I had had works published and made some amazing contacts, I thought everything would be smooth sailing. I wasn’t aware that there would be a battle number two just around the corner.

But there was. This time it was against the outside world.

Because I had so much support in the beginning, I figured that I wouldn’t have to battle anyone. I was wrong. Since I’ve worked through so much of my insecurities and fears and become comfortable with who I am and what I’m doing, I have been getting less and less feedback from others. The connection I seemed to have with so many people was all of a sudden lost. The more together I got, the more success I had, the less people were likely to respond. And those who had become my friends and supporters in the beginning were no longer willing to be around.

At first I was completely confused by this. Why were people leaving now that I was just getting somewhere? Wasn’t that the whole point of my story? Of my journey? To start at the beginning with nothing but fear, insecurity and one little dream and make it happen? Why did people have a hard time with that now that it was all working out?

I took it very personal at first until other artists confirmed to me that this was in fact, the second battle, and that almost every artist will at some point go through it.

It happens when people see you as starting to “make it.” Some people tend to become hostile, jealous, bitter or just dismiss you altogether because they think that life is easy for you now and what could you possibly know about fear or stepping in a new direction. Some see you as no longer “one of them” when you start to get happy and move forward at a rapid pace. They think you’re unrelatable, they can’t have anything to say to you and you probably don’t care what they’d have to say anyway. Some offer less support because they assume that you must be getting a tonne of it because of “who you’ve become.”

Julia Cameron states it perfectly in The Artists Way

It was hard for me at first to realise that people might be jealous or angry with me and have some think that the dream I’m living out is actually meant for them. My intention with this site was never to take away from anyone, but to give power to people. I wanted to show that if I can do this, anyone can and that yes, there is more than enough room for each of us to live out our own dreams – whatever they may be.

I understand how easy it is to come here and read the last couple of months and think that I’ve got it all figured out, when the truth is I still have fear like last year. The only difference is I’ve had some experience and achieved a little more confidence so I handle the fear a little better. I’ve also realised after almost one year of struggling that there is no such thing as “making it” or finishing line or place to level off at. There is medal to win, no person to beat, and nothing that can keep me down except myself. I’ve learned that as a human being in an uncertain field, I will always have fear, down days and boughts of unproductivity and that’s perfectly normal. I’ve also learned that I can only do what I need to do, and the reaction I get is out of my control, and not always personal. It just sometimes goes with the territory. I learned that sometimes the more we grow, the less support we get, even though sometimes we need it more.

Now I’m learning to let go of the negativity and move forward to the positive. I’m learning not to take it all so personally. Sometimes it’s hard, however, when you’re doing something you love and believe in to not have others feel so wonderful about it. It’s a battle, that’s for sure.

Maybe that’s the third one?

I don’t think it’s been just an issue of focusing because yesterday, I solved that problem yet the words still weren’t coming out. Not because my brain was tangled but because I simply didn’t want to write.

I know why. It’s the pressure.

I used to think it was the pressure to make money that kept me from writing until I examined why I really wrote and money had nothing to do with it. Then I thought it was the pressure to produce something amazing within a year – which happens to be next month – until I realised I’ve made so many personal transformations that are more rewarding than the most amazing article could be. I was having a hard time finding where this feeling of pressure was coming from.

I found it last night.

This website and all that visit it.

In the beginning, I just had a simple idea to chronicle my dream of writing. I wasn’t sure anyone would ever read any of this or that it would have any effect. But it did in the biggest way I could have ever imagined.

The encouragement I received in the beginning helped me get through very dark patches and hearing about others dreams reminded me to keep pursuing mine.

But then something happened. The site started to receive a lot of visitors and I started to receive a lot of email of stories about dreams that people had but didn’t feel like they could act out. When they wrote me, they would almost say, “Here is my dream that I can’t live out, please take it with you as you live out yours and maybe that will be enough.”

People started to live vicariously through me, and that unnerved me to my core. Instead of people finding encouragement from my journey, people started to think that I was the only one who could do this. That I, simple Alex, possessed some kind of magic to make what I’m doing possible. Instead of hearing stories about how people had began to live their dreams in small or large ways, I kept hearing about dreams that weren’t going anywhere unless I could take them with me. All that pressure weighed heavily on me.

When I began this site, it wasn’t for people to say, “Look at her go. I wish I could do that.” It was so that people would say, “If she’s doing that, well so can I” and that each person who had a dream or a goal, would be able to pursue it at some point after reading all of this. My dream is not unique, I’m not even unique. And what I’m doing is not impossible but really, all too easy. It just takes a one realisation, a little guts and a few steps. It only seems impossible because you don’t hear about it that much. But imagine what would happen if we all did what we were meant to do? Imagine the roar we’d hear around the world.

So if you have a dream, please don’t put it in my carrying bag but instead, pursue it along side me. I need the company.

Since Friday, I have been thinking constantly about focus; how to focus and what to focus on. I’ve actually had a hard time focusing on focusing.

I’ve got so many different projects going on at the moment that I’m starting to sink. In the corporate world I was known as the juggler – the girl who could take on a million projects and balance them all perfectly and produce the utmost satisfying results. Yet now with all my projects, I’m disorganised, overwhelmed, confused and for the first time falling behind.

This morning I realised the reason why I’m not balancing everything as well as I did at my corporate job is because with writing, everything seems important to me. Every task I feel is the most important and deserves all my attention. Each project that I take on I am passionate about and so all my efforts go full throttle into each and every thing I do. In the corporate world, not everything mattered so not everything got the same level of importance, therefore it was easier to prioritise.

So today I was trying to figure out, out of everything I am doing what is it that I really want to do. What area of writing is important to me? The area I’ve always wanted to write in most is in travel because that is my passion. But I haven’t been sure how to go about doing travel writing so instead I focused all my writing efforts elsewhere.

Elsewhere ended up being a very big place. I wasn’t sure where to focus my efforts because nothing struck me as the one area I wanted to write for, so I wrote for every place and became overwhelmed.

I thought I had given up on travel writing for the time being, but it has always been in the back of my mind and today, I realised that I’ve actually done little bits to put me in the travel direction.

I’ve planned a trip this month to write about, I’ve planned a summer trip to write about, I’ve been working on my travel portfolio and I’ve been finding magazines to write for. I’m giving a talk on Thursday about travel and adventure and I was even bold enough to email a hotel I am staying at and told them I was a travel writer and requested a “media package” to help with my article.

All this travel writing has been done in my “free time” as though it was a hobby, yet that is the area that I really want to work in. I don’t know why I did that. Perhaps I thought I should continue with the inspirational writing that I’ve done because that’s all that I used to do and people like it. Perhaps it was scary for me to try a new direction or do something that people weren’t ready for. Maybe I was afraid of a challenge – I’m not sure.

But today when my media package arrived, I was giddy down to my toes. I was excited, I felt like a real travel writer and my mind started to focus on what to do next, how to write about travel and the possibilities that all this can lead to. It made me feel happy and it made me feel like I’ve found the area that I want to be in.

So then, I’ve decided to focus my efforts into my travel writing. Since much of that kind of writing can only be done once I travel, I decided that in the meantime I will continue to write articles about the ordinary being extraordinary. And when I’m not writing about that I will continue to promote and work on the Another Girl at Play site.

I figure that makes my plate all about full – but I think I can finally chew it all because I now understand each bite.

The past several weeks I haven’t done much of anything. I had a good excuse for a couple of them but it was the other couple of weeks that left me worried.

I had all these ideas and ambitions, yet they remained just that. I wasn’t sure which projects to start on next – should it be the website, marketing, business side, articles, what? I was overwhelmed again and taking time off had left me feeling lazy and sluggish.

Oh no, I keep thinking, just when I was getting my stride I break it.

Of course, by not doing what I was capable of I was angry at myself. I tried the tricks that I knew of and nothing was working. Last night it dawned on me why.

I didn’t have focus.

I was all over the place with one point five million things running through my brain. I didn’t know what was a priority, what could be done next week and what really wasn’t too important.

So this morning when I woke up, I thought if this is my business, I better start treating it like one. And I began to sort out what I need to do.

While I was doing this, Claire sent me her profile for the Another Girl at Play site. I read through it and found direction from her words. She said, ” An older woman who has had a lot of success running her own HR consultancy told me that no matter how busy I am, or how much work I seem to have coming in, spend one day a week marketing. Take Fridays to work on mail outs, update websites, chase up potential clients and make new contacts.”

Perfect, I thought, direction!

So today I decided to put my efforts into marketing and updates. I updated all my sites, finally launched the Another Girl at Play site and completed the first newsletter as well as worked on the Press Release. I updated this site with new news and book readings. I even worked on creating my business cards finally and read through the book Six Steps to Free Publicity again. I caught up on some important emails, read through Writer’s Yearbook and selected potential markets. I redid my bio and portfolio and felt pretty good at three o’clock when I took my first break for tea.

Because I am so nonlinear and my head constantly swirls with ideas, it is hard for me to focus. I realise that for me to succeed and continue to work and grow, that I must focus and organise myself better.

At least I have Friday’s figured out.