focus. follow through.

I was out running.
I do that to rinse myself free from negative and aggressive energy. To clear my mind. And to challenge myself. As soon as I get a tiny bit tired the voice inside tells me to stop, that I can't make it, that it doesn't matter in the long run if I don't push myself so hard this time etcetera. And I practice continuing anyway. Pushing myself a bit further, to see what I can really do. Not what that voice tells me I can do. I get out and run to show myself again and again that I have more strength than I give myself credit for. That I don't have a "give up gene". And I practice allowing other voices inside to be stronger, to grow and take up their space in me. Like the voice telling me: Woaw! My body is great! Look at what it can do! Or the one saying: I feel fabulous today! I just love the way running makes my body feel. I must look absolutely gorgeous!
For example.

Anyhooooooow.... I was getting really tired, but hadn't reached my normal goal of running for thirty minutes, and I kept repeating to myself: just focus now and finish it, follow through. Focus. Follow through. Focus. Follow through. Until I finally hit the timegoal, and some insight as well.

This is something that applies so much to everything I am doing at the moment. Focus. Follow through.

I have probably twenty ideas that I try to make happen and all that happens is that I dance around without getting anywhere. And it wears me out. And so I know I have to listen to myself. I cannot do it all at once. I have to pick one thing, focus, follow through. Then to the next. You have no idea how big a challenge that is for me. I was furious with everyone who tried to suggest I do this, because I felt it was a restraint on me and my free creativity. Except that a creativity that never gets anything done or produces anything is not really free at all, is it. All along I have been fooling myself I've been taking care of my freedom and diversity, when all along it was just another way of making sure I don't make it.

The mind is a funny thing.

So. I have to quit Robin's Playground. I love the idea of it still. But it is a stress for me right now and I get irritated with the project as I feel it gets in the way of things I really need to get done. Because if I am going to run a business I had better produce some products, no?

So my main focus right now is actually going to have to be something that I believe has a fair chance of actually selling. Which is an ebook (or physical for those who prefere it). About what? Well, I sat down to try and see what I know enough about to be able to write something without having to do a million of hours of research. And since I am a psychologist I figured I probably know a thing or to about how to change behaviour, thought patterns, emotional scripts etcetera that have remained unresponsive to change efforts before. In a sense that is all psychologists do - help people make the changes they want or need (or both) to do. External or internal changes. Changes of behaviour. Changes of attitude. And so I am writing a tiny workbook to be a companion with some ideas and excercises and some theory. Wrapped, I hope, in a playful colourexplosion. This is a beginning of what the front page will look like:

The text sort of disappears so I will work on that. And I think the blue is a bit too dark. But I'm not sure.
My aim is to have this finished in september, when I will nolonger recieve money for staying at home with my kid (since she is going to start going to daycare). The draft is all done in swedish. Probably 60% has been translated into english. I have done sketches for a number of pages. And the front page, as I said, is almost finished.

Phew!

Focus. Follow through.

Love!