Nervous Excitement of Achieving Your Goals
You know that feeling you get when, after years of concentrated effort, a thousand wishes, and mindfulness-challenging patience, you finally achieve your goal?
When every nerve in your body sparks with excitement and waves of conflicting emotions batter you from all sides? When you can’t stop pacing and smiling and trembling?
That moment when you realize that…now…the real work will begin?
The nervous excitement of achieving goals happens to everyone at one time or another. At least, I think it does. I can’t be the only person on the planet to react this way. Although, when it happens, it feels so personal. The details of our experience seem so specific that it’s hard to believe anyone else will relate.
But people are more alike than different.
The stories we share, no matter how specific, often feel familiar to others.
So, perhaps, my story will remind you of your own.
A month ago, I received some amazing news: my debut novel, The Ninja Daughter, would be published by the new Agora Books imprint of Polis Books.
I received this news from my agent while at lunch with a friend. Thank goodness. Because when the call finally ended and the negotiation progress conveyed in nerve-wracking detail, I was ready to jump out of my skin.
Had it really happened, just like that, seemingly out of the blue?
Seven years ago, I made a big commitment: I stopped training and teaching ninjutsu in order to pursue a career as a fiction writer. For me, there was no other way than complete immersion. I had done the same thing to achieve my fifth degree black belt in To Shin Do and knew I’d need to do the same with writing. So, I jumped in with focused intention and dogged determination.
This wasn’t the first time I had switched directions in the midst of success. I did the same thing when I left Cats to move to Los Angeles to try my hand at television and film. I did it again when I stopped acting, after eighteen episodes on The Love Boat and a guest-staring role on a television pilot, to raise my sons. And again, when I stopped training and teaching to write.
People around me thought I was nuts, but I knew it was the right thing to do for me–mind, body, and spirit. Each time, I made the leap and tried not to think about what might happen if I failed.
So there I was, on the phone with my agent, pacing outside the restaurant, getting the much hoped-for and slaved-after news–and out of all the emotions vying for my attention, the single greatest emotion that hit me was relief.
Can you relate to that? I’m positive you can.
When you put everything you have into an endeavor with no guarantee that anything will come of it, the relief is overwhelming. There’s joy and satisfaction, certainly, but there’s also a teensy bit of anxiety.
Every goal met marks a new goal begun. Click To TweetWith every new job, there are new expectations, work, and deadlines. That can be scary, especially when the new job is in a new career.
Questions arise that you never thought to ask. Your mind is assaulted by things you need to do. And, although you only just got the news, time feels of the essence.
So that’s where I am on this mid-December day: scheduling work flows for two books, planning events, addressing marketing issues, starting an author page on Facebook, writing content, and preparing to leave on a trip of a lifetime to Tokyo, Shanghai, and Hong Kong.
What makes those cities so important? Oh, so many wonderful reasons.
But that’s a topic for another day.
Photo credit by Val Vesa on Unsplash