I’ve been freakin’ out a bit lately. Definitely feeling the pressure.
Something I’ve been working toward for a long time is finally reality.
I opened my new company.
More specifics on this coming soon, for now know that I couldn’t be more stoked it’s open, official, and operating.
All that’s awesome.
Where the stress is amping up is there are a ton of things to do to get a new company set up, a ton of things to learn in order to pay myself properly, to pay the government properly, to ensure payments go to the right bank accounts, that bank accounts exist in the first place, etc etc ETC, all while actually running the business and keeping the highest level of service for my clients at the same time.
Oh yeah, wheee doggies.
These are all things I want to do.
I’m really just saying very simply that sometimes things are stressful, and that’s normal.
Working through this most recent bout with overwhelm, I was inspired to share this oldie-but-goodie column that takes us all the way back to the Women’s Vertical Record Camp in May of 2012 and reminds us to take it all one simple step at a time, every time.
No matter where you are in your effort.
I hope this one helps you as much as it helped me tonight too.
All my love,
Blue Skies Magazine, May 2012
Life Coaching Column #36
Issue #43
“Gravy”
By Melanie Curtis
Have you ever been to a skydiving skills camp and worried that you were going to screw it up?
Me too.
This past weekend, in fact. It was the Women’s Vertical World Record camp, and what’s worse, I was coaching! Aren’t coaches supposed to know what they’re doing, and just rock at everything? Theoretically, yes. Yes, they are.
We all love skydiving, so even general participation in stuff can make us feel the pressure.
None of us wants to screw up any jump for someone else, so on every jump, from the random 2-way to the organized 20-way, we hope to hell we can keep it together. If the jump is a record, or on the path to said record, the pressure mounts even more. I mean, records are DREAMS… so with those, we’ve not only got the worry of wasting other people’s jump tickets, we’ve got the highest number of possible wasted jump tickets ever… and we’ve got our own personal joy or agony on the line, all dependent on how we perform.
For me, it’s all that, PLUS the fact that I’m a coach and I’m supposed to just kill it no matter what, every slot, every time. With that, my brain and body can sometimes feel like one big pressure cooker about to blow it’s lid come 13,500 feet.
Why would I feel this way? I’ve got the skills. I know what to do. I’ve done it plenty of times in the past. I teach it all the time … why would I ever be worried about this type of skydive?
I’ll tell you… because I’m un-current.
Not un-current skydiving… I jump all the time, I even do these types of jumps. So why then? When I’m coaching, I always put myself in a position to set up the skydive best for those people learning bigger-way/record skills… diving, floating, levels, docking, etc. I don’t actually get that many opportunities to practice the skills we employ on the outside of big-way head-down skydives, actually ON the outside of big-way head-down skydives.
Un-current = stressful. Simple as that.
So this weekend, I knew I had to get out there and do it. No excuses. I had to push through my own mental blocks, and risk sucking for the chance to shine. … And it totally worked. A few jumps was all it took to renew my confidence and remove my fears. Diving, floating, first-stinging, pod-closing… in just a few jumps, I lifted the lid off my pressure cooker and felt all the fun flood in.
At the camp wearing my coach hat, I caught myself telling someone, “Just fly with a good level through to a safe break-off… and the rest is gravy.” I said to another girl, “Just fly with good levels and approach in your quadrant… and the rest is gravy.” And another girl, “Just fly on level, approach in your quadrant, and stay calm as you take your dock… and the rest is gravy.” No matter where you’re at in your learning progression or re-currency, remember no matter how you do, it’s all good.
Remember that incremental improvements are great…
