Walking off the fundraising stress

I am going to be honest here... fundraising is not fun for me.

Whenever I take on a life project for myself, I am always amazed at how it brings up other areas of my life that I had no intention of working on. For instance, last year I decided to work on anything but my personal relationships. I started blogging (in my other blog) and was writing about all sorts of things that were making me happy, as way to express gratitude. But my relationships started going crazy and ultimately caused me to face some things I had not wanted to face prior to then. That was unexpected! Oh well, I moved on just fine.

So, this time I should have known better as I went into the New Year with a whole new set of priorities. First, it was my weight loss. Then it progressed into the training for a half marathon, which included becoming a member of Team in Training. That required fundraising, but I wasn't worried because I worked for a company in which I felt confident the owner would contribute in a significant way. If anything, I was more concerned with my ability to be able to run the 13.1 miles. It would not be until after the half marathon would I think about the other resolutions I had on my list.

Then I got laid off from my job. This is not a tragedy, by any means. But it is a distraction, big time! I am having to focus my time on deciding what to do. Should I go back to another similar job, or should I just completely concentrate on my coaching career? That will take much more work on my part, and I just didn't expect to be thinking about that right now. The other result of losing the job is that I no longer have a relationship with the owner of the company I worked for, which means I now need to raise all the money myself. And if I don't raise the money by the deadline, in about a month from now, I have to commit to paying the difference of the required $2,400 myself! Well, that would be as bad if I wasn't first trying to figure out where my main income will be coming from in the near future! Uhhhhhh.

So, this is my dilemma and it means that I will either need to drop out of Team in Training (not the marathon, because I can still run it by paying the fee of $55) or figure out how to raise the money in a month.

Well, this is the deal, and the reason I said that when I take on a life project, other stuff comes up for me... I HATE asking people for help! I am a giver, not a receiver. Yeah, that's a problem when I have to ask people to give me money (even a donation for a good cause). It's an issue that goes way back for me, and this post would be too long if I explained where all that came from. Doesn't matter. Basically, the bottom line is that it is just not a fun thing for me to try and overcome.

But I must--not so much for the Leukemia & Society Team in Training or even for Dana and David, who I feel I would be letting down too--but for me!

I don't stress over many things in life, but this is one thing much on my mind at the moment--even more so than the job situation.

As a result, I really haven't felt like training this week. I also wasn't able to attend the TNT training tonight because I didn't send in my re-commitment paperwork. And so, my stress was compounded by also feeling bad. But, I did force myself out of the house and onto the treadmill at the gym, for the first time since Saturday's run. I really needed that. However, because of my mood I was only able to run about 2 miles, but stayed on that treadmill for a total of 6 miles. It was boring as hell, because it took a very long time (1hr and 45min) to get all those miles in at the pace I was walking . But I knew I had to keep going. As I neared the end of the miles, I no longer felt any stress. Much better!

Now, the plan is to spend the next few days finding that within which will help me feel better about this whole fundraising thing. Weeeee will see!