5 steps to fight the fear of putting your work ‘out there’

As someone who’s been stuck trying to get this website started for . . . um . . . four years, I think I’m quite qualified to talk about the crippling fear of putting your work out there!

And how to overcome it.

I started blogging way back in 2010. It was a fun little hobby and no one knew about it. And then I started getting comments, and followers and suddenly it felt like something big, and serious. Something that I was so not qualified to be doing. So I just, froze. I stopped posting for ages, and when I did post, it would be far and few in between.

But the kicker was that I couldn’t stop thinking about it – I wanted to do it, I just felt deep down that I simply wasn’t good enough. Or that I had nothing to add. Or that it was all a little bit silly and embarrassing. On and on and on, all these small reasons that were holding me back. And it was all subconscious. I just kept trying to force myself to write without ever questioning or properly acknowledging why I was stuck. It was a losing battle.

So I quit.

Sort of. I’d spent so much time and effort on it, and it had been a lovely escape for me, I couldn’t really let go. It turned into a half-assed thing that became a solid reminder of my failure (as if it was that serious . . . ).

I finally let go, many years later. But I still had the bug of wanting to write, and take photos, have a creative outlet. And The Evening Rose was born in 2018.

But the fear of not being good enough, or not living up to my own expectations, still held me hostage. It wasn’t until I finally addressed these deeper issues that I could properly throw myself into it. It’s still a challenge sometimes, but bit by bit it’s getting a whole lot less scary.

HOW TO FIGHT THE FEAR

Here are the steps that helped me and could help you overcome that sometimes crippling fear and create whatever your heart desires AND share it freely.

1. Accept that Sharing Your Work can be Nerve-wracking

The first step is acknowledging your feelings. Allow yourself to feel the fear and sit with it. Think about why you feel that way and most importantly, don’t be mean to yourself. There is nothing wrong with feeling nervous about something. That usually means you’re about to learn or grow or even have fun. It’s a brave thing to do, to share your work, to open yourself up to others. And things like that aren’t easy. Even though it can feel like it should be and that you should simply just do it. Until you address your (very legitimate feelings) it can be hard to force yourself to take action.

2. Surround Yourself with Supportive People

The biggest misconception about doing inner work is that you can do it alone. Your external factors will always play a part in how you perceive yourself. It’s not a simple matter of trying to tell yourself you can. Even though that’s very important, having a tribe or people around you who will cheer you on is so magical in making you believe even more in yourself. It’ll help reinforce that ‘yes you should be doing whatever it is you want’ and most importantly, they’ll be an outside voice in fighting all the negative thoughts that can crowd your mind.

3. Nobody Cares about what You Do

Or as much you might feel that people are. This is a massive subconscious hurdle to overcome. What other people think of us can affect what we do, and to an extent it makes sense because we live in a society, we’re interdependent etc. However, when this starts to govern your choices, that’s when you need to take a step back. Remind yourself that everyone is more focused on themselves than they are on you, which is a liberating thought. And if they do pay attention, that’s okay too. I know this can be especially hard if you’re from a cultural background like Somali (where the community weights in heavily) – but if it’s good with God, it’s calm! People will always have an opinion, whatever you do.

So you might as well live joyfully and do the things that make your heart sing.

4. Start and Start Small

I don’t know about you, but when I get an idea, I get really excited to plot and plan, with lofty goals that are quite unachievable. Starting small, like writing the first (draft) line of your book or creating a Pinterest board for your artwork, will do wonders in getting your project moving. Just sit down and get started. Even for five minutes.

And you’ll find that once you’ve taken that huge first step, everything after that is a whole lot easier.

5. Done is Better than Perfect

Remember that normally the first time you do something, it’s going to be absolute shite. A key issue with spending too much time thinking about and planning your creative endeavour, is that the longer you imagine what it’s going to be like, the harder it is to actually do it. We know deep down that most likely when you start something new, it’s not going to come out how you’re envisioning it. Yet we still get paralysed by the idea of trying it anyway. Perfectionism is of course a whole different can of worms but getting something done, regardless of how amazing it looks is much more helpful than doing nothing at all.

Do you ever feel like this? And if so, what are your steps to fight the fear?

That’s all for now!