31/01/2023
How to Shift Your Mindset to Make Putting Yourself Out There Effortless
It is almost magical
For the month of Novemberâs Put Yourself Out There Challenge, 14 people signed up and in their response forms, most of them reported the following for not putting themselves out there:
Fear and anxiety,
Fear of rejection,
Thinking they are not good enough,
Being afraid of criticism,
Being afraid of oversharing
as their reasons for not putting themselves out there.
Tackling any internal challenge like these takes time, effort and awareness.
The first step is admitting that you have those fears or challenges and they are not necessarily a bad thing. Many people also feel these things. In fact, the most popular and successful people also deal with all these fears and insecurities. When you can accept it without judging it, you can begin to act differently.
Your fears and anxiety wonât go away: you can stop sitting around waiting for your fears and anxieties to go away and start working through them instead. The most successful people also doubt themselves from time to time.
You are a messenger: look at it this way, if your parent sent you on an errand to give a pair of shoes to your uncle and once you delivered the message, your uncle threw the shoes away or kept it and never wore it. When you post something, a lot of people will see it and find it funny but wonât like or interact with it, does it take away from the value of your content? You are a delivery guy and once you deliver your content, donât worry what the receiver did with the message. Just focus on your job.
You have to work on your confidence daily, building it brick by brick. Follow people who have nice things to say, watch videos, affirmations whatever makes you feel recharged. Motivation is like food, you need it regularly for nourishment.
Validate your every move no matter how small. You read an article? You are taking a step, you signed up for a program, you are already solving your problem.
Fear of rejection: Out of the fear of being rejected, we tend to pre-reject ourselves by not even participating in the game. The first step is to be comfortable being rejected. Rejection most of the time is not personal but a valuable feedback, Either you need to keep working at it, or you need to pivot or itâs not just time yet. Especially online, we see many posts daily that are impactful and helpful but we donât interact with all of them. When you scroll through someoneâs post without interacting, are you rejecting them? Mostly itâs because you canât relate with it or you donât find it useful and many other people would. So whether it is one like you get, or one comment, always think of that one person who needs your content.
I think I am not good enough: You need to see your journey as a process and the more you keep doing it, the better you get. There are many people out there who are yet to figure out what you have and they need your words/content to get to where you are. When we think we are not good enough, we often always compare ourselves with people who are ahead of us. We tend to self-criticize a little too intensely. The more you do it, the better you get at it and working on it every day is the only way to be good enough.
Afraid of criticism: The best creators in the world get criticized. It comes with the territory and it can be very scary. However, imagine you have the potential to make $100,000 dollars when you post a book or piece of content you have written but you donât because a guy/girl from a place you donât know is going to criticize you, donât you think it is insane? You have the opportunity to grow exponentially but you are worried about the criticism of people who wouldnât even give you a handout if you needed one. Criticisms would come and you would grow from the good ones.
Fear that no one would listen/vanity metrics: You post a piece of content every day, whether it is writing, videos, podcasts etc. yes not many people are interacting but if you do it for a year, the volume of content youâll have will be enormous and you own that s**t. You can do with it whatever you want, you can repurpose it, you can make it into a book, you can sell it but you wouldnât know what it would do for you because you didnât keep posting after one month because no one liked it. It is not their likes that is the problem, it is the fact that you need their likes to like what you created. And you donât give your audience a chance to find you when you stop after a few tries. Your audience would find you if you keep at it long enough.
Introverted and afraid of oversharing: Content is very dynamic and you can keep the parts of you you donât want to share. If you donât want to put your face out there, you can share texts or audio content. If you donât want to talk about your personal life, you can share your thoughts on issues or share your expertise. There is always a slice of the cake for you.
The participants of Novemberâs Put Yourself Out There Challenge have reported a shift in their mindset and attitude and are excited at how easily they put themselves out there.