Pain points.

What is something you’ve wanted to do on this writing journey, that has made you feel anxious, uncomfortable and nervous and have you been able to get past the first hurdle yet?  When fear gets in the way, a goal can feel like an insurmountable challenge.  To take that first step, it’s important to find out what your pain points are, so you can go behind the fear, to find out what is driving it and why.  Once you understand that, you can start working out the small steps you can take to get past it.   

For me, my pain point is social media and using it as a writer and content creator to share my work, thoughts, opinions and knowledge instead of hiding behind photos of my child, holidays, sunsets and my day job. I think for most of us, social media is a huge pain point and feels really uncomfortable and vulnerable.

Four months ago in my post Think Like a brand I wrote about the importance of marketing yourself, of creating a space on social media as a writer and I’ve finally taken the first step. In truth, I have been thinking about it, taking small steps with lots of procrastination in-between for over nine whole months, the time it takes to make, bake and push a baby out into the world. If I think of it like that, I can’t believe I wasted so much time but that’s what fear does, it stops you in your tracks, it gets in the way, it gets in your way.

Fear can take all sorts of forms but we tend to feel the same sort of fears when it comes to stepping out of our comfort zones. So what lies behind the fear;

Imposter syndrome
This is when you feel you don’t have anything of value to offer, compared to someone else with more ‘experience’ or that you just don’t know enough and therefore shouldn’t share an opinion.  This one has followed me around for more years than I can care to remember. 

But I recently heard a different way of looking at it on the Diary of a CEO podcast.  Its host Steve Bartlett says that in those moments when you feel like an imposter, instead of seeing it as a lack-of within yourself, see it as a moment for growth. He said, ‘if you’re not feeling like an imposter, then you are probably in your comfort zone and that’s not where the good things happen. You should feel like an imposter every now and then.’ I love this not only because it makes sense but because it’s such an empowering way to look at it.

Fear of judgement
Caring what others think is a biggie.  Worrying you are going to say or do something embarrassing, stupid or worse that no-one will care, can stop you in your tracks.  It certainly did for me.

But the thing is people, even your loved ones, don’t think about you on a daily basis, as much as you think they are thinking about you and really this battle is just with yourself, so the best thing you can do for yourself is to get out of your own way.  This was the prep talk I gave myself (one of many) before posting and I think it helped.

Perfectionism
The need for something to be perfect before it sees the light of day, can be all consuming and prevents you from moving.   When I finally decided to just get going and pressed record on my phone, I filmed one after another and kept pressing delete because;

• What I was saying didn’t feel authentic

• I felt stiff and unnatural in front of the camera

• I didn’t like the way I sounded

• I didn’t like the way I looked

But the thing about perfectionism is that whatever it is, will simply never be perfect.  Perfectionism is just a
dressed-up version of procrastination and once I started to understand that, I let go of the need for it to be perfect. Especially in the beginning. I have no idea what I’m really doing and the only way I’m going to learn is by just doing it.

So what happened to make me take that first step? I finally got really bored of myself. I took the plunge and posted the one video, after figuring out what I wanted to say and then just like that, I filmed and posted another two videos straight after, all in one week. Suddenly I felt like Holly bloody Willoughby in front of the camera. I’m not saying any of the three videos are any good, definitely not, but I know I will get better, I’ve only just started. But what is super interesting is how quickly I became comfortable doing something I found so uncomfortable only eight days before.

When I looked at my pain points and then took small baby steps to get to the first hurdle, I found that really was half the battle.   But remember none of these feelings will go away, it won’t magically disappear. Right now I have no evidence what-so-ever that my efforts will come to anything, so I know I will keep having these feelings time and time again but I also know that each time I do it anyway, the noise will get lower. Right now, I have zero followers but that’s not the point. I am just really proud of myself that finally, I took that first step.

I’d love to know what your pain points are, if you’ve taken that first step yet and if you haven’t what you think might be behind your fear?

My Youtube channel is about breaking down the stories we tell ourselves about who we are, what we can do and what we can achieve, would love your feedback let me know what you think.

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