BY LEO BABAUTA
One of the most common fears of anyone who is creating something, whether it’s online content or art or a new business or startup … is the fear of putting our work out there in the world.
It’s a fear that has us procrastinating, researching endlessly, checking social media, answering emails, buying books on the topic, listening to podcasts and watching Youtube videos, cleaning our kitchen, deciding the laptop needs a good cleaning … endlessly!
None of these things are wrong or bad — they’re so human! But it’s a fear we have to face at some point if we ever want to make an impact on the world.
I’d love to share how I work with this fear — I’ve been doing it for decades now!
The brief summary:
- I have a litmus test: if I’m not creating or putting the creation out into the world, there’s a good chance I’m procrastinating. (There are exceptions of course.)
- If I’m avoiding, then I create space to face the fear and create and put it out there.
- Then I face it. And play with it. And learn to relish it!
I’ll dive more into this below …
The Core of Our Fear
What’s so scary about putting our work out into the world? Well, we don’t know how it will be received by other people — it’s full of uncertainty, and we don’t like that uncertainty.
They might judge us, dismiss it as having no value, think we’re stupid. We’ll feel embarrassed or rejected. This uncertainty is too much to bear for many people.
And yet, as understandable as that is, this fear will shut down the possibility of having an impact on the world. Let’s let our hearts be broken by that shut down possibility.
And let’s connect to the impact we’d like to make — would we like to move people’s hearts, change people’s lives, open their eyes to something new? How delicious!