Someone recently asked me how to overcome the fear of sharing content. As an author, sharing content is a significant part of my overall strategy. If you’ve spent any time here, you’ll know that I advocate for releasing content into the world to receive feedback and improve. When you publish your book, you’ll be sharing it with an audience as well. Requesting strangers to leave reviews can be nerve-wracking, I know. Today, I want to discuss my thoughts on fear and, more importantly, how we, as creatives, can conquer it.
Fear is one of the most potent emotions you can experience. We often discuss the negative aspects of fear, how it paralyzes us and prevents us from taking action. However, it can also be a powerful ally. Just as you can fear sharing your content and receiving negative feedback, you can also fear mediocrity. Fear can become a propelling force that pushes you to the next level. Today, I want to discuss how we can discard harmful fear and embrace beneficial fear, how we can transform fear into jet fuel.
Let’s start with a simple principle. If you understand why something scares you, you can entirely remove the power of fear. In this case, we’re discussing the fear of sharing our content with strangers, a necessary step if you want to be an author. I don’t know about you, but I don’t personally know enough people to support my family by selling them my books. I have to sell my books to strangers, and every time I do, I expose myself to criticism. Someone might read my book and dislike it. They might leave a negative review on Amazon.
There are many practical strategies to combat this feeling, and I’ve discussed them in previous videos. My favorite is to read the negative reviews. The more you read, the more detached you’ll become. Detachment, as I always say, is a superpower.
It’s crucial to understand that what we fear isn’t real. When someone leaves a negative review on my book, they’re critiquing my book, not me. The challenge is that our identities are closely tied to our creations, so we fear negative comments about our book because we believe it reflects on us. But it doesn’t. Maybe you wrote a bad book, but so what? Everyone writes bad books. No one has ever written a perfect book. If you didn’t write a perfect book, you’ve joined the ranks of all authors. Every author who’s ever written a good or great book once wrote a terrible book. Maybe you didn’t see it. Maybe they didn’t publish it. But they’ve all been there. They’ve all improved by accepting criticism and feedback and persevering.
This leads us to the core principle about fear. The only way to truly overcome fear is to confront it. Fear is a wall you cannot avoid. It grows when you try to evade it. Avoidance is never the answer. Instead, face it head-on and push through. This is where fear can become super fuel.
The question is, what are you afraid of? If your fear of being associated with a bad book is greater than your fear of never writing a good book, then you’ll stop. You won’t continue. But if your fear of never writing a good book is greater than your fear that some people might not like your book, then it doesn’t matter what people say. It won’t stop you. You’ll keep going.
Consider this: who’s going to run faster? Someone out for a jog or that same person being chased by a Rottweiler? I guarantee the speed of the individual will be different depending on the circumstances. Once the Rottweiler starts chasing, they’ll find a new gear they didn’t know they had. Fear is exactly like that. If there’s something you fear, the best way to deal with it is to turn it into a driving force.
We do this by adjusting our perspective. Believe it or not, the fear that someone won’t like your book and the fear that you’ll never write a good book are the same. It just depends on which side of it we stand. If you can transform your worry about what people will say into fear that you’ll always remain at that level, you’ll be amazed at how quickly you begin to improve.
YouTube Video Link: https://youtu.be/pjD1e6QNQ_0
Thanks for reading and watching.
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