Leo Babauta in his post ‘The Fear of Putting Our Work Out There‘ expands on the fear of publishing which seems to concern most of us, and how to overcome it.
I must say first that this concerns only publishing things like art of a written text – anything which is an emotional investment – because it seems we don’t have much fear publishing (sometimes stupid) pictures ourselves on social networks, maybe because we believe that they will only be available to connections.
Anyway it is true that fear is present when we push publish to the world and I still vividly remember the first time I published a post back in October 2010!
“What’s so scary? […] 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.” We need to face our fear, and the avoidance of this possibility that is prompted by our reasonable mind. However this clearly leads to procrastination. This also means you can’t develop your ability to improve over time the quality of your interaction with the world.
Let’s face it: not many people are going to read what you wrote, or look at what you produced. At least at the start it is probably going to be family and friends so don’t worry too much about it.
There will be negative feedback, jealousy and all sorts of negative crap. Don’t let it discourage you – the more you get, the more you are on the right way and you are touching a hot button. And you’ll also get those great encouragements and some day, someone will tell you that you changed their life.
Overcoming that fear of putting your art out in the world is if course a practice. I don’t think about it too much nowadays – I don’t really care, in fact, what people may think. The first time is the hardest time. Practice makes us better, and let’s not get deterred from publishing and getting feedback.
