Overcoming Your Fear of Visibility

Hey Pretties welcome to this episode. 

Today, I’m going to talk to you about the fear of visibility. This is something that I work with women on all the time, it’s something that is a very, very obvious recurring theme that happens when people choose to work with me often on the coaching side, but also, in the social media management side with the agency. Visibility can cause some really, really deep and personal emotions for everyone. So first and foremost, if you’re listening to this and you’re thinking that’s me, I don’t like the idea of everybody knowing my life, I don’t want to put myself out there, I don’t want to show my face, I don’t want to talk about myself. Then first and foremost, I hear you, I hear you.

One of the recurring themes that we hear time and time again, is there are some massive fears around people that you know, in real life, having an opinion about you kind of coming out into the world, as a business owner, or showing up as a business owner where you previously haven’t. You’re worried about people thinking that you are too big for your boots, or that you are trying to be something that you’re not, or that you’re fake, or that you have any of these feelings that can cause you a conflict with how you feel you truly are and how you feel you are seen. 

Now, the main thing to take away from that moment, that feeling of fear is that everybody at some stage, every single person that you follow on Instagram, every single person who you have watched a YouTube tutorial, video, inspirational video from, every single course you’ve ever bought off somebody or that you’ve interacted with, from a business perspective, or from a learning perspective from your side, and has at some point made that decision that they’re going to go all in and allow themselves to be in that spotlight. Being in the spotlight is not easy.  Okay, it’s not the same as having stage fright it is slightly different, because you aren’t physically there. At least not unless you are turning up live very, very regularly, which is often the thing that comes at the end of the fear of visibility. 

But you are showing up and you are showing yourself and you are allowing yourself to be open in a way that you may be have never been before. So I can sit here and I can go through all of the areas of which there are many, many, many of reasons why you should be visible and why it’s beneficial to your brand, why it’s beneficial to your business and why it will serve you time and time again. Fundamentally, that doesn’t necessarily take away the fear. All I’m doing is describing to you the benefits of overcoming the fear, which are important, but it doesn’t actually take away the fear. 

So whatever it is that you’re feeling in terms of the fear of visibility, whether you’re worried about childhood bullies, whether you’re worried about your relationship, whether you’re worried about friends, family, colleagues, you may be worried about trolls or getting some negative public attention. Any of those things are totally, totally natural. But you will have a main one for you, whatever that may be, whether it’s the people or the publicity, or not wanting to share your stories or any of these things, you will probably have an element that is personal to you. I know for me, when I first started, I didn’t find the visibility part as difficult as a lot of people do. Because I had almost a bit of a naive view that everybody would kind of automatically support me. And because of the way that I started my business, I didn’t automatically start my business as a coach or consultant or agency owner, I started as a handmade ecommerce store. So of course, that is slightly less, I want to say threatening, but threatening is not the right word triggering is less triggering to people than what I do now. So I kind of eased into it, I kind of like, gradually came to this element where the visibility was required of me later on that was slightly different from how I began.

 If you’re going from nought to 60, if nobody even knows that you’re interested in business, and you’re just in that space to startup, that can be really scary space to be. But I invite you to take some time and try and figure out what that block is for you. What it is that you’re worried about, and what it is that makes you stop. What is the underlying reason for that fear of visibility. Now, this kind of goes into an element of business mindset, which we talk about all of the time, in Social Pretties. And also in the pro members, because we’re constantly thinking about, and almost healing and changing and evolving the way we think about things the way we perceive things, in order to be our optimum best selves. Because it’s very, very easy to take in the elements of your environment. And not often as easy for you to control the outer environment in order to fully immerse yourself in the right mindset and mind frame for what you’re trying to do and what you’re trying to achieve for your success. 

So if you can think about what that thing is for you. And it could be absolutely anything. That’s the area that you then need to work on. Now, during this time, when I’m working with clients, this is when I get the moments of realisation that it’s to do with confidence, or it’s to do with somebody’s self esteem, or how competent they feel, or imposter syndrome is creeping in. Or they have a strange relationship with somebody, and they don’t want that person to judge them, or they just don’t want to be judged on a hole, or they feel like they don’t deserve it. There’s so many deep down set blocks that are the actual reason for not wanting to be visible, it’s very rarely actually a business reason, it’s often a personal, emotional, and sometimes a relationship reason within ourselves. 

Now, there’s not one way to skin a cat, there’s not one way to get over this, it is a situation that you will need to consider what is the best route for you to get past this block that is stopping you from being visible? What can you do? What do you have control over? And what what can you change so that when you actually do go out there and you do step into the light, you feel more comfortable, more confident, and more prepared to handle what may happen. Now, oftentimes, as well, lots of us, we worry about things that are never going to happen. Like we worry that we’re going to step out there and we’re going to get judged or we’re going to get booed, and they’re gonna throw rotten vegetables at us. And in truth, it just doesn’t happen. Oftentimes, you step out into the light and actually find that people who you may not have thought would support you are standing in your corner and supporting you all the same. You will find who the people are around you, who are willing to evolve and grow with you, of course. But that’s actually that can be a really, really beautiful thing and I’ve never met anybody that I’ve worked with, who hasn’t been grateful for that understanding and just seeing who is stood next to them when they do step out into that light because it’s very much a personal growth as much as it is a business growth.

 So if you’re feeling, oh, I don’t want to show my face, I don’t want people to see my pictures, I don’t want to talk about my journey, my story, my reasons, my why, it really has to come from somewhere deep, deep down inside you a need to decide which is more important. If you’re already in the space where you’ve created a business, you’ve already done it, you’ve already decided what’s more important, you’re already in it, that decision is made. Now, what you’re trying to do is almost a very, very faint level of self sabotage by not allowing yourself to fully commit not allowing yourself to go all in. So it really is important that you can have a look at whether it’s important to you that you do this for your business. And whether you’re going to allow, sometimes it’s a fear of pain, sometimes it’s a fear of rejection, sometimes it is just ego. Very, very difficult for us as human beings to recognise when we’re in an ego state. But I invite you to be fully honest with yourself in that moment, and decide, is it a fear of judgement because of a relationship that I have? Is it a fear of rejection, and therefore I want to play it safe and hide for a bit longer, or am I actually in that area of ego, where I am concerned, because I don’t want to look silly, I don’t want to be embarrassed on any of those things. 

I can promise you that when you get to the stage of your business, where you’re serving the people you want to serve, you have a great client list, you’re happy with the work you’re doing. The ego space will reduce and reduce and reduce and reduce. And you’ll be less affected even by those who do judge you, you know the bigger you get, the more you are seen. The more clients you take on, the more your business grows, the more you have that opportunity of being judged, of being trolled, of people thinking that you are something different than you’re not, you know, too big for your boots, or you’re faking it, or any of those horrible feelings that we worry about. And in truth, you’ll just become more confident because you’ll be living it day in day out. And somebody saying, oh, you’re a fake will automatically be bounced off you. Because you know you’re not a fake, because you’re doing that your day in and day out, you’re working in it. But if you’re in that space where you’re not there yet, and you need to make the connection between where you are right now to get in there, then there really does need to be some connectivity between your comfort level and also how you’re showing up for your people. 

Showing up for your people is a term that we use in social media, which covers so many different areas, so many different elements. So showing up your people isn’t just about going live, or creating great video content, or showing your face on pictures or writing, storytelling, captions, or being vulnerable. You know, sometimes showing up for your people is actually figuring out what they need from you and being there for them. Having conversations and actually engaging with the people that you’re connected to remembering who they are, what they need, why you are connected, and what it is that you provide for them in a meaningful way, not just for you, but also for them. Showing up for your people can be as simple as not forgetting previous clients in the pursuit of new clients. And that’s something that I always think is really overlooked. It’s a bit like all of the big brands, I remember, I think it was Sky, Sky did like a new offer and it was like all new customers get this offer. And everybody was outraged. People who had been with Sky TV for years and years, they were just absolutely outraged. Because they were the loyal customers. They were paying the bills every single month. They were the ones that were telling their friends about the new TV programmes that could only be viewed on Sky One or Sky Atlantic. And they’re the ones that were kind of like underpinning the whole point of having a business. And so I think at some point, they did actually decide that they would allow their offers to be for everybody. Well, that’s a really good business lesson just there in that one example. Don’t forget who your people are. Don’t forget who the fundamental people were that believed in you and helped you get to where you are now like just make sure you’re always showing up for your people.

In order to do that, of course, there has to be a level of visibility. But for you first to be able to share what you need to share, you do need to make peace with whatever the deeper level of that fear is, what that block is. And it’s one of the things that we talk about on audience attraction. It’s right at the very beginning, of course, it is Lego blocks, not stops, because I want you to use it as building blocks, not as something that creates a wall. Okay, something that you can walk up climb on  like stairs, rather than it becoming a wall that stops you in your tracks. So I invite you to take some time today, where you consider how you feel about being visible. Consider what that brings up for you and how you can make changes to that initial deep set reason? How can we move that needle one step in either direction, so that you feel more comfortable so that you feel more empowered? And so that you can consider doing what needs to be done in order for you to show up for your people. 

And I would love for you to let me know in Social Pretties what came up for you? What was it that stopped you from thinking that being visible would be fun? And what is it that you feel might be stopping you in that area? Okay, Pretties thank you so much for joining me today for this episode. I can’t wait to hear from you in the Social Pretties free group on Facebook. 

If you haven’t already subscribed to this podcast and joined us in there, please do and the link to join the group is always in the description. But until next time, bye for now. 

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