Fear vs fact

For the longest time, I avoided marketing my business. Crazy, right? If that’s not self-sabotage, then I don’t know what is. Instead of admitting that I was avoiding marketing like I avoid Brussel sprouts, I attributed my lack of clients to the poor economy, my lack of Facebook marketing kills, students not having money, SEO being too complicated, etc.

Working in bed and watching Netflix in bed is essentially the same thing. Right?

My lack of success was always somehow not really my fault. And even when it was, I would find a way to justify myself. To be honest, I was quite comfortable in my discomfort. Strange how we do that. We’d rather be somewhat uncomfortable than taking painful steps to remove the discomfort.

Necessity is the mother of all invention…and self-discovery

My husband is currently in the process of changing careers, and with this comes the possibility of a salary cut. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, I started SEOing my website like never before, my CV is up to date and my business cards are printed. I even started writing this blog article. This girl can move when she needs to.

Now, I can ascribe this sudden prolific output to my most successful form of motivation: blind panic. Nothing motivates me more than the thought of not being able to pay our bills (and having to give up cappuccinos *shudders involuntarily*).

But it was more than simply picking up the slack. This led to the question:

Why, all of a sudden, am I marketing like never before?

Facts vs fears

Instead of beating myself up over all the lost time and opportunities, I decided to give myself a fresh start, to look at my insecurities and fears and to dig deep. Not for the faint-hearted.

The long and the short is: I discovered I was scared. Scared of really putting myself out there and having to admit that I honestly tried. And failed. It’s much easier to not try and then fail. You expect that outcome, and there's a bizarre comfort in it.

I also realised that I had been living with imposter syndrome for a really long time. I was avoiding marketing because of the fear that I’d officially be outed as an imposter and, therefore, be a true failure. The irony is that not marketing meant very few clients, which essentially meant failure - no one ever said fears are logical.

Now that I know and admit that I was self-sabotaging, I can admit another fact: imposter syndrome is real and I had adopted it as my own – but that doesn’t automatically make me an imposter and, therefore, a failure. I can fail, but I can also succeed. To quote Erin Hanson:

“There is freedom waiting for you, On the breezes of the sky, And you ask "What if I fall?" Oh but my darling, What if you fly?”

And so, blog article no. 1 is an attempt. Not an attempt to succeed, but an attempt to simply put myself out there.

I think it’s time to fly.

---

#marketing #selfemployed #smallbusinessowner #lifestyle #accountability #copyeditor #freelance