Embrace Your Fears to Conquer Them

May 21, 2018 / in Blogging / by Mic Johnson

Post written by Mic Johnson, talking about embracing your fears in order to conquer them.

We all have fears.

That’s human nature.

Many of us avoid thinking about them.

Others of us obsess over them.

The irony is that the best way to conquer your fears is to embrace them.

When I’ve embraced and conquered my fears, I’ve also learned that the fear I’d built up in my head was often far greater than when I actually faced the fear.

I see this a lot when I work with new clients as they begin their blogging journey. Sometimes people on the blog team are excited about writing. But more times than not, I could cut the fear of writing in the room like a warm knife through butter.

That’s natural. I get it. But it’s also a case of irrational fear.

How I Help My Clients Embrace and Conquer the Fear

1. I tell my clients “People either think they’re a great writer or a horrible writer. The truth is usually somewhere in between.” I’ve seen it play out that way countless times over the years. Most people aren’t bad writers. It’s just a muscle that hasn’t been exercised.
2. I remind them that when their blog post is live on their website and shared on social media, the world doesn’t stop and yell, “Hey everyone, X Company is blogging now! Drop everything and read their post!”
3. I let them know that their blog post doesn’t have to be a literary work of art. The internet isn’t waiting with baited breath to critique their content.
4. Finally, I remind them that, as with most things, the more they write, the more comfortable they’ll get and the better writers they’ll become.

One Recent Client Example

I just started working with Jeff Hagen and his team at Grafton Staffing. We did a website project together and recently kicked off their blogging efforts.

Jeff told me early on that he wasn’t a writer, that he had reservations about writing, and that he once had an English teacher who told him he’d never be a writer. The fear was there for sure.

But when Jeff sent me his first rough draft, I told him “You can write. You’re not a bad writer.” My hope is that I crushed the negative record playing in his head about what that English teacher told him so many years ago.

In the end, Jeff embraced the fear and conquered it. He did a fine job on his very first blog post: Grafton Launches New Website in Pain-Free Fashion.

Not only that, but others on the Grafton blog team did well on their first posts too. All of them had reservations, but all of them embraced their fears and conquered them.

And you can too.

What fears have you embraced and conquered? What did you learn from the experience? Share your notes in the comments below to help others who read this post.