Scared of being visible? 3 steps to overcome fear of visibility

Are you scared of being visible online? You are not alone. The online business environment kind of forces us as entrepreneurs to become visible, appear on video, share our opinions online etc. There is no hiding. So what can you do to overcome fear of visibility?

Fear of visibility is super common, and I believe it is one of the MAIN reasons why entrepreneurs are not as successful as they can be. I know it was for me for quite some time.

And that is why in today’s post, I want to talk about how you can overcome fear of visibility. This is such a HUGE topic in my opinion, but hardly anyone talks about it in the online space.

If you are scared of being visible, then you can learn which technology you need for videos, you can join a challenge “30 days of live video”, or you can make a huge content plan that will force you to post every single day, but if you are struggling to overcome fear of visibility, then probably all those things will not work (you might have experienced this yourself by now?)

So what do you do instead? You need to deal with the FEAR. Overcome the fear of visibility. And that’s what this post is about.

Limiting beliefs around visibility

What do you think when you hear “you need to get visible”? You will probably have a bunch of negative thoughts like “I want to hide”, “no one wants to hear my message”, “I am too fat / old / young”, “I don’t know what to talk about”, “I don’t want to come across as super salesy”.

Many of those thoughts are probably based on your own experience in the past. Either with occasions where you tried to get visible and it did not go as intended, or experiences where you saw other people get visible / sell / market / show up in a way that felt spammy. They were annoying. And that is the image you create in your head of what sales and marketing and getting visible is all about. You don’t want YOUR followers to feel like that, and therefore you feel reluctant to show up.

But here’s the thing… YOUR marketing and sales doesn’t have to be like that! You can be successful without ANY spam or over promotion… Your marketing can be super personal, full of value for your readers, and fun. 

What you need to do is change your mindset / beliefs around getting visible and promoting yourself. Because these thoughts you have around getting visible are actually limiting beliefs; beliefs that limit you from getting the results you want!

Here’s a powerful exercise that will help you identify and then change your limiting beliefs around visibility and promoting your products or services.

STEP 1: IDENTIFY YOUR LIMITING BELIEFS TO OVERCOME YOUR FEAR OF VISIBILITY

• Take a piece of paper and create 3 columns
• In the left column, write down ALL the negative thoughts you have around showing up and getting visible. For example: no one wants to hear my message, I look terrible on pictures, selling is spamming. Whatever pops up. Keep on writing until you wrote down all your thoughts.
• For each question, ask yourself “why do I feel this way?”. This will help you deep digger to identify the underlying belief. Write those beliefs down too.

STEP 2: CREATE NEW, HELPFUL THOUGHTS AND BELIEFS 

In the second column, write down a HELPFUL thought for each negative thought. A helpful thought is the positive opposite version of the negative thought that you wrote down in the first column. For example: my list is too small is a limiting belief. A helpful thought could be: quality is more important than quantity, I am working on building my list and right now, I am happy with the subscribers I have and I am excited to write to them. Or your limiting belief could be “I don’t know what to talk about”, a positive helpful thought could be “I have all the knowledge I need to  create fabulous content”, or “Sometimes I might not know what to talk about, and that’s fine, because I know where to go for inspiration. 

STEP 3: MAKE IT ACTIONABLE

And then in the third column, write a HELPFUL ACTION: what could be a next step you can take to help you with this challenge? For the limiting belief “my audience is too small”, helpful actions could be to come up with a fun way to grow your list, and also to post on social media as if you already had 100,000 super loyal fans. Taking small actions that bring positive results will help you confirm that your new beliefs are true.

Read through your list of new beliefs every single day. You can stick them on your wall (that’s what I have, a little wall with helpful new thoughts), you can record them and listen to them on your phone daily, get creative and make sure to look at the new beliefs daily. This will help you program them into your unconscious mind and make them your new reality.

Tadaaaa! All set! What’s next?

• Read more about visibility on the blog
• Would you like to learn more about how to become visible online in a way that feels authentic, effective and doable? Join my Facebook Group. 

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