Are you anxious about posting?

Anxiety around posting on socials or sending an email to your list (or even starting a list) is something I think we all encounter at some point.

You don’t start out in business knowing how to be a content creator unless you went to Uni and did marketing. Even then, running your own business is different because suddenly you’re wearing all the hats. You’re doing the work you actually started your business to do while also marketing it, selling it and trying to work out what on earth you’re supposed to post on Instagram.

It can be exhausting and overwhelming, but it can also be extremely fulfilling and joyful.

I love to play and laugh, so making things more fun is the best way for me to learn. Writing emails, blogs and posts feels like something I was meant to do, especially as I loved writing at school.

I know that’s not the case for everyone though. You might stare at the empty caption box wondering what to say, or write something and delete it because you think nobody will care. You might have an email list you rarely email because you don’t want to bother people. Maybe you don’t even have a list because the thought of having to write to it is enough to put you off starting one.

So how do you get more comfortable with putting your thoughts out there?

Play with words

Getting comfortable with writing about what you’re creating can be a way to brighten your day rather than making it another thing on the to-do list. No one else has to see what you write unless you decide to share it.

If you love to journal, start there. Write down your thoughts about what makes you different and why you do what you do. Maybe you learnt something new today that you want to share with your people. It doesn’t have to become a post because, at this point, you’re playing with words and getting used to expressing what you think.

If you don’t journal and struggle to write, talk instead. Record yourself speaking about something you love to do. You can use something like Descript or Otter to transcribe it, or talk directly into ChatGPT. Sometimes it’s much easier to find your words when you’re not staring at a blinking cursor waiting for a perfectly written sentence to appear.

That’s one of the reasons I started my Pretty Way Walks. I go for a walk and talk about something I’ve been thinking about. It doesn’t need to start as a carefully planned piece of content because I often find the thought by talking.

Get comfortable with asking people to buy from you

If you have a business, you want to make money. That sounds incredibly obvious, but asking people to actually buy something can feel surprisingly uncomfortable.

If you never tell people what you sell or show them where to find it, it’s going to be very difficult to keep your business going.

I like to think of the sales journey as a lovely conversation with lots of little yeses along the way. Someone might like what you make and decide to follow you. Later they might read one of your blogs or open an email. Eventually one of those little yeses might become, “Yes, I want to buy that.”

Even if someone says no, it might only be no for now. You never really know how long someone has been following before they buy something from you. You might not even know they’ve been following at all.

Which brings me to something that might actually make posting feel a little less scary.

Chances are, most people aren’t seeing your posts anyway

I know. How reassuring. Hahahahaha.

A lot of social media posts are going unread right now. We post and share videos, show our processes and spend far too long deciding which photo should go first in a carousel. Then we check the analytics and discover that only a fraction of our followers actually saw it.

So what if we looked at that differently? Instead of thinking, “Nobody saw my post, what’s the point?”, maybe it takes some of the pressure off.

Every post doesn’t need to be brilliant or sell something. You can experiment and find your voice as you go. You can discover what you enjoy talking about and what your people respond to without putting so much pressure on every individual thing you publish.

Think of posting as a springboard into something else. Maybe you eventually want to blog or start a YouTube channel. Perhaps you simply want to get better at talking about your work. You have to start somewhere, so why not here?

What if nobody cares?

I think this is one of the thoughts sitting underneath a lot of posting anxiety.

Why would anyone care what I have to say?

The thing is, you can’t know who is going to care until you say it.

Something completely ordinary to you might make someone else think, “Oh! Me too.” Something you learnt today might help someone else who has been struggling with the same thing.

You don’t need everyone to care. You’re talking to the people who do.

Share it anyway

There really isn’t anything inherently scary about posting something on your feed, emailing your list or writing a blog on your website. I also know that saying “don’t be scared” doesn’t magically make the feeling disappear.

I understand it. I started my business almost seven years ago and I had no idea what to do, what to post or whether I would get clients. I did it anyway because I really, really didn’t want to work in corporate again. Like ever.

Over time, it became easier. Not because I discovered the perfect content formula, but because I stopped expecting everything I shared to do something.

Sometimes I’m sharing something I made and other times I’m talking about something I noticed. Sometimes I have something useful to teach. Sometimes I’m telling you about a pelican.

It all counts.

If you want to use your voice, use your voice. If you want to write, write. Then take the slightly scary extra step and share it.

You never know who might need your words that day.