How I'm overcoming fear as a creative.

So as a creative, if something goes really well, I can often neglect to celebrate the win that I've had there. And I kind of sit around and wait for the other shoe to drop. I'm just, like, constantly on edge saying, like, well, what's gonna happen now? There's, like this fear that constantly exists. And, you know, honestly, like, I made a little list of them here, so you'll have to forgive me. I'm gonna go back and forth between my notes a little bit. But these fears are like, the fear that I'm not doing enough, the fear that I'm not showing up enough, the fear that I'm not popular enough, the fear that I'm not being myself. That's a real one. And then the fear that I don't know how to do something. And when I have these fears, I try to fix them, obviously. And. And what ends up happening then is I want it to be so right. You know, if I want to show up more as myself, I make notes, I go into the. How do I do that? And I have a checklist. And if I want to make sure that the videos perform better, I make a list. And I have all these things. I try to put systems in place, and then I end up just in this paralysis analysis mode where nothing ever gets done because I'm so overwhelmed now and by the fear. It's like the fear exists, so I try to fix it by making a system, and then I get afraid I'm going to do the system wrong. And now I'm back at fear, and then it just circulates over and over, and I'm like a dog flipping, chasing my tail, right? And so, you know, there was. There's. There's a. I do it. I have another job. So I, in addition to having this business where I help creatives really identify their creative genius. And by creative genius, I don't mean like, oh, you're an incredible illustrator. You already know what you do really well. I think your creative genius is the thing that you naturally do that serves people. I've identified them as helpers, feelers, and life changers. And you can actually take a quiz that I've put in the description if you want to see which one you are and how you can use that skill set. But in addition to this thing where I take help people take that genius and turn that into a brand that really connects with the right people, I work with a company where I help YouTubers. And, you know, the irony here is that I have a small YouTube channel. So how Often do I get nitpicked. Like, I literally get emails that say, how can you help me? You only have 7,000 subscribers. Then, you know, all it takes is me to show the people that I've helped grow their channels by, like, hundreds of thousands of followers, and some of them, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars. But it's like, you can't sell that when the vanity metric doesn't reflect it in the same way. You know, it's like the. Somebody said it's like the. What is it? The cobbler that has the bad shoes or whatever. And so I end up fearing, again, that kind of these two things, like, one, not being authentic to who I am because I'm so afraid of this. I'm so afraid of showing up and people judging me on that. Then I end up not being who I am, right? And these videos that are unedited now and unscripted during this timeframe, like, this is me combating that. This is me just showing up and saying, throwing the rules out the window. We're just going to show up. And then the second part, like, is the fear that I'm not following these rules, right? These are unspoken rules. My coach calls these unwinnable games. She says, you set up a lot of these unwinnable games that I've created for myself.

You know, like, you got to show up consistently. You got to make sure that you use a certain amount of B roll. Are your primal branding elements in place? How have you made sure that you've dropped the thing that you believe in? Like, all this stuff that I teach, the strategy side, like, overwhelms everything that I do, and it sucks out all the fricking life from everything that I want to make. So here's a practice that I've been doing now for, I don't know, probably six months or so. And I don't do it every day, but I do it most days. And really, in the times that I find myself swirling. So if you're like me, and you deal with this anxiety and this fear of wanting to get it right, then it's a swirling pattern. And we can picture ourself needing to do something, and then we distract ourself with something else, and we go down the hole again, and then we distract and we come back to. And so this practice has been huge for me. So it starts with me just recognizing, because we can do that, we can start to recognize that we're in the process, a really emotional state. And that fear starts to well up in me. I get A knot in my stomach. I feel like I want to do more, but I just don't know how to do it. I don't know how to move forward. And so I stop, and I see that fear for what it is. I literally stop, and I'll take a big breath.

So I literally just hold it for a second and then let it go. And even doing it right then is like. It just feels good. I've never done this before, but do it with me. Just hold it.

And then let it all out. Man, it just feels so good. Like, my. It's like my blood slows down and things just get better. Right? And that allows me to see the fear for what it is. It allows me to identify this as something that I'm dealing with. But the best part is that it allows me to identify it as something I'm dealing with and not as me. I am not this fear. This fear exists as this separate thing that shows up. So my coach says that that fear is false evidence appearing real. False evidence appearing real. And so when this false evidence shows up to. Because it says to us, it's literally saying, lennon, you know, I want you to reach this goal that you have, but you're much more comfortable in this other zone. So we need to, like, chill out a little bit. And maybe you should just go watch some Netflix or, like, get lost on Instagram for a minute and get a few dopamine hits, and then just, like, we'll try again. Okay. But then when I show up to try again. Yeah, I don't know, man. Like, you're just not ready. And so when I'm able to see the fear step outside of it, then I bring myself back to the moment. And here's how I do that. This is called the I can't remember where I heard this, but the See, hear, and feel exercise. So this is a mindfulness exercise, and I would encourage you to even try it right now and just close your eyes and think about whatever happens first. So I'm going to just kind of do it in the moment. So right now, I hear something. So I say it out loud. Hear. What am I hearing? I'm hearing myself. And I recognize that voice. I'm feeling something. I'm feeling my throat vibrating. And I can. I can recognize that for what it is. Yeah. And then I feel the breath coming in and out when I pause there. Now I'm hearing something over here. It's like the lights or something. And then I feel my eyes closed. Okay. And then if I open my eyes I see the microphone in front of me. I can see my reflection. But then I'm also seeing this lamp and feeling, once again, the vibrations in my throat. And so when I do this, and I say it and I feel it, and I allow myself to now replicate, or not replicate, but replace this fear with the present. And I just bring my focus into the thing that matters in that moment.

It just all kind of chills. And then I can take a second and approach the thing that I need to approach now, understanding that fear may show up, but that fear is not me. I am not that fear, and it is not me. It is there to protect me. I just don't need it right now because it's just a little bit like, let's call it ignorant to the situation. Okay, so. So.

The cool thing about this is that I believe this exercise, in addition to what I truly believe is a calling for me, is the thing that's gotten me here right now to doing these videos. There's a number of other things. My coach and I are working on things all the time, but a lot of it has to do with recognizing the moment and then being able to replace or not replace, but, like, recognize that moment and then bring myself and ground myself again to where I need to be. And so the more that you do that as a creative person, the more you're able to really see that. The more you start to become more of yourself, the more fearless you are in the way that you show up, and you start to trust you again. My biggest thing is two things. I want to. I don't want to have any worries of what somebody thinks of me, and I'm getting much better at that. What someone else thinks of me is none of my business, right? And then the other thing is, I want to live my life in a way to where if somebody told me right now, lennon, you're going to die in an hour, then I would say, you know what? I did everything I could. And the only way I'll have those two things working in tandem is to be able to look and see things as they are and be as present in the moment as possible. And so, for you, I would encourage you to test this, try this out, and see if you become more trusting in yourself, in your creativity, trusting in the way that you should show up for your person, trusting in the thing that you have to offer to the world that will serve somebody and that will allow them to serve you, to give you money to pay you for the thing that you deserve to be paid for, to do the thing that you are meant to do and we're going to go deeper into the idea of payment and money and how like the mindset we need to have with that as well. But you are not going to have a clear depiction of who you are and how to present that unless you can come to grips with who you are yourself. And once again, me showing up in this unedited format is exactly that for me. This, this is me learning how to be me again. And it's frickin tough. It's frigging tough. But I gotta say, like, this is the third day I've done it and I feel amazing doing it. It feels amazing to show up, it feels amazing to read your comments. It feels amazing to just say, you know what? I did it and I'm done. I've done the thing I can do. I'm starting a practice. Will I do this every day? I don't know. What I know right now is that I've thrown the rules away so that I can step into the moment, be mindful of where I'm at, let the fear be what it is and let me be who I am. So I hope this is helpful. Try this out the see here feel exercise and let me know how it goes. And also would it be cool to do some sort of like meditate, like guided meditation together? Would you guys like that? Let me know in the comments. Maybe I'll try that out some since I'm doing some things here on the experimental side. But otherwise I will see you guys tomorrow. Sending love.