“Help! I’m Scared of Looking Dumb.”
Help! I’m Scared of Looking Dumb.
Dear Write of Passage,
I’m Scared of Looking Dumb. Here’s the thing: I love to write. My friends and family tell me that I’m pretty good at it, too. I’ve even published a few essays online. (Can you believe it?) But I’m hesitant to go all in.
It's one thing to casually hit “Publish” every now and then. It’s another to fully commit, to put myself out there and draw attention to my work. What if my essay flops? What if my ideas aren’t as good as I think they are? What if I regret writing in public so much that I’m forced to delete social media and move to rural Idaho, never to share my writing again?
Help! What should I do?
Sincerely,
Scared of Looking Dumb
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Dear Scared of Looking Dumb,
We hear you. (Although, moving to rural Idaho doesn’t sound that bad.) Writers often feel these contradictory emotions at once: you’re scared of people seeing what you’ve written, and you’re frustrated that no one reads your work. It’s a paradox. What you most desire is the very thing you’re most afraid of. Sheesh, what a cycle.
So what do you do? Well, Carl Jung said it best:
“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.”
When you share your work online, you receive real-time feedback on your ideas from strangers all over the world. (Where else can you do that? Nowhere.)
You connect with like-minded people you would have never met in person (a new best friend, a fan who loves your work, the CEO of your dream company — we’ve seen it all).
Your ideas work for you, opening doors you didn’t know existed — book deals, podcast appearances, and sudden DMs that say, “Hey, would you be open to working with us?”.
And that's not even the best part.
When you share your work online, you start honoring your potential. You start respecting your ideas and fulfilling your desire to create. You start becoming the person you know you can be.
Listen, if you love to write, then you need to go for it. In the words of Wayne Gretsky (or was it Michael Scott?): “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”
So, respect your ideas. Honor your potential. And if you’re burning to share your work, just do it. Ten years from now, no one will remember your mediocre first essay. But if you don’t start now, you’ll regret having never shared your ideas.
If you’re looking for a high-caliber community to write with, then you’re in the right place. We’ve helped over 2,000 writers from 72 different countries accelerate their writing progress and create work that they’re beaming to share.
And who knows? You could be next.
