- Tina Freemantle
7 Steps to Overcome Fear of Visibility
Updated: Oct 25, 2021
A fear of being visible often holds people back from living their dream and achieving success. When you avoid doing things that will make you stand out, you keep playing smaller than you’re capable of.
The truth is that being visible requires us to be vulnerable. We fear being vulnerable because we fear rejection.
There are lots of reasons why we dislike standing out.
When you’re trying to progress, fear of visibility messes with your ability to be authentic and can hinder your success.
Maybe you fear:
Not being enough
Judgement and criticism
You will be discovered a fraud
You don’t deserve success
Failure
Essentially, we tend to fear what we don’t know and understand, but that’s not the real issue, it’s being unfamiliar with how to handle success. Take the Visibility Quiz to find out your level of visibility.
Deal with the unknown
Before you deal with your success and visibility blocks, try to answer a few questions:
1. If you're looking for success, what is the biggest fear you have?
2. By not embracing success, what are you avoiding?
3. What are you losing by not making yourself more?
4. What are the risks of putting myself out there?
5. What is the worst thing that could happen?
6. What are the benefits of becoming more visible to other people?
Overcome fear of visibility
You can't please everyone
Ask yourself “Do you like everyone you meet?” Of course you don’t. So how can you possible expect everyone to like you. If people don’t like you then that’s fine, they’re not your audience. Focus on connecting with your audience, the ones who need you to show up for and whose lives you can add value to and make a difference.
Ignore trolls. Remember, only people who are hurt try to hurt other people. It says more about them then you. Never let trolls stop you from showing up online and prevent you from your working towards your goals. The best way to handle trolls is to say “Thank you for your lovely comment” and move on. If it gets really nasty, just block them.
Understand the fear
The mind is incredibly powerful and if you create new pictures in your mind you can change how you feel and the results you achieve. Your thoughts create feelings, feeling create, your feeling create your actions and your actions create your events (results). For example, if you say things like:
“I can’t do this Facebook live, I’m to scarred”; or
“I’ll die of embarrassment if no one will want watches me”; or
“I hate the sound of my voice, I look terrible”.
All you are doing is instructing your mind that this is a bad thing and must be avoided at all cost. Your mind takes everything literally and it’s one job is to protect, so it will direct your body to create fear and anxiety, because you’ve essentially told your mind you need protecting from being seen online. Instead, create new thoughts and tell your mind “I have a really important message that I need to share with people”. This creates different and more empowering feelings. Positive thoughts create positive responses and they give you more confidence.
Feel the fear and go it anyway.
Practice recording videos, do Facebook lives without an audience. Keep doing this for 30 days. Before you know it, you will start to feel comfortable in front of the camera and stop caring about what you look and sound like.
Make the unfamiliar familiar
Tell yourself you’re going to do this. It does matter if you are uncomfortable with doing videos. The more videos you do, the more comfortable you will become. It’s no different to swapping sugar with sweeteners in your tea or coffee. At first, you’ll probably hate it, but if you stick with it long enough, you will soon get used to it and start to prefer it. You just need to start and stick with it.
Be yourself
Never try to be someone else’s because that won’t feel like you and it won’t be comfortable. If you compare yourself to someone else and try to be like them you’re setting yourself up for failure. That’s not you. Be yourself and do it your way and be confident in yourself. If you try to emulate someone else, you will never match up and your audience wants authenticity from you so they can relate to you.
You control your worth
Your worth is not determined up how many people like you. For example, it’s better to have fewer engaged follower than loads of followers who aren’t your target audience and never buy from you.
Visualise your future
Imagine what your successful life will be like five or 20 years from now, picture every detail, feeling, sound action etc. Now ask yourself, are you willing to make the change? How do you feel about letting fear of visibility prevent you achieving your full potential. You know the answer – you just need to get started, feel the fear and do it anyway.
