Of all of the scary things I’ve done in the last year, and potentially in my life, I have found the process of creating a YouTube channel and video content the scariest. I’m a passionate person who is driven to help others achieve their goals and get to where they want to be, with the ultimate goal of finding what makes us happy. Nothing makes me happier than when I post a piece of content or share something and someone tells me it’s helped them, or even more incredibly, inspired them. I love the thought of being able to build a platform that encourages people not to settle for a life they don’t want and aren’t happy with, never fulfilling their potential or doing what really makes their heart sing.

Fortunately, because of the way the online world is now, people like me can actually do that using the power of social media and content, yet so many of us don’t due to the crippling fear of putting ourselves out there in case we get knocked down. This is me, and this has been a journey I’ve been on for about 6 years now, trying to move past a fear of nasty comments and p*ss taking, even from those who I love and who love me.

Let’s start with where it started…

I first started blogging and ‘putting myself out there’ online in 2013 while in my 2nd year of Uni, doing a degree I hated at a University I wasn’t a fan of. I loved it so much and received so many kind comments and actually a surprising amount of views for a new blog. I loved it! I felt I had a hobby which I enjoyed, made people laugh and help people. About 2 weeks in I received a Facebook message from a girl from my Uni, it was a link to my blog with a message saying ‘why are so many people we know starting sh*t blogs’. It was meant for someone else but she’d sent it to me.

I tried SO hard not to care, to listen to everyone when they told me that she was maybe jealous that I was doing something I cared about and she wasn’t, that she was insecure, that it said more about her than it did about me but unfortunately this one experience drowned my passionate flame and I stopped a few days later. I have picked up and dropped blogging and creating content a few times since then but have never fully committed due to a fear of receiving a message like this again OR having the p*ss taken out of me by my friends, who assure me it is ‘banter’ but still knocks my confidence.

The problem

If you’ve ever been around a dinner table or in a work setting and have heard the comments people say about those who have opted for a different path, maybe they’re doing something online, maybe they’re starting a business, maybe they’ve gone on a TV show. Maybe they’re just doing something different to the majority you will have heard the catty comments, the criticism, and the judgment and that is what has limited me from doing what I really want to do (to an extent, I’m not saying I’m a wallflower but to do what I really want to do) for 6 years.

I think my problem actually stems more from the fear of the people I know than the people I don’t. We taught in Marketing to create content for our ‘target customer’ and to filter out everyone else. It makes sense, do you see Gary Vaynerchuk crying when people don’t like what he says? No, he openly declares he respects everyone’s opinion and he likes that he isn’t for everyone, he’d rather strongly appeal to a few than weakly appeal to many. This is totally how I feel too and how I regularly coach others to feel but for some reason, it’s not as easy to practice what I preach

I’m not scared offline, only online…

In real life I am far less bothered about what people think, I think it stems from when I was younger having girls at school call me ‘very curvy’ (which means fat in all girls school talk) or boys telling me I have a big nose. As someone with a strong personality I have also taken a fair amount of criticism and comment about who I am because, for some reason, people think you can take it if you’re confident. I’ve been called bossy, annoying, overly in tense, intimidating, unprofessional in a variety of contexts, mainly due to the insecurity of the person I’m with, but I’ve learned to ignore it and accept me for who I am.

In-person I am definitely a what you see is what you get person and people are often shocked when I say I struggle with the issue I’m talking about in this post, ‘you’re not the kind of person I’d think would worry about’ or ‘it’s easy for people like you’. But let’s be honest, no one likes criticism or p*ss taking when they’re trying to do something they care about.

My cousin has a gorgeous daughter called Billie who I love so much. She’s the young person I’m closest to and I have so much fun with her, she’s hilarious, sassy and fantastic. Whenever I’m around Billie I always try to be myself, the best self I can be, to hopefully encourage her to be herself and to never me limited by what people think especially in this CRAZY world of social media that her age has (she’s 12). I never criticise myself or my appearance, I never complain about other people, I never focus on being good or bad at things, I just try to focus on being me and loving the fact I am me as I think this is the best thing we can give to children. At Christmas time I was in Bills (lol) with a few of my family including Billie. Billie was on her phone, scrolling through various posts and looked bored of ‘adult talking’ so I grabbed her and chatted to her standing up and ended up having a bit of a sing and dance around the stairs in Bills (it was pretty empty. don’t worry). Billie was embarrassed by me at first, giving me her sassy eyes which make me feel totally uncool but soon joined in and as we were leaving told me ‘I love how you don’t care what people think’. BANG. I’d done it, I’d managed to get across to Billie what I hoped for.

I walked home thinking how weird it is that I could dance and sing in a public place with my (kind of) niece but wasn’t comfortable to share a few videos online about topics that are interesting and helpful to others! Makes ZERO sense.

So where are we now?

Over the last 3-4 months, I’ve come along leaps and bounds and have declared a few things online to help me on my journey to this level of freedom I so desire and on Wednesday this week I launched my Youtube channel which is a big step in the right direction!

I’m not saying I’m 100% there, no matter how many times I listen to ‘This is Me’ while running on the treadmill, but I’m making little steps towards a place where I am fully free from the judgment, comments, and criticisms of others because I am done with having the fear of it limit my life.

I know I’m not the only one who has this! SO if you feel in anyway that you’re limiting your life due to fear of others (and you’ll know in your gut the answer within 0.00005 seconds of even seeing this post if the answer is yes) then let’s go on the journey to freedom together!

I’ve you’re interested in my videos and my content then I’d LOVE you to subscribe to my channel!