This title sounds stupid yet it is a legitimate fear many writers have. It’s one thing to bare my soul (that’s what writing is) to strangers, but completely different when it’s for somebody I know.
“I didn’t know you felt that way. Let’s talk.”
No!
It’s weird because I typically play my emotions pretty close to the chest, but when I write I put them all out there for the world to see. Any writer worth his salt has to put his emotions and thoughts out there.
Now, I didn’t say be emotional like a mentally unwell person (although history shows many of our great writers are emotionally unwell!).
Personally, I’ve gotten over the “what if somebody I know reads what I write and then has thoughts” hurdle. I haven’t gotten there yet for putting myself on video, although I know YouTube must be part of my blogging strategy and I’m a fool for not implementing it yet (an article for another time).
“FEAR NOT!”
“Fear not!” and similar phrasing like “Do not fear!” appear in the Bible around 365 times. So, it seems like an instruction God has really been trying to hammer into the minds of us humans.
Why?
Oh, probably because it is the greatest, mental limiting factor in human psychology.
The vast majority of our fears are illusions. They simply don’t exist!
“What if somebody I know reads my writing?” Yeah, and?
“What if somebody I know sees my cringe self on video?” Yeah, and?
“What if I take my shot for freedom? What will people think?” Yeah, and?
Obviously, there are legitimate fears that keep us safe–which is the healthy exercising of fear. But MOST of our fear is not healthy. It holds us back from being the people God intended us to be.
Do you really think God intended for you to live life on your knees like you currently are? The Bible is full of stories of God constantly trying to pull people into greatness, despite their best efforts to avoid greatness.
So, how about trying to write and publish your next couple of articles without fear?
We can even make a deal.
If you do that I’ll finally work through my fear of putting myself on video. Deal?
Okay, but what if somebody I know really does read our blogs?
Imagine.
You get to the office on Monday morning and Larry–of course it was Larry–joshes you about your lame blog he found over the weekend and makes fun of you.
“Oh, so you are blogging for freedom, huh?” Oh, you write inspirational stuff about living your best life but you are here at a boring job in a boring cubicle like the rest of us, huh?”
First, everybody knows Larry is a loser. He is going nowhere.
Second, I think this comes to the crux of the problem. We have fear of having aspirations that go beyond our mundane, boring lives.
“Who are you to think you can be an interesting person, living free? Who are you to write things like that while you good and well know you work from a boring cubicle all day?
We feel like…a poser.
That’s what we fear when somebody finds our blog.
The blog has our hopes and dreams, baby!
Then Larry finds it and tries to “bring us back down to Earth” and then we feel like a poser.
So, in this situation…what do we say to Larry?”
Not a gosh darn thing.
Larry ain’t worth a breath of air.
You just do the job you need to do at work, and then when you are done with work you flip over to your other laptop and start banging out your next article.
Because you will be free.
Freedom is earned.
And the scorn of Larry is a rather small price to pay.
We Are On A Mission To Earn Freedom Via Writing Words And Don’t Let Anybody Stop Us
Never forget the mission: FREEDOM.
That’s what each and every one of us bloggers are after.
Freedom in the best way.
Freedom in which we earn ~$10,000 per month merely for writing words 3 or 4 hours a day.
Then after 3 or 4 hours we close the laptop and do whatever we feel like doing with the people that we want to do it with.
For me that looks like going on a hike with my wife and kids from the mountain cabin we rented. Or maybe kayaking in the Florida Keys from the house on the water we rented for pennies on the dollar because we rented off season.
And things like that will be normal because I’ll make enough for my wife not to work, and she can finally home school the kids like she has always wanted to. So now we just slow travel around the country, doing home school, writing, and adventure.
The important thing for me is that because of my blogging I can live a life of freedom with my wife and kids.
Most of us are blogging for a reason similar to this, right?
So, if your efforts are able to set this up in your life…does it really matter what the heck Larry from work thinks?
Focus On The Mission And Not On What Other People Think
The mission is freedom via writing words.
If that is the mission does it matter if there are a few naysayers along the journey?
Does it matter, when you are in your rented off-season condo in the Virgin Islands, what Larry from your previous job thought? I think not.
There is so much money and freedom available in the world.
And we aren’t even worried about getting rich, so we don’t need that much money.
The goal of this blog is to create an army of bloggers making around $10,000 per month so we can all be free, learn from each other, and have adventures together every now and then.
Anybody up for a blogging get together in Alaska?
(One of my dreams is spending a summer in Alaska.)
Do you have any dreams?