The Vulnerability Hangover

illustration from one of those free for all use websites - changed skin and hair colour.

The other day, I posted details of my vision board party aka the first ever event, whatdamidid as a brand is hosting. I had been talking about having this event for a while, in fact, I had hosted one in my house for some of friends earlier in the year.

One day, my sister pushed me (whether she intended to or not) by announcing it on twitter. I was forced to face my fears and announce it. The thing about fear is it just moulds to new situations, so I announced it, then I had to face the fear that in the end, it would be just me and one other person and I would have to face that fact that my event was a failure. I refreshed my email for payment invoices that weren’t coming and considered announcing that “by the way, I’m not making money from this, I’m just passionate about helping people discover and set goals”- then I realised I was being crazy and didn’t do that. I called my cousin and I talked to my husband and they assured me with their blind unfounded belief that it would all be fine.

I don’t know whether it’s going to be fine. It might flop. It might be the biggest disaster ever. I might lose a ton of money and it might dent my confidence, but the most important thing is, I’m doing it.

I started writing this post actually, to talk about how that act of putting myself out there, made me unable to post. I found myself slipping back into the hole I’ve constantly slipped back to in all the time i’ve had this blog. It is not for a lack of motivation that I don’t write, I have a lot of written and unpublished posts. It is giving in to that crippling anxiety that you have somehow embarrassed yourself by trying. You have shown that you care about something, about many things. You have put yourself out there and haven’t won. You have written and noone has read. You have spoken and no-one has listened. In a way, isn’t that freeing?

If no-one cares, then why not write? why not post? What’s the worst that can happen?

If only one person comes, maybe that’s an opportunity to bond or maybe it just means you failed this one time and there’s no lesson to be learnt. At least you know. At least you can move on mentally and do something else. At least you tried.

I no longer aim for success, because in a way, you can’t control outcomes, all you can control is effort, as long as I can make the effort, I am proud of myself. That has meant i’ve gone from being proud like once or twice a year to being proud almost daily. It hasn’t made me more successful, but it has made me happier, and I think being happy more often, that’s enough, for now.