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Last week, I published my first article on Linked In!
If you haven’t read it yet, I’ve included a link to it here.
But, first, I want to tell you a bit about the experience of writing it!
I initially planned on writing an article for Linked In in January.
January. It’s now July.
You’ll see that it’s a fairly short article. I’m not discounting the quality of it in any way but, well, it didn’t take 7 months to write!
No. The delay was due to a cocktail of uncertainty and self-doubt, and dash of being too busy, which kept me from starting the writing process.
My longest standing dream is to be an author. I’ve wanted to write a book since I was about 8 years old. While my preferred subject matter has changed over the years, the dream has never faded.
My first attempt to bring that dream to life was when I wrote a “novella” at the age of 10, about an ill-fated romance, set in Italy’s picturesque countryside.
Because, you know, 10-year-olds know a hell of a lot about romance.
And, having never been to Italy, I’m pretty sure my attraction to the country stemmed from my love for spaghetti at the time… with butter… not even with real sauce.
Yeah, I didn’t have a ton of cred on that one. And – shocker of all shockers – HarperCollins did not scramble to add it to any of their young readers’ collections at the time.
So, I’m still unpublished.
And, in my mind, publishing an article on Linked In felt so momentous because it felt like the first real step towards one day writing a book.
Because of that, it seemed daunting. I kept putting it off. I told myself I had to do a ton of research, that my writing had to be impeccable. I built it up to be such a big deal that, if I didn’t get the article to a state of perfection, it would somehow mean that fulfilling that dream of mine would be at stake.
While the surest way to write a book is to actually write, in any form, on any platform, I eventually realized that writing that article on Linked In wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be. Make no mistake: I’m proud of the article and I think that it is very cool that I can issue publications on that channel. But, eventually, I realized that I was blowing it out of proportion, which was holding me back.
Once I realized that, it became a lot easier to start writing the article… and I finished it quickly!
I’m sharing all of this with you for two reasons:
I want to call out the fact that we do that to ourselves sometimes. We make things out to be so much bigger in our head than they end up being in real life. The expression “the fear of something is often worse than the thing itself” is so fitting here. Overcoming self-doubt can seem impossible at times but doing the scary thing anyway is true courage.
I also want to stress that sometimes all we need is a shift in perspective. We convince ourselves that things are one way but, really, they are not. However, because we are so committed to our original thought, we put our blinders on and don’t allow ourselves to see things objectively; everything is tainted by our original assumption. It can take a lot of discipline, maturity, and courage to allow ourselves to really see things from a different perspective.
So, what do we do when one (or both) of the above happens? The only thing we can do: First and foremost, we extend compassion to ourselves. We don’t beat ourselves up for taking too long, for getting it wrong, for procrastinating. Then, we congratulate ourselves for noticing that we were holding ourselves back in that way. And, finally, we move forward.
That’s all for today!
If you want to read my article, entitled “Mindfulness is not woo.”, you can access it by clicking the button I shared above. If you like it, please “react” to it, comment on it, and share it on Linked In. If you don’t already follow me on that platform, I recommend you do that, too. :)
Thank you for reading!
Stephanie
LORA Concepts Inc.
workplace engagement & well-being
p.s. The information, insight, and advice I share through my work is meant to exist alongside whatever else you may be doing to bolster your mental health, manage stress, or improve your well-being. Nothing I share is meant to replace directives or treatment plans provided by your doctor, therapist, or other healthcare professional.