the real reason I hated showing up online

and how I got over it (and myself)

When I got started as a freelancer, I was trying to do everything right. I researched things top to bottom and inside-out to make sure I was doing everything as I should.

I created a (very ugly) logo, picked out a colour palette, and chose a snazzy Canva template so that I could market online. I chose Instagram and Twitter at first cos I didn’t wanna spend the effort (and money) on a website just yet.

I changed my bio over and over (and over) until one fit — but only for the time being. I started shouting into the void about my services and why you absolutely needed me.

I scoured the explore page to find other service providers in similar industries looking for inspiration for my own content. I mean, what am I supposed to say to get people to give me their money?

With every new piece of content I found — and bookmarked and promptly forgot about — I started to feel less and less sure about myself.

Do I know enough to talk about this?

Does this post look right?

What am I trying to say here?

Is this too weird?

This doesn’t look as good as [other OSP]’s own

How does [other OSP] have all those great ideas?? I have zero

Who even cares what I have to say?

Soon, I was throwing out all kinds of content to see what stuck — most of it I hated creating in the first place.

All the advice I saw online said that to get sales, people had to see you. I mean, sure but why do I hate showing up online so much??

“But Sue-Jan, you’re so great and articulate! How could you hate being online?”

Well, I was insecure.

Insecure that I didn’t know enough about what I was talking about.

Insecure that my ideas sucked ass.

Insecure that I didn’t look or sound like other online service providers.

Insecure that my weirdness would be off-putting.

In true neurodivergent fashion, I absolutely did not work through that insecurity. I shoved all those thoughts under the rug and presented online in ways that were misaligned with who I was, and my goals and values.

(Tbh at that point I still wasn’t sure who I was in the first place so pretending to be someone else was, in my head, better)

Sometimes, when I got so overwhelmed by doing things that were misaligned, I’d just rage-quit social media entirely. Of course this started a negative feedback loop:

Stop posting → engagement dips → obsessively look for content to copy/emulate → post misaligned content → feel shitty → stop posting → engagement dips → and on and on

Oh and I’ve definitely ghosted social media just because I hated seeing how great everyone else’s content was compared to mine btw.

I knew that awareness was really important in the first few years of business. You need people to know you exist so they can start to associate you with whatever you’re selling.

But being out in this 2020s social media landscape where everything is perfectly curated? Feeling like every move you make is being scrutinized and working against you making that schmoney? Feeling like you have to be super professional as a business owner or no one would take you seriously?

Especially when you’re insecure about being a beginner?

LOL yeah that shit is SCARY.

“So Sue-Jan, how did you go from insecure beginner to confident business baddie?”

I stopped giving a fuck about other people.

I stopped giving a fuck about other people so I could learn more about myself.

I was insecure about who I was because I really wasn’t sure who she was, and I was a die hard people pleaser. What a great combo! /s

I decided that I’d treat this like an experiment – everything I did was still throwing spaghetti at the wall, but it was way more intentional, and not about other people. It was about me.

What do I want to do? What am I really good at? What do I want to feel? What are my values? What are my goals? What do I want to try?

And then I just did it.

Being a beginner is incredibly embarrassing and cringe – and I just learned to accept it. Accept that it was embarrassing and cringe and I wrote about it.

I posted about it. I said that shit out loud.

I laughed about. Sometimes I cried about it. But I shared those things with my audience and that’s when the awareness started happening.

Even you reading this, you’re probably like “wow this is totally me and how I feel. No one is talking about this”, right? I’m that weird, cringe, brave one talking about the things that no one else is weird, cringe or brave enough to talk about in this space.

Turns out, that’s my secret sauce. This is what people pay me for. This is what people love about my content.

In showing up compassionately for myself about being a beginner, being a neurodivergent being trying to build a business in this capitalistic hellscape, in being open and honest about what I was going through, I’ve found my place in the online space.

Now that I know myself better, I can care about what other people think. And not in a “what do they think about me?” way. In a “how can I use my gifts to help them” way.

In another universe, or maybe in a few years, I’ll learn how to neatly conclude posts like this. For now, you can book a consult with me to figure out how you can embrace the cringe, or you can join my community of neurodivergent babes learning how to show up online as a group 🫶🏾