When I recently opened up the application process for A Lit Up Partnership, one of the most interesting things that came out of the three week process was the realization that visibility remains one of the biggest challenges for new entrepreneurs.
The amount of people who indicated they REALLY wanted to win the partnership, and then stopped participating during the visibility challenge was significant. Many of them personally reached out and told me that was a HUGE challenge for them.
In fact, statistically speaking that’s where the most people BY FAR dropped out of the partnership process.
Visibility is key in growing your business, but I no longer want to just talk about getting visible… I want to talk about doing it in a way that feels good to YOU.
MINDSET
Visibility can be a bitch because of all the stories we tell ourselves around it. Things like:
- I have nothing original to say
- What will people think of me?
- What if I come across as boring?
- What if someone says something crappy or calls me out?
Here’s the thing… All of this will happen at some point. Meaning:
There will be times where you feel totally unoriginal. It happens to me plenty and you know I LOVE to innovate and be different.
There will be times where people judge you. To be real, I got quite a bit of judgment around the Lit Up Partnership I recently ran, and I wouldn’t change it for the world.
There will be the certain post or livestream that just didn’t hit it out of the park and was kind of a dud. If you look on my YouTube channel at the first Periscopes I did prepare to CRINGE with embarrassment at how boring I was, but I left ‘em up because it’s part of the process!
People will say crappy things. My favorite one recently was an email telling me what a narcissistic bitch I was from someone I didn’t know and have never talked to! I laughed, reflected, and deleted. It also gave my husband a pretty good laugh. Not nearly as crushing as I imagined it to be way back when.
But as the wise Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.” When you realize that all of those things probably will happen at some point, you get to stop giving your power to them.
You get to show up and take the action anyway. Because it’s never as bad as you think it will be, and the sooner you move through them, the easier it gets.
It’s like going to the dentist (personal example because I am NOT a fan of the dentist). I’m always ten times more anxious in the car on the way there than when I’m actually in the chair.
Visibility is similar. Now, there are of course 100 different mindset “blocks” that we could go into around it, but the gist of it is this: when you move through them, when you show up anyway, it’s almost NEVER as bad as you think it will be.
So if fear is holding on to you, I encourage you to practice some serious self-care and push that comfort zone in a big way. You’ll be amazed at the peace on the other side.
STRATEGY
We tend to make visibility feel so big and so complicated am I right?
But the first, easiest, and best step to getting visible in a way that feels good to you is to simply figure out what feels FUN.
So often we place arbitrary rules on ourselves like “I must write 4 posts per day” or “I must do 5 livestreams per week”. You know what makes all of that really hard? You hating it.
Now, there’s a difference between feeling FEAR around it and just plain not liking it.
Meaning, if you just really DO NOT enjoy being on video, you’ve tried it a ton, and it just doesn’t showcase you in the best way or make you excited— Then don’t start there. Ditch it. If you’re scared someone will judge how you look on video—that’s different. That’s mindset stuff we talked about yesterday.
Ultimately, you want to start by doing the thing that feels GOOD. Because that’s the first strategy in pushing your comfort zone and getting visible— actually finding some enjoyment in what you’re doing!
For me, I love to write. So naturally when I wanted to start getting visible written content was my go-to. I’ve expanded since then, but I always come back to written content, and it will always be one of the strongest cornerstones of my business because I flat out ENJOY writing.
So to start getting visible in a way that feels good, and creating strategy around that I’d love for you to ask yourself these questions:
* How do you love to communicate? Do you enjoy emails, texts, writing out your thoughts and feelings? Maybe you love conversations, talking, and connecting via Facetime? What works best for YOU?
* What are some silly rules that you put on yourself around visibility that are holding you back? If you ditched those, what might getting visible look like? What actually feels good to YOU?
* What are you excited to share? What has been transformational for you and what are you simply excited to talk/write about and be in conversation with others around? What if it was just that simple? Showing up and starting conversations around your passion? What could visibility like look for YOU then?
EXECUTION
One of the things I always say is that “consistency trumps frequency every single time”.
So today, I’d love for you to make a commitment to taking action around visibility that matches YOUR definition of consistency.
For some, that may mean 3 posts on social media per day, and for some that may just mean one blog per week.
The important part is, finding a way to incorporate your visibility into your life and business in a way that feels good to YOU so that you can stick with it.
If it feels completely overwhelming, you’re not likely to execute. If you start leaning into what you can do NOW, what feels good TODAY… everything can shift.
I didn’t always put out daily content across several platforms, weekly videos, weekly blogs, newsletters, etc. I started where I was and built from there.
YOU get to choose what feels good… What’s going to be your definition of consistency?
Now I’d love to hear from you! What’s your biggest challenge related to visibility? How can you embrace a visibility strategy that feels GOOD to you?