How to Overcome Your Fear of Showing Up and Being Seen
“What I realized was that the fear was not the villain. The fear was the messenger.” — Linda Ugelow
Formerly stricken with the fear of public speaking herself, Linda Ugelow now helps entrepreneurs, authors, company leaders, and teams to transform their experience of speaking from dread to delight. She started her journey by going live on Periscope where she had to bring all of her psychology education to play in order to get over her fears.
In this episode of “Authors Who Lead,” I talk with Linda about her early experiences with public speaking and how her book, Delight in the Limelight: Overcome Your Fear of Being Seen and Realize Your Dreams, has transformed her and continues to gently help others.
Fears and Imposter Syndrome
Everyone has a fear of something, whether it’s a fear of speaking or writing a book, or something even more generalized like a fear of success or failure. Linda realized that the first step to getting over a fear is figuring out precisely what it is and what it is trying to tell us. Sometimes fears can come from a previous experience that created that fear out of survival but that no longer serves us in the present.
Learning about why we have these fears is the first step toward healing—as Linda likes to say, “Reveal and heal.” Then once you start healing and forgiving yourself, the next step is to restore your sense of safety. This can be an internal safety or external.
Overcoming with Help
Whether it’s a fear of speaking on stage or writing a book, Linda suggests that the best thing you can do for yourself is to find help. Help can be a wellness coach or book coach, a mentor, or a community of like-minded individuals. Linda’s journey to get her book written and published was not a solo endeavor. She attended workshops, followed mentors, hired coaches, and was even approached by a ghostwriter.
In this podcast, Linda also shares with us:
- Your inner critical voice also needs healing
- It’s important to reveal and heal your fears
- Writing a book is not a quick and easy process, but it should have positive energy throughout the journey
- There are many stages of writing your book you may need to reach out for help
- The first draft of the book should be just for you: have the freedom to write down everything in your heart
What was your biggest takeaway from this episode? Do you want to write a book but fear is holding you back? Share in the comments below!
That’s all for this week. If you have a message inside of you that needs to be written, today is the day to start. Don’t delay — take action.
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Get a copy of Linda’s book here:
Delight in the Limelight: Overcome Your Fear of Being Seen and Realize Your Dreams
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