How to Overcome Nervousness as an Author

Nervousness is an easy place to live, isn’t it? Being self conscious, worrying over how we look and sound, running out of logical words..we’ve all been there. So how do we, as public figures, as AUTHORS (AKA lovers of words) overcome the terrifying moments that are being in public/being on camera/being on the radio?

I recently had someone give an answer to this that I’ve been saying all along, and they put it in a great perspective: when you focus on YOU, you get nervous. When you focus on OTHERS (your fans) you stop focusing on you and just deliver something awesome for your fans.

When you focus on creating or giving something valuable to your fans, you don’t have time to pay attention to your hair, your voice, your clothing. You just speak. And when you speak, you give your fans something they WANT to hear or NEED to hear.

I know, the aftermath can be “fun” to deal with. I focus on delivering great content to my fans and students and get through it just fine…and then I see how I looked. Deep breath…move on. Because how I look doesn’t matter. How I sound, the words I trip over, the silly things I do…they don’t matter. Because my people don’t focus on my weirdly placed hair like I do…they focus on my words.

It’s not about me. It’s not about me. It’s not about me. And because it’s not about me, I can get through it and I can be okay with my less-than-perfection on screen.

So what can you do to give value to your fans?

Focus on giving them what they need and want. Focus on them and the focus will shift off of you and you’ll forget to be uncomfortable. Do this for your fans…it makes all the difference.

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