Why Should I "Get Out There"?

Why should I get out there when it's so much easier to put my head under the covers?

Social media has shifted everything upside down.  There are some up sides  - it makes connecting with people and potential clients easier, but there are some down sides too – if you are sensitive to energy, you’ll feel super vulnerable putting yourself out there.  Do you really want to do that?

I’ve struggled with my social media relationship for years.  Just ask Carmen who I hired to help me with social media.  Putting myself “out there” is like going to the dentist for me – not something I look forward to.

Why should you put yourself out there?  Do you have to tweet, post on Facebook and Instagram?  What about Pinterest and LinkedIn?  Do you have to have an email list and send out personal blog posts?  Do you have to guest post to increase traffic? 

Do you have to be a walking, talking advertisement of what you do?

Yuck.  That sounds Used-Car-Salesmanish.

When you start a business because you want your soul’s calling to be what you do for work, becoming a used car salesman-type is absolutely the last thing on your mind. 

So what do you do?

It depends.  It depends on who you want to serve and how you want to serve them.

For years I served people in my small community of 11,000 people.

I didn't have to advertise or do anything on social media. People knew me or knew about me, based totally on word of mouth. People found me by calling me at home for coaching services.  I did absolutely no advertising, and I made a good living.

Then I was called to serve Coaches and Healers and had a huge desire to work in English (my small community was totally Francophone).

Technology made this possible.  I could live anywhere and connect to the people who needed me.....but it took getting known.

That meant that I needed to reach out, get on-line, start conversations, talk and connect to people. I could be the BEST coach in the world, but if no one knew that I existed, they wouldn't hire me and I wouldn't be able to make a living doing the work I love.

The reason that I reach out is so that this soul's calling that I have, can also be my paid work.

I reach out and share because I want people to know me and trust me and come to me if they need help to be seen and stop hiding and find their unique "thing". (I haven’t missed the irony that I help people to stop hiding.)

You need your own reason to “get out there”.

What's yours?

You absolutely DO have a choice. You don’t have to over-extend yourself.  You can pick and choose how much you want to be out there.

I’ve discovered that when you finally know what you’re here to do, you are more miserable NOT doing it, than you were when you were still searching for it. 

Not sharing with people how you can help them, when you ache to do that, eventually becomes excruciatingly painful.

It turns out that doing your soul’s calling and the fear of being out there, are inextricably an inexplicably paired.

As Liz Gilbert says so beautifully in her book Big Magic,

“The question is -  What are you passionate enough about that you can endure the most disagreeable aspects of the work?”

That’s the question you need to ask yourself. 

In order to do this work with the people that I yearn to work with, I need to “get out there”.

Even if it's uncomfortable, as it often is, I do it.

It gets easier.

What are you so passionate about what you'll do what you must, to get out there?