Do it Afraid

Time for a serious post. So if you’re not in the mood for some soul-bearing introspective nonsense, you might want to skip this. Who am I kidding? Absolutely no one reads this . . . Yet. (I’m working on self-confidence). One day, when I decide to start actually revealing this blog, I will have readers.

After a fairly dramatic crying jag and furious thumb-flying text message conversation with my husband, I took to Google for solace. It was just you run-of-the-mill breakdown. I’m sick of people promising me work and then just disappearing. If they knew how much hope and celebration goes into each prospective job for a freelancer, they wouldn’t be so quick to make empty promises. So I Googled, “motivation for new freelance writers” or something along those lines. I came across this gem of a blog post on nojobformom.com.

She basically explained that every new writer is afraid. You just have to accept that fear and do it anyway. As a person, I bring fear to a whole new level. Besides being a somewhat under-confident, I also have a lot of anxiety issues. Like “had to be medicated for seven years” kind of issues. Don’t worry, I’m not crazy. I just tend to worry endlessly and I generally expect the worse thing to happen. For instance, a positive Emily would submit a response to a job ad and think, “I think I have a good shot at getting this. I have some great published clips, a writing degree from a good college and the skills to succeed at the job.” My normal self would read the ad and think this, “Why should I even bother applying for this? Someone who has been published in the New Yorker, has a master’s degree from Harvard is going to get this job. Even if I did happen to get the job by mistake, I would probably disappoint the employer somehow. I just shouldn’t apply.” My personality obviously isn’t very well cut out for this.

But I get what she’s saying and I really hope to embrace it. Yeah, I’m afraid to apply for that job, send in that query, email that contact. So what. I’m GOING to be afraid, until I have done it enough times to not be afraid. Deal with it. It’s part of the job.

I’m a good writer, I’m educated and I’m a responsible worker. What I’m lacking is self-confidence. To say that I’m going to try to be a more confident person is unrealistic. Self-confidence is not going to develop over night. I’m just going to have to forge on without it.

Okay, off to apply for some jobs.