Do It Scared

Starting your own business is weird.

As a young-ish business owner, we’ve watched as companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon, Walmart, and many more have exploded in popularity and employed hundreds of thousands of people. And when you begin a business it just… doesn’t look like that. And it can make you feel small and insignificant. Like, why would somebody pay for MY services when I’m a nobody?

I’ve played small for years. Actually, if I’m being honest, I’ve played small for most of my life. What do I mean by playing small? I mean undermining my own talent so others can feel comfortable with their output. But inside I just shriveled. Why?

Because I was a nobody. What I had to offer and bring to the table was insignificant and underwhelming compared to the companies and businesses who had put their money and employees to work. I was a face in a crowd - another person starting a business in a world FILLED with writers who were leaps and bounds better than me.

I was afraid. I was afraid of starting something I didn’t know if I could do. I was afraid that if I started this adventure, I would fail. And what’s worse than failing?

I’ll tell you. Never starting is worse than failure because it haunts you. Never starting has killed more dreams than failure ever will.

So I started and still push forward to become the best version of myself every single day. One of the best pieces of life advice I received in my lifetime is a simple sentence: 

be afraid and do it anyways.

I know this is different from my typical blogs (hey, sometimes we need to mix it up a little, ya know?) but I want to give some life advice to the struggling freelancer, the cogs in the machine who don’t know if they can make it on their own, the burnt out entrepreneur - do it anyway.

Be scared as hell, be petrified, be terrified, be unsure if the next step makes sense. But take the leap, take the fear and harness it into something powerful enough to push you forward.

Dear reader, be afraid and do it anyways.