There’s a thought process you can absolutely count on when you’re bringing creative work into the world.
1: You make a thing. Hooray!
2: It’s available for purchase. So far, so good!
3: Your brain gets involved. Hnnnnnngggggg…
It whispers, “No one wants this thing I’ve made.”
Not “some people don’t want it.”
Not “a few people think it’s dumb but most people will think it’s pretty rad.”
“NO ONE wants this thing I’ve made.”
In just the past week, I’ve had this come up with two coaching clients.
In our first case, a photographer has booked over 50% of the year’s sessions — i.e. the entirety of the year from January through December — in January. Fifty percent of the whole year. In the first month of the year. We made a plan for when she actually starts marketing the sessions later in winter. (She’s still sure she can’t book the sessions. I told her for sure for sure, she’s fucked. Hosed. SCREWED…😉 )
In the second case, a photographer has booked weddings again and again with no webpage (not webSITE — just a mere webPAGE that’s part of a site) featuring her work. Word of mouth keeps on sending people to her, and she’s sure she can’t book 3 weddings this year.
Go ahead and judge: these people must be crazy, right? OF COURSE they’re going to get booked up!
But you, friend. You’re sure you won’t make rent or book that client. You’re convinced that what you offer has absolutely no value, even though people have sent you kind words and thanks and praise and your calendar is filling and you’re making a steady bit of income.
Hell, the parts of my asshole brain that are absolutely certain I can’t sell out Brave are just as strong as the parts that are determined to move seats and fill the workshop.
Check out the Brave workshop if your life feels two sizes too small and you know you’re living a safe/not-brave life!
We all have this little voice within us, particularly when we’re doing work we care about: nope, you can’t. Give up. No one wants this. It’s stupid. You’re going to go broke. You’ll end up loveless and penniless.
The horrible little voice of your asshole brain lies.
Case #1 photographer is booking the everloving shizbots out of her year and trying to figure out how to make space for more sessions during her busiest months.
Case #2 photographer is making a webpage for weddings and reporting back to me about it next week.
They’re both going to meet their goals and then some.
And you?
You can meet your goals and then some. But you’re going to have to get used to hearing that voice and then putting it in the corner. It’s not telling the truth. It wants to keep you small and scared. It’s just a troll trying to get you to stay hidden.
We all have that nasty ‘no one wants it’ voice, but not a single one of us has to listen to it.
P.S. This is part 2 of the 4-part Crash Course in Sales! Read part 1 here, or continue to part 3.
Photo // my own, from those 10 minutes I owned a legit Polaroid camera
