Ian Brodie[Thread] The Creator's Curse - and (a) solution:
The smarter, more knowledgeable and experienced you are, the higher your standards tend to be.
You've seen some exceptional work in your time. Maybe even done some.
So when it's time to release your latest email or linkedin post or youtube video out into the world, you have a lot of amazing examples to compare it with. And because you're so close to it, it often feels like it's not up to scratch.
The reality is that it's almost impossible to know what's going to have the biggest impact or resonate the most with clients. I've had emails I thought were the most insightful I'd done fall flat. And little stories I thought were a bit meh get a huge response.
So you just have to get your stuff out there. Despite your reluctance to "press send".
The solution I've found that works the best for me is to realise:
---> 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲'𝘀 𝗮𝗹𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗲𝗺𝗮𝗶𝗹 (𝗼𝗿 𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗼𝗿 𝘃𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗼) <---
𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬𝘴 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘵. Day by day, week by week, little by little it weaves its magic to build credibility and trust so that you become the person your clients most want to work with.
Each individual piece doesn't have to be stunning. Nice if it is, but rare. And you don't need it.
Just like you don't need your investments to double overnight to do well, just to keep compounding day by day.
Eventually, after enough experience, you learn to relax a bit and realise that you just can't predict what's going to click (and it doesn't matter so much if it doesn't).
But in the meantime, reminding yourself "there's always another email" always helps me.