How to Overcome Fears about Podcasting and Speaking — The Wave Podcasting
By: Lauren Popish
Tags: Podcasting, Podcasting Tips, Women Podcasters, Podcasting 101, Podcasters

Guest Post by Alexandra Cohl

You know that feeling when fear hits your body? When your stomach starts to tighten, your palms begin to feel clammy, and then even your thoughts clam up? Or, when tension starts to grab hold of your shoulders and your thoughts spin out of control, latching onto any bad thing that could happen?

As someone with generalized anxiety, fear is very present throughout my day-to-day life. Just writing about it incites those feelings in my body. In my previous article, “Feeling Afraid of Starting Your Podcast? Don’t Worry, You Aren’t Alone,” I talked about the “what ifs” and other worries I have had about starting a podcast.

In it, I also shared fears from some of my favorite women in the industry, specifically the ones they had prior to starting their podcast. Through speaking with them, I realized just how normal mine were, and since you’re reading this, I suspect that you are wondering how to quell those fears just like I had been.

Dope advice from fellow podcasters

Upon reaching out to these women, they were also generous enough to share tips on how they overcame this inevitable fear of trying something new. These range in their locations, experience, and expertise but all of them don’t let fear stop them from sharing their voice. Trust me, these quotes will definitely help:

What you need to take away from this

We aren’t going to ever fully rid ourselves of fear. That’s a given. But, we can harness it and recognize that it is normal and that one huge way to soften its voice is through putting in the work and trusting your own unique perspective.

Lately, I’ve been reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s book Big Magic, and in it she talks a lot about how creativity and fear are woven together and will always be present with each other. Therefore, fear doesn’t mean we should not do the thing. Instead, it just means we need to have an arsenal ready to combat and accept those fear thoughts when they come up.

So, here’s what I want you to do, and I promise I’ll do it, too. Don’t just read through these quotes and forget about them tomorrow or in a week or whatever. Read them. Save them somewhere that you will see them. Look to them when you are conceptualizing your own podcast, recording your first episode, or interviewing an exciting (and in that case probably intimidating) guest, and put them into practice each day.

I’m here to help

It is going to take work, just like Rita said, and part of that work is creating reminders for yourself. Even if your fear wasn’t named in this article, that doesn’t mean others do not have it. I can bet you that someone is having the same thought right now, so do what I did and start asking around on Twitter, Instagram, your friend circles, wherever you can. And, you can always DM me about it!

Whatever you do, start talking about it and realize that you are not alone. Forget all the shoulds of what you think your podcast should be and start putting what your voice is out there. And when you do, send it to me, ’cause I want to hear it.