Dancing With Fear: That Moment When Motivation Overcomes Paralysis
This post was originally published in our launch journal on December 3, 2017
A big thing happened this week. I inadvertently posted a selfie of a working prototype on my social media.
A little background - I'm part of a special group for new designers - it's a hands on educational program lead by Jane Hamill of Fashion Brain Academy that includes monthly forums that offer community and mentoring. During one of our live Q&A sessions yesterday, a mentor needed clarification of my design. Unable to figure out how to post a photo on the live feed and desperately needing Boaz's expertise, it occurred to me to change my profile photo on Facebook so he could possibly see my design during the live broadcast.
As soon as I hit the okay button I realized I'd just broadcast a selfie of my design prototype to my Facebook world. In the next few seconds, incredibly, people noticed and I started getting Likes. I wanted to hide and peek through my fingers like the little girl in the image above.
In the next few seconds I evaluated my choices: Change it back to the old profile photo and pretend it never happened. Do nothing - ignore the fact that everyone could see my design, still pretend it never happened and then go hide. Or, I could pretend I meant to do it.
The Like notification toasts continued to pop up with that pinball machine sound. Feeling as if a timer was ticking down to reveal an audience of quizzical stares, I quickly decided to write something, thinking that no one would notice anyway. Here's what I said:
And then I started to get comments in addition to Likes.
"I need it now- I am in the Grand Caymans!"
"it's really stylish - never seen anything like this out there"
and, "I thought you were taking an artsy shot of your chin 😜"
I'm learning that at some point fear becomes a motivator. Bolstered by the comments and partly because Jane Said So, I decided to finish v2.0 of my website. Oh yeah I have a website, it's my best kept secret. This is the next baby step up from my landing page website. This new version includes those design prototype selfies and a clearer vision of what I intend to do with my startup, H E L I A D E S. I decided to dance with the fear and hit the publish button tonight.
And I had to tell you about it or live with the fear of never knowing what could be.
I guess that makes two big things for this week.
Peace + Love + Style,
Sharone
P.S. We go into production soon!
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