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How to overcome your fear of Reels
Do you ever get all in your head about posting and experience a little spark of fear? It ignites then it starts catching. Pretty soon, you are frozen and can’t do anything!
You can’t post, so you go back in your hole and decide “I’m not going to post today,” or “It’s not meant to be,” or “I’m too busy. I’ve got other things going on. Nobody cares.” If that sounds like you, today’s episode is for you because it’s all about fear of posting.
Let’s talk Instagram anxiety: I looked it up on Google, and it’s a real thing. Instagram anxiety, fear of posting social media, anxiety of putting yourself out there. Are you ready? Because I’ve got some answers for you. Listen in.
*This episode contains links to my products. Should you choose to purchase, the show will go on! Woo hoo!
Click below for show notes!
https://authenticonlinemarketing.com/fear-of-reels/
Click below to visit my guest episode on Melanie Redd’s podcast, Women Living Courageously!
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-to-start-over-again/id1600978021?i=1000553415872
Click below to take the Reels Personality Quiz!
https://quiz.tryinteract.com/#/611fc03c688e1f0017ed5f53
Click below to take our Reels Crash Course!
christianbloggerscreentimeboundaries.teachable.com/p/reels-training
Click to visit Indigo Sound’s website!
https://www.indigosound.studio/
My former fear of Reels
Now, before we start, I want you to know that I totally relate to your fear of Reels! I know what it’s like to be there and wonder, does anyone care? Are people going to laugh at me? Do I look old? Do I look like, I don’t know what I’m doing. Do I just look silly or foolish? Who am I to sound like an authority on Instagram.
Oh, the excuses.
I hear you, however we know what works on Instagram. Number one, consistency and posting anything! But also number one for 2022 is Reels. Reels are powerful. We’ve been saying this all year. It’s a proven fact.
Overcoming fear of Reels to succeed in 2022
You could post three Reels a week, and even if they dove and you only got a few views, they would most likely be useful. I’m not saying there is not space for posts too. Carousels, I still do those.
What I’m saying is you can get things done faster and reach your audience faster with Reels. So back up a minute and let’s talk about stories first, because stories are your gateway to Reels. And I’m going to talk about more of that in our next episode, how to repurpose stories to Reels, but stories is one form of video.
That’s very powerful and helps you connect with people in the DM, because that’s where the conversation starts. That is the intersection of your life. And your followers’ interests because of how they connect with you and resonate with you have a lot to do with how much you share of your life in stories and the behind the scenes of your work, your message, and just things about you.
Using stories to overcome fear of Reels
You’ve got to have some guts and be willing to show yourself in stories. Test out stories with 15 second frames. Just talk to the camera in 15 second frames. If you don’t like that 15 seconds, redo it! No one will know. Because you didn’t post it.
So stories are the ground level behind the scenes where you can talk to people, but also where you test what people might need to hear from you on the larger levels, like live video, regular video or Reels. This is such a hack for getting over your fear of Reels!
Again, Reels are the hot tip. They have their own algorithm. We’ll talk more about that and how to test stories and repurpose them for video and for Reels in the next episode, but back to fear for a minute. Last week I created a Reel that was repurposed from stories.
Talk to your audience
Every once in a while, I’ll do a poll and talk to my audience in stories and feel the pulse where they’re at, what are their pain points in the arena that I teach. Content marketing on Instagram and in newsletters. If I see that people are responding, then sometimes I will take that content and repurpose it into other bites of content on other levels on Instagram, for instance, live video, Reels or carousels.
My story was about what’s holding you back from Reels. The answers that I got were three things, hair, makeup, and fear. And so I spoke to that right away in my stories, right in the moment while I was still working in my office and I got back on stories and I said, I’m hearing three things. Fear, hair and makeup.
Then I went on a rant, I channeled my dad. My dad was a preacher and, uh, I just went to town on that, but I did make it brief as I could. By the end, people were thanking me for saying what I said. I said, pull up your big girl panties and show up on IG.
Test, test, test!
I’m going to talk more about how I used this for a Reel in the next episode, but it touched the pain point of my audience. I got so many comments where I had hit a pain point in my story.
Just test things in stories. If you’re afraid to put out videos or post or anything, stories are the low pressure.
Now the other side of the coin for fear is I’m going to get a little bit transparent here talking about my age, the over 50 crowd leaning towards 60, but my people are largely older. I won’t say all of them, because there are a lot of young whippersnappers out there who love to listen to the podcast and come to me for advice, coaching and training and join my mentorship.
But there’s a large chunk of people who are my age, trying to figure out Instagram and they need it explained concisely in a simple manner. That’s what I do in my trainings. A lot of them come to me for coaching though for their own strategies, because I realized what it’s like to be from a generation that wasn’t raised on an iPhone.
Life is short, take the Reel!
The other thing that people are scared of is that our kids will laugh at us. I hear that a lot. It’s a very touchy spot for us as moms. We don’t want our kids to laugh at us. I know that you don’t want your kids to make fun of you, but I want you to think about something.
Let’s think about how old we are and how much time we have. If you’re in your fifties, you’ve likely lived over half of your life. So it’s time to throw away fear. It’s time to put that behind what people think of us now. It’s time to not really care what everybody thinks.
It’s time to get focused. If you have been called to your message on Instagram, whether it’s a product, whether it’s your podcast, it’s a book, or whatever it is that your message is, speak up!
The best way to do that is by showing up consistently.
God didn’t give us a spirit of fear. Think about Joshua when he had to take over for Moses, how many times the gods say be strong, be courageous. Don’t be afraid. I’m sure it was a scary time but he stepped out anyway. And one more thing.
Remember when God asked Moses to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt and he said, oh no, no, no, no, not me. Are you sure? No. Maybe somebody else. Then God was like, yeah, yep. You’re the guy. And Moses said finally, you know, I can’t speak.
Honestly, I am not the most eloquent person either, but you never know what the power of God can do when you’re willing to speak.
“You never know what the power of God can do when you’re willing to speak.”
By the way there’s such a thing as podcast editors, shout out to my son, Indigo Sound, the boy knows his stuff. He knows how to take all the Ums and Ahs out, or at least most of them. So if God is calling you to a podcast, you might want to consider that you can edit stuff out.
God was already walking with Moses. The people hid because they couldn’t look at Moses face after he met with God, because it was too bright. His face was too bright because he’d been with God. He had the privilege of walking with God intimately.
What happens when you say yes?
What if he hadn’t hit the rock instead of just speaking, like God said, Moses was angry. Remember that story? He was angry with the children of Israel and God said, speak to the rock. Moses went ahead and hit it. And God said that he disrespected him. Now that’s just speculation, but I’m going to turn this around on myself.
I just wonder years ago if I had said yes like five years sooner, God asked me to go public with my blog. I know he asked me that because I was meeting with him daily and I knew that impression on my heart, my writing was supposed to get out there for someone for some reason. I thought, oh, I don’t really want to go public because here’s the thing.
Some of us are afraid of success because we don’t want people to know about us. We’re afraid of succeeding. We don’t want people to think. Who does she think she is? She’s not perfect. That was my thought. Exactly. I knew I was imperfect.
Say yes instead of silence
God kept after me. It was about five years before I finally went public with the blog. But after that, God just kept stretching and stretching me, enlarging my territory.
I’m sitting here today thinking, I wonder how many more women I could have helped get their message out on Instagram had I only said yes sooner, but there is grace and God knows! And he still loves, he still provides and cares and he still leads us right where we are. So say yes to posting regularly, say yes to showing up on Instagram, say yes to Reels and video and stories.
You’re not helping yourself by staying silent. In fact, it’s hurting far more than helping. You can really grow and stretch your faith. And it becomes really exciting. My good friend, Melanie Redd, pushed me to start teaching Instagram way, way back there.
Give yourself grace
I was recently on her podcast called women living courageously. We’ll link that in the show notes too, because it’s a very transparent. We looked back into my journey and how I created my business and how scared I was to begin with and how she encouraged me to start. And she’s encouraged me all along the way, and I’ve encouraged her.
In fact, I’ve been telling her for years to start a podcast and look, she started a podcast. So I will link that.
But one thing I said in the show was, I never know in my business decisions for sure what’s going to take off and what’s going to dive. Sometimes I might take a risk and it dives or sometimes I’ll try something and it just doesn’t fly. I beta tested my mentorship three times before I figured out the secret sauce.
Now it’s growing, thriving and flourishing and I’m helping more women strategize and move the needle forward in their business. But in their business, giving them business advice for what to do next. And they are collaborating with each other and they’re helping each other grow their platforms.
The quote that I said in that podcast was,
“I don’t always know what’s going to work, but every day I meet with God. Asking him for wisdom and guidance and it’s both terrifying and exciting.”
It’s so true. That’s what’s called walking by faith. So my dear friend, get some guts! It’s time to post regularly and it’s time to get on video.
I have a resource for you. It’s called my Reels personality quiz, and it will help you figure out whether you’re an encourager, entertainer or educator. And that will give you ideas specifically tailored to your personality for what to do with Reels.
Plus you’ll get 40 free Reels Ideas. If you’re really, really ambitious, you may want to check out our Reels Crash Course, we’ll link that in the show notes too. Thanks for listening to the show today y’all it’s been a pleasure walking through this with you and just remember. To share your voice your way on Instagram, and I’ll see you next week.