So on Friday, I announced that I’m doing a thing – a live painting marathon and auction. Which on the one hand, I’m totally excited for. And on the other hand – oh my god. So nervous!
It’s just triggered all of my fears and all of my monsters.
Self promotion
It kinda makes me want to throw up. Even those words – the promotion of my self. Ick. Ew. Ugh.
And I feel so ridiculous for doing this. All of my personal monsters and demons are yelling. Loudly.
“No one wants your art! Stop bothering people! No one’s gonna come and sure as hell nobody’s gonna bid on that painting! Stop annoying people with your stupid self promotion!”
Yeah. Friendly, right?
It’s hard not to listen to them as well. I woke up this morning in a nervous sweat, going, “What on earth am I doing? No one’s gonna show up for this!”
The worst part is that sometimes the monsters are right. I mean, they have a point. Maybe no one will show up. Maybe no one will bid on the painting. It’s perfectly plausible.
Terrifying. But plausible.
How do I deal with it?
I ask myself what the worst possible outcome is. What is the absolute worst thing that could happen here? And can I live with it?
For this situation, the worst that could happen is no one watches, I talk to myself for 3 hours straight, no one bids on the painting and everyone is so annoyed and mad at me for even daring to think I could do something and assume other people might care, that all of my subscribers unsubscribe and all of my Twitter followers unfollow and my business disintegrates into the ground. (That last bit might be a tad extreme.)
Can I live with that? Can I live with no one watching? Can I live with no one buying the painting? I think so. I mean, it’s mortifying to be talking to just yourself for 3 hours. Painful even. But I can live with it. And while there’s always a part of you that’s sad and maybe a tiny bit ashamed if no one buys the painting, but at least I get to keep it and look at it myself every day. So not all bad.
And I don’t think every single subscriber I have would leave because I decided to hold a day long live painting show, auction off a painting and tell them about it. Even though the monsters yell that they probably would. And that I’m horribly selfish for taking up people’s time, for thinking that anyone even gives a shit about my art.
And you know what? Someone did unsubscribe when I sent out an email to my newsletter list telling them about it. Oof.
To be completely honest with myself though…
I suck at marketing myself. I mean, I’m not completely awful. But I get so tripped up by my own fears, that I lose that connection to myself. And I stumble over words and what to do because I’m just so embarrassed about promoting myself. I think in the end, I just make it worse.
I don’t really have any conclusions here. Just thinking out loud.
If you wanna join me on Wednesday, that’d be super nice. Make me feel a little bit better.
The link to all of the info is here.