I’m always fascinated by people who have a love/hate relationship with attention. Maybe because I do, too. Turn a video camera on me when I haven’t spent hours primping and preparing, and I choke. Like I’ve got a 6-oz ribeye lodged in my throat.
Take my friend, who shall remain nameless because, really, who wants to be observed this closely, then written about in a public forum?
We were seated together at a conference, and I could practically feel the sparks coming off her, so consumed was she by the desire to be plucked from the crowd and brought onstage for an exercise. Leaning forward, she gripped the chair-back in front of her, laughed uproariously one minute, cried out loud the next, then, bouncing up and down, all but yelled, “Choose me, see me, make me a star.”
I’m pathologically detached so this display of raw desire mesmerized me. Much the way the chance to be seen did her.
When she was chosen, she nearly killed herself stepping over people, tripping over bags, missing a step or three on the way to the stage. She looked as spastic as a gameshow contestant who’s about to have a shot at winning a brand-new car, or a living room full of Rococo furniture. (Granted, she’s an enthusiastic person, which is part of her charm.)
When she got beneath the limelight, however, she froze. In front of allllll those people, she couldn’t talk, she couldn’t smile, she couldn’t even blink. Someone had to walk her off stage before she stroked out or had a heart attack.
The attention she had craved, well, the reality of it turned out to be way too much for her nervous system.
I’ve seen this happen with some of my clients. They spend months, if not years, pouring their soul into the pages of their book. They work through any number of drafts ironing out each and every imperfection. They dot their I’s, then re-cross their T’s. They wring their hands, laughing one minute, sobbing the next, as they endure the copyediting and proofreading processes. Just to make sure they aren’t making total fools of themselves; they go so far as to drag in a bunch of rando Beta-readers… because who can trust a few measly professional opinions with so much at stake?
After all that, when it comes time to hit the publish button, they seize up.
No amount of cajoling will convince them to release their book out into the world.
They. Just. Can’t. Do. It.
That’s the thing about our push-me-pull-me relationship with recognition and visibility. We want it, we’ll work hard for it, we’ll even pay for it, but when we get it, we may not be ready for it. Or at least, that’s what we fear.
Because along with the spotlight comes something we don’t like nearly as much: scrutiny. We’re just not sure how we’ll hold up under the glare. What a little chipping away at the surface might reveal.
Procrastination—not getting started or not finishing when you’re THIS CLOSE—is about that fear.
What do you do about that fear?
It helps to pinpoint that thing you’re most afraid of others discovering about you.
Thigh-deep in a manuscript, I can spot a person’s Achilles heel. I can see that something-something they feel compelled to mention, then justify somehow. The very thing they worry will be revealed, then deviously used to discredit them.
Thigh-deep? Shit, I barely have to dip my toe in the water before I come across it.
I can see the lack of some certification or degree they feel they should possess in order to compete. The job they lost or program they got kicked out of that haunts them to this day. The broken marriage(s), wayward kids, disgruntled former employee or client that will one day spring up and talk smack, ruining their reputation.
99% of the time, this misplaced crap, this bugaboo, seems distinctly uninteresting to me, so blasé, so not worth mentioning. I end up taking an editing knife to it because it only gets in the way of the real story. It screws up the flow.
That thing you’re afraid of…that’s the stuff that usually winds up on the cutting room floor.
Think about that the next time you find yourself procrastinating. Wanting something and being afraid of it at the same time. Because of that thing no one really cares about anymore.