Feeling Stuck? The REAL Reason You Haven't Started Making YouTube Videos

I just wanted to have a real candid conversation and talk with you about the real reason why you're not making YouTube videos to promote your business.

So, grab yourself a cup of coffee and let's go. 

Let's say that you want to be on YouTube to promote your business. You're going to make educational informational videos to help your target audience with the goal of growing your brand, growing your audience, increasing awareness of you and the product or service that you offer, ultimately, driving traffic back to your website so that people can do business with you. That's the goal. 

And let's say that you're also middle-aged or older. You are like me. You're in your 50s and you're thinking like, oh, I'm not sure. I want to be on video. I don't want to put myself out there and open myself up to criticism.

Now I'm here to tell you that it will work.

I've been on YouTube now for about 7 years and it is hands-down, the best thing that I've ever done to grow my business. I get so much reach. I get so much brand awareness. I reach people who have never heard of me before. I reach people who are not already following me on Instagram or TikTok or Facebook or wherever they don't know who I am to begin with. They found me because of YouTube and then they start to follow me. 

They come into my world. They join my groups. They buy my programs. They come hear me speak. They read my books. YouTube is hands-down the best platform for growing my business in my opinion, which is why I've been doing it now for seven years. So you know that it will work. 

You know in your head that it will work, but every day you say, okay, today is the day I'm going to make a video and then you find a reason not to do it. 

Well, I got too busy, I ran into some technical challenges, I was having a hard time with my software, I don't have the right microphone. You come up with a reason why you can't do it and so now it's tomorrow and the same thing happens, and you just keep putting it off and putting it off and putting it off. Next thing you know, a month has gone by, and you still haven't made a video. 

So I want you to ask yourself: why am I putting this off? What do I think I will feel if I do it?

I coach people on this all the time so there are a lot of different things that I've heard. Some of them are: I am afraid that I don't know what I'm doing when it comes to the software and the hardware. I don't understand technology. I am afraid that I will do it and I will do it wrong and then I will be embarrassed in front of the whole world. Some people say, I am afraid that people will insult me, leave mean comments, tell me that I'm stupid, I'm dumb, I'm ugly, I'm fat, I'm too old. Whatever they think, people will say. 

Sometimes it's a fear of the technology and not knowing what you're doing. Sometimes it's a fear of how you will be received by the public, but it usually comes down to some sort of fear. It's fear of something, being rejected or embarrassed.

So let's say that your problem is that you are afraid of being embarrassed. 

You are afraid that they will tell you all of the reasons why you suck, and you will then feel embarrassed and you will feel shame and you will delete your entire YouTube video and probably the channel as well. That's what you're afraid is going to happen. Have you ever felt this way? Am I striking a nerve? 

But here's the deal. Everyone who ever made videos for YouTube has probably had some sort of fear. The difference between them and you is that they are willing to feel the discomfort and do it anyway. 

They are willing to feel fear, rejection, uncomfortable, stupid, embarrassment. They are willing to feel these feelings and yet do it anyway, whereas you are not yet willing to feel the discomfort and that's all it is. That is the only reason why you are not making videos for YouTube when you know that it will grow your brand, it will grow your channel, it will bring your business over time. 

So I want you to grab something to write with. Write down all the things that you think will happen when you make a YouTube video. Write down what you think is going to happen. What do you think is going to happen when you post a YouTube video? How do you think you're going to feel? 

You know what the feelings that you're afraid of. Now you get to coach yourself a little bit and say, okay, what if that happens. So what? What if someone says you're too old to be on YouTube? They don't usually just say you're too old. They'll say something like, “okay, Boomer”. 

What are you making it mean when they make that comment? You can make it mean, “Oh my gosh, they're right, I am too old!”, “God, I suck. I can't believe I ever thought that I could compete with the young kids. I can't believe I ever thought this was a good idea. I'm going to go dig a hole and crawl inside and bring a nice big bottle of wine with me and drown my sorrows.”

You could think that and if you think that, then it's going to continue to prevent you from moving forward and making videos or you could decide to think any engagement is good engagement. 

When I get comments like that, it's because YouTube is promoting my videos to a brand-new audience. I am getting seen by people who don't know who I am. I am getting so much more reach with these videos than I ever thought possible. This is a good thing. This means new people are finding my content, and no, not everybody's going to love it. 

I would say from my personal experience, 50% of the people who watch your videos are going to absolutely love them, while 40% of the people are not going to have an opinion one way or the other. They watched it and they're like, okay, I watched it. And then 10% of the people are going to hate your video. I'm not going out of my way to attract the 10%. I am not actively trying to seek those people out to come to my channel and watch my videos and listen to what I have to say. So I'm not going to worry about the 10%. 

If they stumble across the videos and they find them, they're probably not going to leave a comment. And if they do feel compelled to leave a comment, God bless you, you added to the engagement on my channel. Thank you very much because every comment is good comment in my book.

Now the cool thing about your thoughts is that you get to decide what to think on purpose. 

Your brain says oh my gosh, we're in danger.  Somebody called you old, better not ever do this again. And you get to say, hold on brain, that's not true, is it? I think that any engagement is good engagement. 

And the fact that YouTube is showing my videos to more people is amazing. Thank you for all the free publicity, YouTube. This is amazing! Thank you so much. So this one person didn't like it, but there were probably 90 others who did and I know that everybody in the world doesn't have to like me and they're not going to. As long as I reach my ideal customer avatar, then I'm doing the right thing and it's worth moving forward. 

Let's use another example of, “I'm afraid that I don't know what I'm doing with the technology.” 

Maybe you don't, so make it easy on yourself. Use your cell phone. Put your cell phone on a tripod, hit record, talk at the camera, and when you're done, hit stop. I would recommend that you take out the mistakes, but if you just don't even know how to do the bare minimum of editing, then don't just upload it the way that it is. 

And now what happens? Nobody watches your video. You get zero views. You send it to your mom. You send it to your best friend. You send it to your husband. Now you're up to three views and that's it. That's all that you get. What are you going to think about that? Oh my gosh! This was the worst thing I ever did! Worst decision ever! I can't believe I ever thought that this was going to be a good idea! This is going to take so long to ever get any views on these videos that I'll be 80 by the time I see any success with this! 

Yes. Yes. You can choose to think that, or you can choose to think, this is the first video that I ever made. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. Now I kind of feel like I have a little bit of experience, so when I make the next video, I at least know how to hit record and it's going to be a little bit easier the next time around because I've done it. And after I do it five times and 10 times and 20 times, I'm going to be so much more comfortable in front of the camera. I'm going to be so much more comfortable winging it, speaking to the camera off the cuff without having to read from a teleprompter. It's going to be so much easier after I've done this a bunch of times and by then, maybe I will have found some editing software and I will teach myself the bare minimum things that I need to know. 

I'll learn how to remove the mistakes. I'll learn how to trim the front and trim the end so you don't see me lean forward and press the record button. But if you aren't willing to feel the discomfort, then you're not going to ever get past that hump. 

So let's talk about the worst part of feeling the discomfort. It is a sensation in your body. That is it. It's the same as feeling joy. Let's say that your daughter just had her first baby, and you're holding that precious new baby in your arm. And you were so overcome with emotion. Your cheeks are tingling. The hair on your arms are standing up. You're holding this baby. Your heart is pounding. You just feel this overwhelming sense of, “this perfect little angel, oh my gosh, I love her so much!” You're feeling this sensation in your body, but now, you post a YouTube video and somebody says, “This was the stupidest thing I've ever heard a human being say!” How does that make you feel? You feel mortified! So your face feels flushed. Your heart starts racing. There's a ball in the pit of your stomach. You want to barf. You feel like you want to run away and hide and vomit and drink yourself into oblivion. That's just a sensation in your body. It sucks. It doesn't feel good but it's not going to hurt you. You feel it, and that's just a sensation in your body, just a physical sensation in your body. 

And so the reason why you're not making the videos is because you want to avoid that feeling you want to avoid having that emotion and feeling that sensation in your body and when you say it out loud, it sounds really kind of stupid, doesn't it? We are resisting it. We are running away from it, all because we're afraid of a feeling that we will have. 

What if we decide to feel that feeling on purpose? I feel mortified. How does that feel in my body? I just described to you how it feels for me and then you think, “okay, this is what mortification feels like. Okay, I'm still here. I'm still alive. My business did not go up in flames. My computer did not explode.  My house did not burn down. I did not die.” 

And when you realize that that is the only thing that's preventing you from doing this, that's the difference between you and the people who have a thriving YouTube channel. They are willing to feel the uncomfortable emotions that you are not yet willing to feel. That's it. That's the only difference. 

So now that you know that what are you going to do, are you going to continue to resist it and run away and hide and pretend like you're just too busy and pretend like you don't have the right camera gear and if you only had the perfect $25 microphone all of your problems would be solved, and if you only knew what software to use, that everything would change? 

I'm here to tell you that once you get that thing, you'll just come up with a new excuse because you have not yet embraced this idea that you have to feel uncomfortable and face feelings that you don't want to feel. In order to get over this fear of making videos, and once you realize there's nothing to fear, you're going to feel this feeling. Let's decide to feel it on purpose and do it anyway and start making these videos. The next thing you know, a year has gone by, your business has completely changed. you've grown your audience, you're getting clients and customers coming to you who found you from your YouTube channel. And you will realize, like “I can't believe I wasted so much time because I was afraid of a feeling.” 

I am telling you that YouTube was the best decision I ever made. I started it in my mid-40s and I only wish that I would have started earlier, so watch this video where I show you how YouTube totally changed my life as a middle-aged woman and how it changed my business.