Life Purpose Being Teaching, but Hesitant in going about it. Need Advice&Perspective

[ZenSwift]

You know I never really thought seriously about this being a serious topic for me until I realized that I could get a lot of valuable advice and perspective here. 

And possibly because at one time I was too embarrassed to speak about it, especially here.

 

So my life purpose is to teach people how to create Passion and Clarity in their lives.

Life Purpose statement being “I teach people how to understand themselves to create a peaceful mind and a passionate life.”

I'm basically a cheerleader to get people to do the self-actualization work that they need to be doing. Teaching them what they ought to be doing, and motivating them to do it.

 

I really enjoy teaching. The art of being able to formulate a message in a way that will motivate a person to want to hear it fills me up. Being able to give someone a message and for them to take it in. It may not even matter what the topic is, as long as I am personally interested in it.

 

Now of course the topic that I am most interested in is self-actualization.

 

This life purpose I would consider a rather unique situation to come across. Because at first I doubted myself quite a bit because I feared that I was just trying to copy Leo. Like I was literally just trying to be “Leo2.0”. It's taken me quite a bit of time to “niche down” to the point where I'm more confident in myself that I'm creating content that is authentic to me. That this is value that I can personally provide and am not just parroting all the stuff that I learn from Leo; a serious worry considering that I’ve been a serious student of Leo for a few years now. And right now I have probably tunnel visioned myself to a large degree into mostly  exclusively studying Leo’s content. Over time it'll be way better balanced by reading Leo’s book list and of course things completely outside of Leo’s recommendation and scope. And also of course generating insights of my own.

 

Honestly, this entire post might just be all what you would call “resistance” from the book: The War of Art by Steven Pressfield.

 

Here’s what I got going for me right now, I've got a book that I've been working on. I really hope to finish it this year.

I realize that in the direction that I want to take my path, I would also want to have a presence on social media, preferably YouTube, but I realize that with Tik-Tok being super trendy, would be an avenue to go down also, instagram too possibly. These would be great platforms for marketing exposure and I can create a lot of content sharing insights that can be valuable for people.

 

The area where I think I would really shine is in creating courses and seminars. Like this is where I intuit my greatest work can shine.

 

To be honest, I just haven't done enough "small bets" to really test where my passion is, and I kind of lost sight of that initial excitement of connecting with a vision that really excites me.

 

Now, here's where I'm feeling stuck.

 

Basically, I have fear of my messages being criticized and picked apart, where I can be humiliated. Putting myself on a public pedestal like that, makes me feel like I have to have my teachings be unattainably Rock Solid,  like a seriously high standard.  I want my teachings to be at the same standard that Leo is at. Which is ridiculous. Leo didn’t even start there. When you look at his first videos he put on YouTube, that's where I should be shooting for as first starting out.

 

From the beginning (of Leo’s channel) he was already such a good speaker. Now of course he didn't start there, and here's probably where I am confusing my incompetence with my laziness.

 

If I just legitimately practice making speeches and making videos, I will naturally get better. I KNOW this! I guess I have this impostor syndrome where I want my first videos to be super good, and with little effort. I know I'm kidding myself because I HAVE made self-improvement type videos before as a “small bet”, but they were really a topic I kind of knew and just wrote a few notes on the spot and then just recorded it several times until I got a shot I liked. But THEN, months later I kind of cringe at myself for it. Because I know I could be doing SO MUCH better, and rather than that inspiring me to push myself to a higher standard, I felt discouraged, and stopped trying to make another video altogether. 

 

If I was completely honest, I haven't applied a massive amount of effort to make a video that I'm extremely satisfied with, and that's where I feel like I'm going to solve this. I could put like a week of contemplation, insights, research and planning on 1 topic, ensuring I understand it at a great depth, and put tons of effort into practicing the speech for the video. Ensuring that I personally own the insight before I have the confidence to teach it.

 

I feel like I need to build confidence by making something so valuable that I alone love it so much that I'm inspired to make more content. I also thought about creating enough content where someone actually sees it and tells me how valuable it was for them for my personal validation, but I figured that's a bad strategy, when rather I should just fall in love with the process of creating something that I personally enjoy myself. And then, over time, I will gain enough skill and expertise to create something that I am satisfied with personally and other people are satisfied with as well. Thus avoiding that trap of needing external validation all together.

 

Yet, I hesitate.

 

I want to be extremely motivated, yet my actions tell a different story. And I'm all talk and no action.

 

(Writing about this just now has already increased some clarity for me.)

[KennedyCarter]

Hey I read your statement twice and thank you for sharing. 
 

1. Maybe not stress about which platform is trendy and more about where your content fits best or which platform you feel best creating on

2. I notice you compare yourself to Leo sometimes. Maybe he can be your muse for your journey, and not someone you compare with to see if your successful.

3. I agree with what you said, that the content you make should be loved by you first. Make something you’re personally proud of.

4. You said you wanted to teach clarity and passion for life. The best way to do that is to be a living example.

xo KennedyCarter

 

[7thLetter]

I literally just messaged you this but I'm going to post it here too.

 

It seems to me that you’ve already identified the obstacles that lead you to feeling stuck and what you need to do to get past the hesitation.

As simple as it sounds, all it takes is for us to create or do more, which builds confidence. That’s pretty much all we need to do, there’s no way around it.
Action leads to confidence, which leads to momentum, which leads to results.

That thread of mine that you referenced, was posted a couple days ago. I got some encouraging words from people there and I sort of don’t feel that way anymore. I’m just going to create and release my content no matter what.

In the beginning we don’t need our content to be perfect. This is just the perfectionist trap that we fall into, telling us that everything has to be perfect. If its only our first few videos, what’s the point of spending so much time trying to perfect something that will most likely only get 10 views? Lol

You’ve already mentioned that you know this in your thread, start small and your videos, your skills, insights, presentation, will improve over time as you consistently create & release content.

Its a bit more difficult if you’re literally just starting out or somewhat just starting out and haven’t done enough of those “small bets,”  but all it really takes is more action to get past all of this. Me personally, I’ve already been releasing random content over the years which helped me become a bit more comfortable with doing videos. And now I’ve finally decided to pick a specific niche to stick to.

This applies to anything and everything else in life, not only content creation. It applies to fitness, if there’s hesitation, you go to the gym, lift weights and do cardio. Hesitation around your first time driving? Well the solution is to go and drive a car. Getting dates as a man, hesitation? The solution is to talk to more women. The first girl you talk to, you don’t have to perfect all your pickup lines and everything. Allow some space for failure and improvement, because the first time usually isn’t perfect anyway. Overthinking it will lead to more hesitation and a higher chance of messing it up.

I could go on and on with these examples but you get the point.

[Nobody_Here]

@ZenSwift Your life purpose is: 

 “I teach people how to understand themselves to create a peaceful mind and a passionate life.”

How would you apply your life purpose to this situation, and yourself?

 

[ZenSwift]

@Nobody_Here

@7thLetter

@KennedyCarter

 

Thankyou for the replies guys. ❤️

[7thLetter]

@ZenSwift How's the book or the videos going now bud?

I should just check up on your progress randomly to catch you off your guard 

Edited August 26, 2021 by 7thLetter