How to Overcome the Fear of Creating Online

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Now, onto today’s essay…

I was scared shitless to start creating online.

In real life, I’m more of an introvert and a private person, so the idea of expressing myself publicly on the internet terrified me.

I was worried about what my friends, family, and strangers on the internet would think of:

• Me

• My ideas

• My seemingly silly decision to pursue content creation as a career

This fear was so paralyzing that it took me 7 months from the time I decided I wanted to pursue content creation to when I finally started publishing every day.

But now, after:

• 7+ months of daily writing

• 33,000+ Twitter followers

• 25M+ Twitter impressions

…I can’t help but smile at my old self.

Yes, some of my fears about creating online came true. But once they happened, I realized I had vastly overestimated how much it would affect me.

Today, I’d like to share some thoughts and tactics that have served me well when it comes to the…well, social side of social media.

I’ll walk you through some of the fears I had (which are unsurprisingly the fears I hear most from other creators and wannabe creators) and give my opinions on how to deal with them.

Breaking Through to the Other Side of Fear

Creating online is like cliff jumping into the ocean:

You watch in awe as other people do flips, 360 degree spins, and have a blast jumping in. You want to join in on the fun. You step up to the ledge. You peer down at the deep blue waves and audience of cliff jumpers treading water and watching you from below. You now have two choices:

1. Send it!

2. Overthink everything that could go wrong, psych yourself out, and perform the walk of shame away from the edge to spectate enviously from the sidelines.

The unfortunate reality is that the longer you wait, the harder it gets to start.

So do yourself a favor and take the leap. That cliff ledge is the edge of greatness. It’ll be the greatest decision you ever make for your career.

Of course, this is much easier said than done. I know because I sat on those painful sidelines for over 7 months.

Here’s how to finally get over the hump and deal with your fears:

Create a separate account. I have an old personal Twitter account that all my high school friends and family follow. The thought of them watching me tweet like a self-improvement content creator there made me cringe way too hard to consider that a possibility. The only logical solution? I started up a fresh account and started tweeting from there instead.

Write under a pseudonym. After creating a new account, I still had the (incredibly irrational) fear that someone might search my real name, see my new account, and read what I was posting online. Ridiculous, I know.

So, I took an even further precautionary step and came up with a fake name: “Matt Milos.” The inspiration? I saw someone post an Instagram picture from the Greek island of Milos and ran with it.

Writing under a pseudonym is great because it allows you to be unapologetically you. When you don’t have to worry about your friends, family, or boss discovering your writing, you gain the confidence to share your most vulnerable stories, controversial takes, and deepest thoughts — the best ingredients for building a strong personal brand.

Important note: I don’t recommend keeping the pseudonym forever. I ditched it for my real name a few months in. Life is better when you’re not hiding anything.

Don’t show your friends and family. When you first begin writing online, you won’t have a clue about what you’re doing. Nobody does (in fact, nobody in general has any clue what they’re doing, but that’s a story for another piece).

The good news? Nobody has to know about your writing experiment.

If you’re too scared for anyone in your real-world network to see, simply don’t tell them about it. It’ll give you the freedom to share your truest thoughts, because you won’t have any social pressure to conform to a certain identity. 

Eventually, as more followers, compliments, and income pile in, you’ll gain enough confidence to tell anyone what you do and not care about what they think.

Hint: Everyone’s too concerned with their own lives to give a shit about what you’re doing online.

Then, of course, there’s the fear that plagues everyone starting off: Haters. The size of the internet pretty much guarantees that your content will make its way to the timelines of some pretty miserable people.

The result? They’ll project their misery onto you by dropping a nasty comment. And that one comment will outweigh the dozens of compliments you get on the same piece.

It’s human psychology — losses hurt more than wins feel good. This trait helped our ancestors survive in the savanna. Unfortunately, it doesn’t help us when scrolling on Twitter.

I still remember my first hater. In the moment, it stung. But now, I pity him. To quote Steven Pressfield again: “Individuals who are realized in their own lives almost never criticize others. If they speak at all, it is to offer encouragement.”

After your first couple encounters with internet hate, you’ll stop minding. In fact, you’ll come to realize internet hate is good for business:

Now, there’s one fear that’s unique on this list:

The notorious imposter syndrome.

It’s unique in the sense that it never really goes away.

“Who am I to write things on the internet?”

“Who am I to share opinions?”

“Who am I to give advice?”

These are questions that plague me on an almost daily basis.

The good news? You’re not alone. I’ve talked to creators with massive audiences making six figures per month who were vulnerable enough to share that they struggle with it, too.

Even better news? Struggling with imposter syndrome means you’re a sane human being.

You just have to remind yourself that you’re a unique human being with a unique genetic code with a unique skillset with a unique upbringing with a unique social environment with unique experiences with unique interests. So yes, you do have something valuable and different to contribute to the world.

The reality is, you don’t fully get over it. And that’s the truth with all of these fears — you just kinda get used to them.

Creating online is like a sports game. You might have pre-game jitters, but once the game is live, you’re not nervous anymore. You’re just playing. You get locked in flow state. You’re more focused on the next play than what the people in the stands might think.

So enter the digital arena and start playing.

The upside is far too high to let your fears hold you back.

Matt’s Discoveries

My 3 favorite finds this week:

Morgan Housel, author of The Psychology of Money, wrote an incredible blog post full of pithy wisdom: Some Things I Think.

Kevin Kelly shared a profound insight on developing a “strong rest ethic” on the Tim Ferriss Show.

I dug up this 2-year-old Twitter thread full of creator gold from Naval Ravikant, Sahil Lavingia, and Ben Thompson.

Thanks for reading.

Go have yourself a creative week.

Matt Mic

P.S. For those of you who want to take this full-time creator thing seriously…

Beehiiv is my newsletter platform of choice. It’s an all-in-one newsletter suite that has by far the greatest tools, analytics, and team in the email game. Highly recommend.

If you want help with content creation, online business, social media, or anything else, book a 1:1 call with me.

I use Tweet Hunter to schedule all of my tweets and threads in advance. I love this tool. It’s the main hub of my Twitter workflow.

I’ll see you next Monday. In the meantime, catch me over on Twitter.