How to Confidently Put Yourself Out There – Even When You Want to Give Up

As a business owner, putting yourself out there is part of the territory.

And when you put yourself out there as a business owner, a lot of feelings can come up. You might not feel good enough, or you might think “who am I to do this?”

When you talk about your services, put out a new blog or social media post, or any kind of marketing in general, you’re putting yourself out there.

You’re putting that line in the sand and saying, “I’m out there now,” when you launch your website or Instagram account.

When you start posting about the topics you’re an expert in, or the topics you’re passionate about, now you’re really out there.

And this is where your confidence or lack thereof will enable you or hold you back. You either have the confidence to keep going and being consistent or, something happens and you’re ready to give up.

Maybe you’re afraid to put yourself out there in the first place, so you avoid writing a new blog post or social media post.

Or maybe you did put yourself out there and something happened – you got negative feedback or comments, or no reaction, so it makes you hesitant to keep going.

You might think, “is anyone even reading this? Does anyone even care? Why am I even doing this?”

Spoiler alert: it’s important to be consistent with putting yourself out there. And it all comes back to managing your emotions.

Here’s how to confidently put yourself out there, even when you want to give up:

Managing Your Emotions

Being an entrepreneur requires a lot of emotional management. Your business is an extension of you in a lot of ways, especially in the beginning if you’re the only one working in it. You’re the one working with your clients. You’re the one doing all of the marketing, creating graphics, posting on social media. You’re the one in charge of answering emails, collecting payments, and all of those things are your responsibility.

When you’re doing those marketing activities (blogs, posts, ads), you’re putting a lot of yourself into it. When you put a lot of yourself into something, it’s easy to get disappointed when something doesn’t work out the way you wanted it to. Especially because a lot of these things take time and energy to create. A lot of thought and intention goes into creating content, especially if you’re very contentious about what you’re putting out there. You want to talk about what you believe in and put a message out there that’s a good reflection of you and your business.

It takes a lot to put yourself out there in that way. And in terms of your business, you rely on it to produce income. At this point, it’s not just a hobby you’re putting out there. If it was just a hobby, maybe it wouldn’t have as much weight or meaning behind it, but when it becomes a source of income, there can be a lot of pressure to meet your goals or hit revenue marks or have a certain number of clients to feel good about what you’re doing in your business. So it all comes back to how you manage your emotions through the inevitable ups and downs in your business and life.

Here are a few scenarios where your emotional state will be challenged:

Criticism from strangers: someone posts something negative on your IG post or someone writes a spammy comment on your blog. More on this later.

 Negative feedback on your work: This could be getting feedback on your work or having to give feedback to someone else – either way, it can be stressful. It can sting, you can take it personally. It can be just as difficult to give someone negative feedback because you don’t want to take on the emotional burden, or you don’t want to hurt someone else’s feelings.

 Rejection: This could be rejection from a potential client or partner. A common example is when you’re on a sales call with client, and you tell them about your program, how you can work together, what the price is. Maybe on the call, they say they don’t want to work with you. Or after the call, even though you thought it went really well, when you send them a follow-up email with all of the information, either they don’t write back or they do write back and say they don’t want to work with you. You put a lot of effort into that call, you’re showing up, you’re talking about your services, and that person doesn’t want it. So, in the moment, it can feel like “well if this person doesn’t want it, then no one will.” This is very common and it happens a lot – whether you’re just starting out or whether you’re launching something for the first time.

No one buys your services: When you put out a new offer and no one buys it, it can feel really deflating. You put a lot of time, a lot of energy, a lot of yourself into whatever you’ve created. And it’s crickets once you put it out there. This can be one of the most frustrating or embarrassing situations you encounter as a business owner. It’s challenging because you don’t know what went wrong or what you could do to improve. All you know is, you feel like you’ll never be good enough. 

Technology malfunction: I’ve heard stories where people launched an online course and they didn’t have their checkout page set up properly, so no one bought the course because they physically could not purchase it. That has not happened to me personally, but I’ve lost count of the myriad other technology malfunctions (mostly from user errors) I’ve experienced over the years. From sending an email before I meant to, to emails or web pages not saving… it can cause a lot of frustration and heartache. Especially when you’ve put so much time and energy into something, and it’s just gone. 

I have experienced all of these scenarios, many times over, and I will continue to experience these. So will you. No one is exempt from this. Here’s an example:

Recently, I got an email from someone on my email list, in response to an email I sent about not charging your worth. This was someone who is obviously not my ideal client nor someone I would want to work with (let alone have a conversation with), and someone whose values definitely did not align with mine as it relates to women and humanity in general. 

Between preparing to launch a new workshop, getting ready to go on vacation, not to mention, managing my life, health issues, family issues, things that I have to deal with on a daily basis, I was initially extremely upset getting that email. Luckily my husband was home when I got the email, because if I was alone, I probably would have just cried all day.

My husband reminded me, “that’s not your client,” which reflected back to me what I needed to remember in that moment. That person is not my client. That person will never buy anything from me, nor do I want to work with someone who could potentially be toxic or disruptive to my group programs.

It made me think about this topic because these are the things that come up every day. These are the things that will rattle you. These are the things that will trip you up. And of course, your ego/fear will try to get you to quit, “why don’t you just give up now, save yourself the heartache, don’t go through with this…” and then the spiral comes.

So as a reminder, all of these scenarios are common, they’re normal. Your reaction to them is normal. And you will likely experience most – if not all – of these over the course of your business journey. Even if you separate yourself from your business in all of these scenarios, each of these happens in life. You get criticism from your family for what you decide to wear to an event. You get negative feedback on something you did at work. You could get rejection from someone you want to date.

So many of these things can apply to your daily life and they hurt just as much. Your emotional state is challenged when you’re dealing with these scenarios in your life or career, and what makes it different for your business is that you still have to show up for your clients. You still have to show up. As coaches and consultants, we’re service providers. We’re working with clients, we’re providing a service, helping them with some problem or issue they have.

It’s extremely important, especially for coaches, that we are whole and manage what’s going on with our emotions in order to serve and show up in the way we want to in our power. I had to get myself together before my group coaching call because if I didn’t, I would be crying the whole time telling that story – because it happened earlier that day. I had to do the work and prioritize that because I knew I had to show up for my clients that day.

You cannot hold space for someone else if you cannot control what’s happening in your brain, heart, emotions, or even your physical body. Getting yourself together and managing yourself, taking on what’s impacting you and challenging you is critical to be able to hold that space for someone else. Because you never want to bring your problems or fear, or anxiety, into that client container, where the client is relying on you to help them work through something.  

And the client is paying you to help them. You will not be present to that if you’re still reeling from something you’re dealing with. One caveat here – if there’s something really profound happening in your life, then the best thing to do is to reschedule or cancel the session. It’s better for your wellbeing and your clients’ for you to take a step back, handle your life, then come back to them fresh and present.

How to manage your emotions to confidently put yourself out there:

It’s okay to feel what you feel

My initial reaction when I saw the email was hurt. I started crying. When I really checked in with why I was so upset – I felt a little ambushed having this email interrupt my day. It came down to shame, like maybe I shouldn’t be talking about these topics. Maybe everyone feels this way.

You might feel your emotions somewhere in your body before you ever recognize it for what it is. Maybe your heart feels like it’s breaking or you have butterflies in your stomach, or your neck is stiff. Then you check in with that until you figure out the emotion. Pay attention and know that whatever your initial reaction is, it’s totally normal.

These things are hard, they’re hurtful. It hurts when someone gives you a mean comment or negative feedback. It’s hurtful when no one buys the program you spent months creating. Or your client tells you no. No one likes to be rejected. Be okay with whatever that feeling is that’s coming up for you. Allow yourself time to feel that feeling in the moment and try to name whatever that emotion is for you.

Practice living outside your comfort zone

No one really likes to put themselves out there, it’s not always comfortable. It feels a little weird to put yourself out there at first. It’s important to do things that are outside your comfort zone so you build that resilience. Remember that confidence comes from taking action, so take actions that are outside of your comfort zone. And by doing that, you make your comfort zone a little bit bigger each time, and you’re more comfortable doing the scary things like launching a new offer or writing a new blog post or doing a podcast interview. Doing things outside your comfort zone will move you forward because you’re expanding your comfort zone, and you’re comfortable doing more.

Don’t take it personally

I know it’s easier said than done, and it’s more of a long-term strategy. Start distancing yourself from both compliments and criticism by cultivating an indifference to both. It sounds a little counter-intuitive because compliments make us feel good, and we want to know that what we’re doing is working, that people like what we’re putting out there. But that’s external validation, which is helpful in the moment, but what happens when the next comment is critical or negative?

By not relying on the attachment to compliments or criticism, you’re not relying on the external validation to boost your confidence. And by separating yourself, you become indifferent to whether you get a compliment or a criticism. Over time, get to the point where it doesn’t matter what kind of comments you get.

Stepping back will allow you to see that to be consistent, you have to keep putting out your blogs or social media posts. So if you write a blog post that gets a negative comment, you still have to write next week’s post to stay consistent. Because that’s what’s moving you forward. You might get an email that’s kind and positive, or you might get one that’s negative or hurtful. You will get both, and it’s important to separate yourself from that a little bit and create that boundary to protect your emotional state.

Ask for help

Seek out support when you need it. Whether that’s help processing an emotion with a therapist, or whether that’s getting feedback on your offerings or website copy to understand how you can improve.

In our Confident on Purpose Mastermind, we spend a lot of time helping our clients manage their emotions when things go wrong. That’s the level of deep support we provide, because we know how difficult and lonely it can be to experience these situations as an entrepreneur. 

We also provide direct feedback when things didn’t go as planned. So, if you put out an offer that no one purchased, we’ll help you diagnose what happened and suggest actionable steps to move you forward. In these cases, feedback is a gift, and it’s a support you can count on to feel better and keep putting yourself out there.

(And if you’re looking for that kind of support, learn more about the Mastermind here!)

The Takeaway

Entrepreneurship requires a lot of emotional management. You’ll encounter negative feedback, critical comments, and technology malfunctions that challenge your emotional state on a daily basis. As a coach, it’s important to manage your emotions so you can continue putting yourself out there and showing up for your clients.

Take action now: The next time you feel your emotional state being challenged by a critical comment or rejection by a potential client, choose one of these strategies to help you manage your emotional state. Allow yourself time to feel what you feel, then decide how you’ll turn the situation around so you can keep putting yourself out there.

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