If you’ve been hiding your true self, it’s going to take some courage to put yourself out there. 
It’s going to feel big time scary. Your lizard brain isn’t going to like it. It will do everything it can to stop you. And if it can’t stop you, it will slow you down.
Whenever I share my writing with someone, I feel vulnerable and naked, like they can see everything about me. The silly truth is that most people are too wrapped up in their own stuff to even notice your stuff. I learned early on, while doing a focus group for my first novel, that each reader projects their own point of view onto your art. Their opinion says a lot about them, and only a little about you.
So this isn’t about other people; it’s about you. Are you willing to be seen?
Just reading those words probably makes your inner lizard squirm with fear.
You’re going to need to cultivate courage.
You won’t stop feeling the fear, but courage gives you the ability to move through it.
You have to grow courage. There isn’t a pill that a doctor can prescribe for it.
Start small. Try something new. Do something different. Get out of your rut. Stop living in the trenches. Practice spreading your wings a bit. The more you do it, the better you get at it.
When the thing you want to do, the person you want to be, becomes more important than the fear of doing it, you’ve got courage.
In December 2010, in the midst of the worst economic slump since the Depression, I volunteered to leave my twenty-five year corporate career. I didn’t know what I would do next, I just knew I couldn’t keep doing that.
Courage is deciding to show up for yourself.
Courage is deciding to be who you really are, because you can’t pretend to be someone else for one moment longer.
Courage is knowing you’ll make mistakes, but you venture forth anyway and forgive yourself for not being perfect.
Courage is acknowledging you don’t know exactly what you’re doing, but you’re willing to have a beginner’s mind and learn.
Courage is deciding to do whatever scares you creatively.
Courage is knowing that everyone won’t like your art, but you do it anyway.
You will be different on the other side.