Eating burgers standing up and disappearing from view
Do you hate how you look on camera? Let me share something with you...
Last weekend, I went to the Trafford Centre in Manchester. I was taking my daughter to spend all her Christmas money, and we had a plan. First, the stationary shops as we both adore notebooks and shiny new pens, then the toy shops, then a nice lunch, then maybe some clothes and then back to the toy shops.
It was going to be a lovely mother and daughter day where we’d bond over shopping and commercialism and leave exhausted and happy with many full bags.
Here’s what actually happened.
I got lost on the way there and added an extra 20 minutes to our journey. Then I couldn’t get parked. All the car parks were full, so we ended up in a spot miles away from the shops. Everywhere was busy. So busy. And I know it was a Saturday afternoon, but with the cost of living crisis I was expecting it to be manageable, but it was chaos! Mile long queues at all shops.
We couldn’t get in at any of the restaurants, so ended up in the fast food part eating burgers standing up.
After three hours, I called defeat and we left.
I got in the car, certain that it had been a disaster, but my daughter was beaming. Grinning from ear to ear.
‘That was the best day ever!’ she said, ‘I loved it. When are we doing it again?’
I drove away thinking how my perspective of the day was totally different to hers.
I was focusing on everything negative, whereas all my daughter saw was a fun day shopping. All the bad stuff was just a part of it that she didn’t really notice.
And the same thing happened when my husband and I were watching a YouTube video the other day.
My husband is after buying a gimmicky thing which he is sure will change our lives. I won’t bore you with all the details, but it’s a hot discussion in our household at the moment and he showed me this video as a way to persuade me how fabulous this thing would be. And as we watched, the YouTuber made mistake after mistake.
To be fair, it was all done in one long take, at the same angle, so he’d obviously done the whole thing himself which I wholeheartedly applaud. But he messed up his lines, got the giggles, at one point he dropped the gimmicky thing and disappeared from view for an age whilst he picked it up.
The whole video, if you were looking at it from a critical point of view, was bad. It should’ve been done again. Should have been edited so it was slicker, punchier and better viewing.
But as we watched the twenty minute video, I noticed the same thing was happening as it had with my daughter when we went shopping.
My husband didn’t notice all the mistakes, in fact, he liked them because of how authentic it made the whole thing look, at one point saying, ‘see that?’ when the YouTuber forgot his train of thought, ‘that’s because he loves the gimmicky thing so much.’
And I wanted to tell you about these two incidents in case you’re one of the people who hates how you look on camera.
If you watch back your recording and immediately delete it.
If you think that everyone will be looking at your messed up lines.
If you can’t bear to talk on camera because of the way your voice sounds.
Let me remind you that if you’re talking to the right people, they DON’T CARE about any of that stuff. They just want to hear what you’re saying.
My daughter didn’t care about the disastrous shopping day, she got her stuff and she was happy. My husband didn’t care about the very long, messed up YouTube video, he got the review he needed to hear and was so happy, he made me watch the video.
So please, if you’re being your own worst critic, STOP THAT.
People need to hear what you have to say, and by deleting and hiding, you’re doing them a disservice. It really doesn't matter if you get the giggles, or forget what you’re saying, the most important thing is to do it. To show up and get your message out there.
Have a lovely weekend,
Zoe x
This is alsolutely true and I had to get over this to start posting videos to promote my books on TikTok. To me they are still amateurish but my path to professionalism as I learn more but followers don't seem to care. Thanks for this.