I recently had a conversation in the comments of one of my earlier posts with fellow Publish0x author @Bayarizard. (Have a look at his articles, they are really interesting and well-written). In my earlier post I wrote:

In the fitness classes which I instructed [...], I was used to work out in front of numerous participants. Sometimes these numbers were in the low triple digits. When I first started that job, it took quite some getting used to work out in front of that many people. Maybe you know the feeling that everybody in the room is looking at you? Well, most of the time that is just a feeling, but in my case that was pretty much my reality from one moment to the other. I was standing in the middle of the gym, up to 120 participants were around me watching my every move. It was scary at first, but it soon became exhilarating. I derived the energy to work out harder than ever before from it. It first became my reality, then it became a necessity. 

@Bayarizard pointed out that he can relate to that not only from the context of exercises, but also from a leadership perspective. I completely agree. The two situations are comparable. The conversation continued with the topic of feeling comfortable in front of cameras. That inspired me to write an in-depth answer as I have quite a story to tell about that topic.

So here it goes: 

I used to be hypercritical with myself and hated both -- videos of myself and even recordings of my voice. I even didn't like having pictures taken. I couldn't stand the way I looked on pictures and knowing that, I was so stressed when a camera was closeby that I ended up looking even worse in pictures... I'm sure that you would not consider these ideal circumstances for starting a fitness YouTube channel with live workouts -- in which potentially the whole world might watch you on camera... 

It really took a lot of getting used to being and feeling comfortable in front of a camera. In my case, the keys were self-confidence and self-acceptance.

"I am not perfect and nobody is.  And that's ok."

That's basically the message that I had to learn bit by bit. It's not enough to hear it, it's not enough to say it, you have to believe it, feel it, live it. It's really easier said than done. But there are a few things that will help.

Working out

helped me both with my self-confidence and it also improved my looks, tackling the problem from two sides simultaneously. :) 

I believe age helped, too.

Remember how you thought elementary school grades were super important when you were a child? And then you realized it didn't really matter what grades you got as long as you learned something. Ok, maybe that was a bad example and I was the only one foolish enough to believe that. But my point is: In hindsight, most things seem not that important -- at least not so important that they were worth the stress they caused you. So continue that thought into the future: Probably, what is stressing you right now, will not seem very important in the future. Therefore, relax a bit and don't let things stress you out that much.

Technical Help 

When it comes to being on camera, there are also some technical things you can do to lower the barrier for accepting how you look on camera. For the beginning use a lower resolution camera. That will not only help you by hiding some imperfections, you won't feel as exposed as you would feel in Ultra-HD. That way, you can reveal yourself little by little by increasing the resolution. Once you're comfortable with being in front of a low-resolution camera, you can increase the resolution.

To Publish Or Not To Publish 

You might also decide to not publish the first attempts at taking videos of yourself. However, remember, it is ok to not be perfect. When in doubt, publish. Otherwise, you might end up tweaking and improving endlessly and you might never publish anything. 

So those were my 2 cents on that topic. I hope you enjoyed reading this post. Stay tuned for the next episode about the growth (or lack thereof) of my YouTube channel. 

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