Are we ready to try again?
Everyone's saying it: "don't be afraid to be seen trying". Are our attitudes towards risk, vulnerability and authenticity changing?
This week, Beyoncé made headlines with a well-timed Superbowl ad announcing the release of her new music (cue me donning my cowboy boots and learning how to line dance).
In the self-referential spoof of her several failed attempts to break the internet, she goes to greater and greater lengths to achieve her goal, from creating an AI clone of herself to being the first woman to launch the first rocket for the first performance in space.
Two things are clear. One, this is not a woman who’s above laughing at herself. Two, this is not a woman who’s afraid to be seen trying.
And right now — thanks in part to a clip from Beyoncé’s Renaissance film — that second truth is something that, culturally and collectively, we seem to be embracing.
Don’t be afraid to be seen trying
Like “live your best life’s” slightly older, wiser cousin, I’ve noticed this affirmation popping up everywhere recently — from Tik Toks, to podcasts, to sessions with my coaching clients, to conversations with friends.
Dare I say it, but it feels like a vibe shift (sans the indie sleaze renaissance we were promised).
A few weeks ago, I broached the idea on LinkedIn and it seemed to strike a chord with people. But I don’t think 274 words was enough to properly unpack this idea. So where better to give it a go than in my first ever Substack post? Where, ironically, I’ve had to get over that very same fear.
What happened to make us scared?
If our cultural mood is indeed shifting, I’m curious what we can glean from it. Are our collective and individual relationships to risk, vulnerability and authenticity changing? And what made us scared in the first place?
I’ve been reflecting on my own relationship with the act of trying — and owning it. Because at some point in the past decade, things did change.
When I was in my early twenties, I would much more readily put myself out there. And when I say “myself”, I mean my voice, my ideas, my politics, my heart.
I wrote for magazines, published Medium posts, started a food blog, and hosted podcasts sharing all my (often jumbled) thoughts with the world. I fell in love for the first time and told anyone who’d listen. I continued to bend people’s ears when the relationship fell apart and I found myself heartbroken for the first time.
But in my mid-to-late twenties, something shifted. I still took “risks” in my career, like working for startups or going freelance. Yet in many ways, I clung to the walls of my comfort zone. Particularly in areas of my life that required me to be most “myself”, and therefore my most vulnerable.
Creatively, I stopped publishing my own writing. Romantically, I worked tirelessly to achieve just the right levels of chill required for the modern dating scene. Even in through my personal style, I started to play it safe — mimicking the trends I saw on the streets of East London, rather than tapping into what I loved to wear.
I’m only human, right?
I can reflect on this retreat with compassion. After all, it’s human to crave belonging and acceptance. We habitually conform and contort ourselves to win the approval of those around us.
And yet, I’d already been on a big journey to reclaim my authenticity. Arguably, my early twenties were when I’d really started to “find myself”. I’d begun to let go of the shyness and self-consciousness that had plagued me as a teenager.
So how was all that hard work undone again? The self-consciousness crept back in. I started overthinking all my decisions to the point of inaction, parking projects and keeping my cards close to my chest, even when I was burning to express myself. Essentially, there were lots of areas of my life where I wasn’t being authentic.
In my most recent coaching training module, we learned about transforming paradigms, and how our inner systems (our thoughts, beliefs, values, feelings, assumptions and expectations) are in a constant tug of way with our external systems (society, culture, religion, family, work, etc.).
If I zoom out, I notice a few different factors that might have influenced my relationship to trying. To sift through them, I tried breaking down that popular phrase, don’t be afraid to be seen trying, into three different layers.
1. The fear of trying
As a newly minted 30-year-old, my first port of call is wondering whether it is, in fact, just age that’s made me more cautious (and yes, I know 30 isn’t exactly old age).
It makes sense that the more storms we weather, the more cynical we get. We shed our childish wonder and cringe at our naïveté, hardening our shells as the world tells us to get real.
Gone are the days when we can loaf about reading books all day for £9,000 per year.
We must get jobs (whose salaries will never touch the sides of that student loan), fret about the rental crisis and remember to take the laundry out of the washing machine. Essentially, we have responsibilities and more (or at least, this is how we perceive it) to lose.
Neuroscience backs this up, with research pointing to a link between ageing and risk tolerance: “Older adults need to make many important financial and medical decisions, often under high levels of uncertainty,” says Ifat Levy, associate professor of comparative medicine and of neuroscience at Yale University. Our brains are literally wired to be this way, with studies demonstrating a link between a decrease in volume of grey matter and lower risk tolerance.
This risk-aversion makes sense in the context of those big, important decisions — like where to invest our money or how we look after our health. But what about the day-to-day?
Well, at this specific moment in time, the world is a very uncertain place. According to the Financial Times, “over the past 60 years the west has begun to shift away from the culture of progress, and towards one of caution, worry and risk-aversion”. So perhaps it’s not just biology at play; we’ve become existentially risk-averse.
Again, this makes sense: our comfort zones offer us protection. And there are times in our lives when we really need to prioritise that (like a global pandemic).
In 2020, after the loss of my dad to COVID, a lockdown and a two-year stint in a stressful job, I had to unlearn a lot of my Type A habits and consciously not try, giving myself the time and space to heal.
2. The fear of being seen trying
Recently, I attended a workshop about building your personal brand on LinkedIn. We were asked to submit our biggest challenges beforehand, and pretty much all of us referred to what was blocking us from posting as “The Fear”. A pretty extreme way to talk about an innocent social media post, right?
I wonder if, grappling with this deeper, existential angst, our ravaged nervous systems have skewed our sense of perspective.
Our brain isn’t very good at distinguishing between perceived dangers and real dangers. That’s why the thought of putting ourselves out there — from sharing our art, to going on a date, to speaking our mind — can feel so anxiety-inducing. Our body reacts in the same way it would to a lion attack (good old evolutionary biology, eh?).
Perhaps this existential fear has permeated culture. Because in many ways, the past few years have been defined by the art of looking like we’re not trying. Whether it’s athleisure, no makeup makeup, low-fi content, ghosting, situationships, ironic emoji use (guilty as charged) or quiet quitting, it’s been an era of (often painstakingly curated) nonchalance.
This façade of effortless chic/talent/humour/chill actually takes a lot of work. So why don’t we want to own up to that?
The answer might vary from person to person, as there are lots of external systems that can affect our relationship with success, failure and taking up space.
For example, as
writes in her chapter on pride in On Our Best Behaviour: The Price Women Pay To Be Good (an epic and incisive analysis of how the seven deadly sins have permeated our culture and psyches), women will often downplay their work and achievements: our “compliment deflection and refusal to accept praise are ways we know how to simultaneously shine and survive. I understand this, because I’m scared to be seen too. Most of us are.”Which leads us to the third layer…
3. The fear of being seen
On top of all the other systemic barriers we face, we’re living in a culture where it’s become the norm to document our every move. And with trolls/frenemies/unflattering Zoom angles hiding round every virtual corner, it’s understandable why we’ve grown more self-conscious of how the world perceives us.
The fear of being seen (and scrutinised) has become normalised, and it can be paralysing — I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted to share something, but instead have kept it safe in the vaults of my Google drive.
Later on in the chapter on pride, Loehnen expands on this fear of being our authentic selves, attributing it to a protective instinct we learn in our early years. She writes that “We do this unconsciously, acting out of a deep belief or understanding that living apart from who we really are will prevent our authentic selves from getting hurt”.
This makes total sense as a psychological response to the complex external systems we navigate throughout our lives. But within the system of social media or, if you like, a digital society, I think there’s an equal and opposite force at play.
When I dug into The Fear of sharing on social media with my own coach, what we discovered surprised me: I wasn’t so much scared of being authentic as I was of being perceived to be inauthentic.
And lots of us feel an understandable “ick” around social media. It’s an inherently performative, and some would even say immodest space. We don’t want to be that insufferable person sharing the 32-step morning routine they claim to be the secret behind their million-dollar investment round.
But as my coach helped me realise, given that I would never share my (non-existent) 32-step morning routine behind my (also non-existent) million-dollar investment round, did I really have anything to be afraid of?
For me, the answer was no.
Swinging the pendulum
In the early days of social media, we shared everything, without restraint (as many of our now private Facebook photo albums will attest to). But as — important and thoughtful — conversations started to happen about how we filter and censor ourselves, perhaps the pendulum has swung too far the other way.
Maybe this new era of not being afraid to be seen trying can help us redress the balance. I believe that we all have (often underutilised) unique gifts to offer the world. While it’s by no means the only avenue, digital spaces make it easier than ever to share them, and connect us with those who will appreciate them.
Making these digital spaces — and the wider world — friendlier places in which to try is a much bigger question. But for now, we can look inwards and ask ourselves how our fear of being seen trying is or isn’t serving us.
And for those of us who have the luxury of being able to try. Well, why the hell not?
For me, that means hitting publish on this post. What will it look like for you? I’d love to hear from you in the comments.
And in the meantime, here’s some music to help you on your way…
Thanks so much for reading. And if you fancy subscribing, it might hold me accountable to hitting ‘publish’ again soon 👀
Lucia x