The Fear You Should Actually Be Afraid Of

For six years I ignored my creative calling. The scary part wasn't the fear... it was the day it stopped.

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For six years, the only songs I shared were sung by someone else.

Co-written, mostly. For other artists to sing.

Nothing went out under my own name.

I told myself that was okay.

I was burned out on chasing attention. Tired of playing shows, putting myself out there, feeling vulnerable…

Anyway, my songs were reaching more people than I ever had on my own.

Wasn’t that the point?

But there were nights I’d lie awake and feel this burning in the pit of my stomach.

I’d stare at the ceiling wondering why I gave up on myself.

How I was giving in to fear.

Counting the time I had squandered by not sharing my own songs.

I love writing for other artists. I still do. Being a creative behind the song is its own kind of dream, and I’m not done chasing it.

That was never the problem.

The problem was that I let it become the only thing. I poured everything into other people’s records because somewhere along the way I’d decided my own voice wasn’t good enough to carry one. Not as good as the artists I was writing for. Not “pop” enough to be relevant.

So I told myself the behind-the-scenes work was the whole dream. That way I never had to risk the rest of me.

But it wasn’t a strategy. It was fear wearing a more practical coat.

So I dealt with the occasional dark night of the soul…

Until that feeling went away.

That’s when I started to really worry.

Had I ignored my dream so long that it stopped calling?

It sounds ridiculous, because I’m sure that’s the part where most people shrug it off and let it go. But I couldn’t do that.

So I started releasing my own songs.

Not as some grand reinvention.

Just one song, then another.

Putting them out under my own name again.

And to my surprise, they performed pretty well. Way better than I expected.

Which brought a fear I didn’t see coming: now I had to follow each song with something just as good, or better.

That pressure hasn’t let up.

I’m releasing on a schedule I set for myself, and half the time I’m scrambling to get the next song finished before my own deadline.

And each time, some part of me is still afraid that I won’t be able to do it again.

But here’s what I didn’t expect.

Releasing my own work didn’t cost me the other work. It fed it.

The more I write for myself, the better I am in the room with everyone else.

The two were never competing for the same space in my life. I’d just convinced myself they were so I’d have a reason to skip the scarier one.

I still take the sessions. I still want the cuts.

None of that changed.

What changed is that I stopped waiting for permission to also be the artist.

I stopped chasing the version of the industry where you grind and angle and hope someone hands you the golden ticket.

I just started sharing the work — the songs, this newsletter — and letting the opportunities find me instead of the other way around.

Because no one is making me do this.

There’s no label waiting on the next song. No deadline anyone handed me.

The schedule I’m scrambling against is one I invented. I could stop tomorrow and the only person who’d notice is me.

For years, that was exactly the loophole.

No one was asking me to be an artist, so I never had to be one. I could pour myself into other people’s records and call the rest of it impractical.

The absence of pressure was my permission to never try.

Now I’m the one applying the pressure.

And the rush I feel to finish the next song is the whole thing turned right side up.

You don’t scramble to follow up work you don’t care about. The deadline only exists because I’m finally doing the work I always wanted to do.

I'm not behind the scenes anymore. I'm not in front of them either.

I'm just in it.

I used to lie awake afraid the dream had gone quiet. Now it won’t shut up. I’ll take it.

You don’t have to quit the thing that’s working to start the thing that’s yours.

You just have to stop using one as the excuse to never risk the other.

If you enjoyed reading this, the highest compliment I can think of is if you restacked it or shared it with one person who you think it would help.