Completing Challenges

I had a little video shoot up in LA on Friday. While it’s too soon to share the details of the actual shoot, I still wanted to share my experience while it was fresh on my mind. Quite frankly, it was extremely challenging, most likely the most challenging thing I’ve had to do so far for my job.

When the opportunity presented itself I knew that I had to do it. But the thought of it was so scary and it was extremely easy to doubt my ability to do it. I wasn’t right for this, I don’t deserve this, I’m not qualified enough for this. I’m just me.

A script was sent to me the night before the shoot. Panic set in. J talked me out of my pile of self-doubt a bit, reminding me that they picked me for a reason. While this tided over my fears a little bit, they were back full force the morning of the shoot.

When I arrived at the studio I was put in a makeup chair. My hair was put in a ponytail, peach lipgloss was put on my lips, a jean jacket was added to my outfit. Then it was time to go to…..the set. I walked into the room and definitely said “holy shit” out loud to myself. The room had at least 12 people in it. A lot on laptops, some with cameras, lights, headphones, etc.

Holy shit.

A mic was immediately added to the band of my jeans. It felt like a phone in my back pocket and I kept mindlessly grabbing at it out of habit. I was guided to the table I would be sitting at, two cameras on me, lights, so many pairs of eyes I wanted to vomit right there. I immediately blurt out “First timer! Just want to put that out there!” as some sort of awkward disclaimer so they know I’m likely going to suck. I wasn’t a youtuber, I didn’t do vlogs (but maybe I should so I get more comfortable with that sort of thing?), I was inexperienced, and I was a mess.

We had two shooting sessions, one before lunch and one after. The session before lunch was pretty brutal. I was flubbing lines, moving around too much, not being “natural” enough. The whole “be yourself but say these specific things you wouldn’t naturally say” thing is not easy for me.

And all those eyes….

When we took a break for lunch a lot of the people on set were encouraging. We did some more practice runs to try to make me feel more comfortable. And it did work, somewhat. At least during our second sessions, if I messed up (I kept saying “virgin” instead of “version”….awkwarddd) I would just laugh at myself instead of feeling like I wanted to die inside.

I guess the point is that I did it. I challenged myself. I took an opportunity even though it was scary. Even though the entire experience was extremely hard for me,  I knew I wanted to blog about it.

As small business owners or internet personalities or bloggers, it is easy to give off this “idea” of what we are like, what our life is like. It’s just too easy to make assumptions based on what one chooses to share publicly.

But I do not have it all figured out, I’m not good at everything. The truth is that we all have our flaws. We all don’t always have perfect hair. We all don’t always look stylish. We all don’t always succeed. We all struggle. And I feel like that is just as important to share as our triumphs are.