If you’re a more highly sensitive or heart centred coach, the idea of becoming more visible can trigger a lot of big feelings and emotions. Perhaps you’re just a more private person and the idea of sharing every corner of your life online feels completely unaligned. Maybe just the concept of ‘being seen’ in your role as a coach feels uncomfortable.

Whatever the reason, not feeling good about visibility as a coach can really hold you back when it comes to attracting clients and creating the business you dream of. Right now, being visible in some way which allows others to simply know you exist – but also in a way that enables people to connect with you – is becoming more and more essential if you want to create a successful business.

As someone who has struggled with my own visibility issues, I know how much of a challenge it can be to overcome them – but it can be done!

In this post I’m going to share some key steps to overcome your fear of visibility – all while honouring your highly sensitive nature.

Listen to this episode on The Wholehearted Business Show Podcast: Listen on Apple Podcasts / Listen on Spotify

What is beneath the fear?

When you think about being visible, can you pin point what the specific fears are? Is it fear of judgement? Fear of getting something wrong? Fear of not being good enough? Identifying the specific fears can be really useful in order to move through them.

It’s also worth noting here that many of your fears will be completely legitimate. It’s common for us coaches to label fears as ‘blocks’ but sometimes you will have fears that are totally valid and it’s important not to gaslight yourself to believe they somehow are not.

For example, if you are a member of the LGTBQ community, there’s a very real fear that sharing that part of yourself could attract negative comments unfortunately in this current climate. In this case your fear is not a ‘block’ rather it’s a real possibility.

Try journaling out some of your fears around visibility. Which fears are based on stories you might be telling yourself and which are based on real issues?

Once you understand your fears and what’s beneath those fears you can start and deal with them. Try looking at realistic worst case scenarios, mapping out a ‘plan B’ should one of those things happen, or realising that worst case scenario isn’t actually that bad. You can also use tools like EFT, more journaling and reframing to help you move through mindset blocks.

Reconnecting with why and how you want to be visible

Something else that can help you move through the fear is to reconnect with why you want to be visible in the first place.

The truth is, if you want to build and grow a coaching business and attract clients you will have to be visible in some way, shape or form.

Connecting with your ‘big why’ for your business and how you’d like your business to show up for you in terms of more time freedom, doing work you love, money etc can be so helpful in motivating you to move through those fears.

Another area to reconnect with is your core values. I believe that when we build businesses that align with our core values – or however we relate to these, for example I use Danielle LaPorte’s Desire Map and have my own Core Desired Feelings – we get much better results. Look at your own core values and what those might tell you about your relationship with visibility and how to move forward.

Building your visibility confidence

Most of us believe that we need to become more confident in order to take action – however it’s the opposite that is true. In order to grow our confidence – we have to take action now – sometimes with a side helping of fear!

It’s the doing something that feels a little (or a lot!) outside of our comfort zone that actually builds the confidence you need.

However, taking action when you feel a bit scared or fearful is hard, and can have a negative impact on our nervous systems. This is why I recommend that you take your time doing new things and being visible in new ways so your confidence can grow without trashing your nervous system in the process.

Ultimately, your visibility – and your business – will grow in line with what feels safe to your nervous system to hold. It’s ok to go slow as long as you are making positive progress.

Create your own visibility scale

Most people will have ways of being visible and places they can be visible that feel safer than others. For most people, written content on a personal blog will feel quite safe, audio content on a private podcast might feel quite safe and so on. A public podcast might feel a bit more of an expansion and then video might feel like the next step on the scale and so on.

Ask yourself what forms of visibility feel the most comfortable and least comfortable – for example written content, audio content, pre recorded video, live video, video with guests or being a guest etc.

Then ask yourself what spaces you feel more and less comfortable being visible in – for example a Facebook group, your own personal Facebook account, Substack, YouTube, your own Blog, a guest blog, a podcast and so on.

Then list both of these things out in order of what feels the most comfortable and safe and where you’d feel the most confident in the spaces and formats that feel the least comfortable and safe – and there you have it – your own visibility scale.

Challenge yourself to move up the visibility scale over time.

Next steps

It’s common for a lot of coaches who are highly sensitive or heart centered to find that social media sits firmly at the top of their visibility scale and just doesn’t feel like the safest place to share content – the good news is that there are other platforms that many of my clients feel much more comfortable on that will still give you amazing visibility – such as your blog, YouTube, Pinterest and Podcasting. Check out my free 4 Hour Marketing Workflow below to learn more about using these platforms to get visible in less time:

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