I recently had an article commissioned by Black Ballad, the UK's leading digital lifestyle subscription for Black women. I wanted to interview Trina Nicole (Body Confidence Advocate, dancer and founder of The Curve Catwalk), among other experts, to get her perspective. However, I was nervous about reaching out to Trina because we'd never interacted with each other prior to this. To help me overcome my anxiety, I journaled using The 5 Whys Technique, starting off by simply acknowledging my feelings- "I'm nervous about approaching Trina Nicole". I then asked myself "why?" and journaled that response: "I'm afraid that she will say 'no,' or worse, ignore me". I then repeated the process of asking myself "why?" 4 more times until I arrived at the root of my fear: "Rejection from her would feel personal; like I'm not good enough or worthy enough to collaborate with".
My ability to get to the root of my fears then allowed me to confront them and think more rational thoughts such as:
Pitch rejections do not define me
My article will be a success with or without her input
If she does say "no" or ignore the email it will most likely not be personal to me but because she's busy or has other life/business priorities
This not only calmed me down, it gave me the confidence needed to approach her. The best part? My fears were completely unfounded. Trina responded positively to my pitch and, within days, I interviewed her and was able to submit my article for publication!
This whole sequence of events reminds me of a conversation that I had with leadership coach Jennifer Howell (of Spark EQ) in an interview a few years back where we discussed the importance of confidence. For, as Howell so eloquently put it: “When we…are confident we take action [on our goals] and we can serve people more” whereas, when we aren't, we hold ourselves back as I almost did.