Getting past pitching anxiety

5x5 Pitch Challenge: Overcome the fear that stops you from sending pitches in the first place

Jan 15, 2020

By this point in the 5x5 Pitch Challenge, you’ve hopefully sent out a couple of pitches. You may have already sent your five pitches for this week. Or, like me, you might have sent zero.

I know, not a great a look for the person running a pitch challenge. But here’s the thing, pitching anxiety is very real. It’s a crushing sense of dread that stops you from executing your ideas. Mostly cruelly, those of us who suffer from pitching anxiety aren’t lacking in ideas, we just struggle to pluck up the courage to actually send them.

Most likely, if you’re taking this challenge, it’s because you find pitching tough. From my work with freelancers, it’s become blindly clear to me that the number one cause of pitching problems is fear. Pitching runs the risk of rejection, it triggers your imposter syndrome and it brings up a whole host of other fears.

It doesn’t matter if that pitch is for a writing assignment, a consulting gig or a brand partnership. Pitching anxiety is medium-agnostic. In this week’s post, I’m going to break down what might be behind your pitching anxiety and how to get it under control.

Understand why you feel this way

Before I understood what anxiety (in general terms) actually was, I was terrified by the feelings it brought up in me.

Anxiety is a feeling of unease, such as worry or fear, that can be mild or severe. It’s the body’s natural response to stress.

Everyone has feelings of anxiety at some point. Exams, medical tests and job interviews are often cited as the common examples that cause anxiety. This is because, in all of these examples, there is a “real” threat because the outcome is unknown. The same goes for pitching – there is no guarantee the pitch will land.

It’s really important to remember that feeling anxious about sending a pitch is perfectly normal because it validates your very legitimate feelings. It is scary!

It’s also important to acknowledge that the anxiety probably will never go away fully, nor do you actually want it to. I think to think that my pitching anxiety keeps me humble, it reminds me that I need to make sure every pitch I send is my best work and that I’m not so arrogant as to assume I’m guaranteed anything in my professional life.

While you might not be able to can the anxiety, you can, however, make it more manageable and stop it from interfering with your ambitions. Pitching anxiety only becomes a real problem when it stops you from sending your pitch altogether. The goal is not to banish it, but rather to channel it.

What are you actually afraid of?

When we face our fears, we’re forced to ask what is actually so scary about them. When it comes to pitching, rather than get lost in the feelings of anxiety, try to understand the root cause of your fear.

For most of us, that’s a fear of rejection. We worry that the person on the receiving end of our pitch won’t like it and, by extension will think our ideas, heck, our very essence of character, are also bad. They will read the pitch out loud to everyone else in their office and they’ll all laugh at us. Fear of rejection affects everyone, either in the personal or professional lives, because it’s a deeply human emotion. To quote Brené Brown, we are hardwired for connection, and so if we experience any form of rejection, we can’t help but take it personally.
There’s also a phenomenon called “fear of success”. I first came across this concept in Gay Hendrick’s brilliant book, The Big Leap, in which he goes into the specific types of fear of success people feel. Essentially, fear of success is being afraid to achieve what we really want to achieve. It’s often a latent, subconscious fear and has a lot to do with our perception (and misconceptions) of success. A common byproduct of fear of success is self-sabotage – you really want to land that magazine feature commission, so you keep putting off sending the pitch.
Imposter syndrome is another big driver of pitching anxiety. If you suffer from imposter syndrome, you have chronic self-doubt, despite all evidence pointing to a history of success. You believe that you’ve somehow cheated your way to success and it’s just a matter of time until you get found out. You believe that sending that pitch might be your underdoing, it might be the point at which you’re finally exposed as a fraud.
It may also be the case that your fear changes depending on the specifics of the circumstance. For example, if you’re pitching a personal essay, you may feel vulnerable about putting yourself out there like that. If you’re pitching for a big client, you might feel the pressure of what the financial security that pitch represents. Sometimes we pitch outside of our comfort zones, the nerves we might feel in those situations often come back to feelings of whether we’re good enough or not.

Understanding specifically what is driving your fear is the best way to get a handle on it.

Exercise for this week: What underpins your fear?
As you go through your pitches this week, spend some time thinking about what it is specifically about them that sparks your pitching anxiety.

Focus on the process, not the outcome

I mentioned this last week, but it bears repeating – this challenge isn’t being measured by how many pitches you land, but how many pitches you send.

To “win” this challenge all you have to do is send the pitch. At this point in the challenge, you don’t have to worry about what comes after you hit send on that email. Your job is just to send it. The reason it’s important to get this clear in your mind is that you will start to move away from being outcome-orientated and instead, focus on the process.

Your best really is good enough

If you have an idea, you’ve done the research and you’ve sent a solid pitch that is really all you – or anyone else – can ask of you. That’s it, you’ve done your job.

Be kind to yourself

You’ve signed up for a pitch challenge.
You’ve invested in your career and personal development.
You are doing great.
Remember that and be gentle on yourself.

On Friday, we’ll be coming together to talk about how we’ve all found this first week. It’s an online discussion thread and you can take part directly from your inbox. You’ll get an email about it on Friday (Jan 17) at 3 PM (GMT).