The hesitation of a Personal Brand

Today, I was sitting outside watching the birds return to their nests and absorbing the sunset. I felt like reading something and opened the medium app & saw this notification.

Thanks, Joseph Chierotti

Joseph highlighted a note from my personal branding article that I wrote 4 years ago. I noticed that I have not posted anything on this platform for over 3 years. Doing a deeper dive I realised I have created over 10 drafts in 2019 but was not able to post any due to some excuse or the other.

I wanted to understand what’s holding me back to share what I believe in.

Hence, dived deeper into thoughts on what’s stopping me to work on my personal brand.

I was quick to jump into conclusions like:

“I don’t have time to write an article. I’m working on more important things. If I have to do it, I need to do it right. I have to inspire people when I write my next blog and this train of thought continues for a good 5–10 minutes.”

Suddenly, I realised I have heard this somewhere.

On my Personal Branding research in 2016 with over 500 senior professionals, the above points were the most common excuses that every head honcho from different industries use to give on why they don’t work on their personal brand.

Being the subject matter expert on the topic at one point, I took it as my responsibility to find a solution to how I can start working on adding value to my network.

Hence, this blog.

My answer to the problem of my online work was sitting on my blog profile.

I created 18 Draft stories in 2 years but managed to publish none. The answer was very clear at this point.

My biggest barrier in adding value to my network or I should say, working on my personal brand has been one simple word, hesitation.

I hesitate to share my struggles/learnings

I hesitate in engaging with old friends/colleagues

I hesitate in making travel plans with anyone

I hesitate in asking for things I feel I deserve

I hesitate as I feel I have to be right every time I say anything

It was clear that my hesitation of small things has started translating into hampering my self-belief system. Now, I overthink everything that goes out and hence I wrote over 18 pieces of thoughts but I was not sure If they were good enough. Hence, I did not publish any!

Coming back to what started this story.

Highlight from my previous blog: https://medium.com/reputation-management/doing-personal-branding-the-right-way-84062e8beefb

I want to be known for being the person of influence in personal branding, marketing and life.

My unique expertise is to find interesting result-driven marketing solutions for startups, corporates and business leaders.

My mission statement is fairly simple and I have added it on my LinkedIn Summary as well.

I’m in this world to make marketing effective and measurable for everybody.

~ Pulkit Dubey

I am working on a mindset to add content which can add value to my readers and not focusing much on perfection. This is my strategy to fight my hesitation to publish often in the coming decade.

Me sitting watching the birds return to their nests, absorbing the sunset, and contemplating the thoughts shared in this article.

Thank you for reading. Good day :)