Shooting your first video and uploading it on YouTube or your website is a big deal. Most people are used to expressing themselves on the web in written form (email, facebook, twitter, blogs) or maybe in the form of pictures (instagram, pinterest, tumblr) – video, however, is still new to most of us. And while video has a lot of benefits, these benefits come with a downside: it takes some courage to create them. So how can you stop being nervous and start recording videos?

You’re nervous? It’s normal!

Video aren’t only more personal, they also make you more vulnerable. They reveal what you look like and the way you speak. They showcase your personality, your body language, your quirks. You’re showing more of yourself, which makes videos feel much riskier. People will judge you if you publish a video of yourself.

And not only that – you will also judge yourself. If you ever recorded your voice, you might know how weird it feels to listen to yourself. And watching yourself can be even more cringe-inducing.

The most important thing to know: it’s completely normal to be nervous. If you are just waiting for the nervousness and discomfort to subside, you might wait forever. So if you really want to shoot videos, you need to come to terms with the facts that: