Stop Letting Embarrassment Rule Your Life
I embarrass myself, on average twice a week.
I know this because 6 months ago I started keeping score. And now I get to share the results of my own ‘embarrassment study’ with you.
Back in June, I was embarrassing myself almost every day. Sometimes twice a day. The ‘cringe’ was indeed, real.
What changed wasn’t that I stopped making those snap decisions that caused my face to start burning up, my chest to become tight, and the instant desire for the earth to swallow me up, I simply stopped giving a shit.
Embarrassment isn’t danger.
Nor is it judgement.
It isn’t even social rejection.
It’s ego dysregulation.
Embarrassment is the moment your self-image collides with reality.
We have an internal image of ourselves that we need to uphold - competent, composed, in control. When that image gets contradicted, we panic, because we think our identity is being exposed as fragile.
That’s why the feeling is physical, as well as psychological. Because it threatens the version of ourselves we’re trying to maintain.
Every adult carries a private “front” - the competent character you perform to avoid the discomfort of being seen learning. Being seen unsure. Being seen starting.
Embarrassment is that facade shattering.
And the fear isn’t:
“What if this goes wrong?”
It’s: “What if they find out I don’t know what I’m doing?”
Almost all hesitation in adulthood comes from this ego maintenance loop.
Staying in a job you’ve outgrown → to avoid looking foolish for leaving
Not asking the question → to avoid exposing the knowledge gap
Not starting the project → because starting admits you’re a beginner
Not posting the video → because the early ones feel wooden
Not trying the new skill → because you’re used to competence
Dan Koe calls this ‘The Unnecessary Front’;
The exhausting performance of pretending you’re further ahead than you are - and sacrificing every opportunity to maintain that illusion.
It’s not risk management.
It’s ego management.
And it’s slowly killing your potential.
The feeling of embarrassment is real - the physiological reaction, the contraction, the flush.
But embarrassment itself is a meaning you assign to a neutral moment.
Something is only embarrassing if you decide it is.
A stranger’s glance.
A mistake in a meeting.
A typo in a post.
A video you think looks awkward.
A moment you stumbled over your words.
These aren’t catastrophic events.
They’re actually nothing. They vanish in hours. But we inflate them because we imagine an audience that doesn’t exist.
This is the central lie embarrassment tells you:
“Everyone is watching.”
They aren’t.
Most people are too busy maintaining their own front to care about yours.
Everyone feels inadequate. Everyone is performing. Everyone is terrified of being seen as a beginner.
If you zoomed out and understood how little attention you occupy in other people’s lives, embarrassment would dissolve instantly.
Every success story has two photos:
The before.
And…
The after.
The messy middle - the part filled with cringe, mistakes, awkwardness and self-doubt, is never shown.
That’s where embarrassment lives. And I can tell you from personal experience that it all feels awful.
Over the last 8 months, whilst developing protocol, I have felt exposed, unprepared and amateurish. Some of my content is objectively dreadful. Some of it, often the work I spend the longest on, doesn't gain any traction at all. But I keep going, for 2 simple reasons - I know that what I’m doing is valuable, and I don’t care if I look stupid.
It’s all very liberating.
The only path to being good is being publicly bad first.
If you refuse to be a bad beginner, you guarantee you’ll never be a decent anything.
Everyone you admire, successful businessmen and women, content creators, actors, musicians, dancers, they didn't start out fearless, they were simply willing to be seen before they were impressive. They failed publicly.
Ask yourself;
“What is one small, weird, slightly uncomfortable thing I can do today that moves me forward?”
Not big dramatic leaps. Not risky life changes. I’m not suggesting for a second you quit your job, or blow up your entire life.
Just one small ego sacrifice:
Publish the rough draft with typos.
Tell a friend you’re taking that course.
Post the clip that isn’t perfect.
Ask the “stupid” question in the room.
Try the thing you’ve been avoiding because it makes you feel small.
The goal here is not to chase embarrassment, it’s to prove to your nervous system that embarrassment has no real consequence.
You’re demonstrating that nothing happens afterward except growth.
This is how you dismantle the illusion of scrutiny.
Not through bravery, but through evidence.
protocol;
If something embarrassing happens, you’re only allowed to think about it for two days.
By day three, everyone else has forgotten - and you must act as if you have too. If it enters your thoughts, shake you head, smile and move on.
Before potentially embarrassing yourself, ask;
Who specifically will care?
What exactly will they say?
Will I remember this in a year?
Will they remember this tomorrow?
The illusion we create collapses under specifics.
Instead of: “What if they laugh?”
Try: “What will I learn about myself if I do this?”
Curiosity dissolves fear.
Embarrassment is information, it is not shame.
Treat awkwardness as growth.
Every time you feel embarrassed, you say:
“Good. This is benefitting me.”
Tiny, low-stakes visibility:
One imperfect post.
One unedited clip.
One vulnerable sentence.
Not to be embarrassed, but to prove that nothing bad happens when you stop protecting your ego.
When embarrassment spikes, imagine you’re watching a character you like go through it.
Your compassion increases, and the self-pressure drops.
Embarrassment is just the friction between who you were and who you’re becoming.
Take care
- James
