Why Selling Feels So Awkward (And Why I Want to Hide Under a Blanket)

If you scroll through instagram or TikTok, or  if you listen to business influencers, on the ten thousand podcasts you have subscribed to; they make selling sound like a victory lap. You’d think it’s all smooth posts, confident pitches, and that sweet ping of a new order notification hitting your phone.

All these things have made me imagine sales as this glamorous, high-energy thing where everything just clicks.

Then you actually sit down to sell your own butter or lipbalm, and—wow—the reality hits completely different.

Suddenly, you’re sitting there staring at a blank screen, waiting on a reply that never comes. You read a DM three times before hitting send, panicking that you sound too pushy or needy. Or worse, you state your price, get hit with total silence, and immediately feel that pit in your stomach: Is my work actually worth this? Am I just embarrassing myself?

If you’ve felt that way, let me tell you something: selling feels uncomfortable because it makes us completely vulnerable. It makes me feel like that.

When you put something you created out into the world and ask for money, you aren’t just offering a product—you’re putting a piece of yourself on the line. Every quiet ignore or polite “no” doesn’t feel like a business decision. It feels personal.

And that’s the thing nobody mentions. Selling isn’t just an operational task; it’s an emotional grind. It forces you to stand right in the middle of your own self-doubt and ask for what you’re worth anyway.

So if you’ve been feeling awkward, exhausted, or resistant to the whole process, take a deep breath. You aren’t bad at what you do, and you’re definitely not alone. You’re just human—and putting yourself out there is hard work.

Once we stop expecting sales to feel effortless, we can start changing how we look at it. Not as a scary, high-pressure pitch, but just as a real, honest conversation.