For years, writing a piece of text was easier for me than turning on a camera and talking for a few minutes. With text, I can reread, edit and rewrite. On video, I hear my voice immediately, notice every pause, forget words and start wondering how I look from the outside. I kept waiting for it to feel easier first. It did not. At some point, I simply started recording.
I Didn't Become More Confident. I Just Started Recording Videos
Working with text, websites and SEO was much easier for me than speaking to a camera. The problem was not the equipment. I had to get used to seeing and hearing myself the way other people do.
With a camera, I could no longer edit away every awkward pause or wrong word
I have spent many years working with websites, SEO, content and text.
With text, I always have time.
I can write a sentence. Read it. Decide it is bad. Delete it. Write it again. Change one word. Then read the whole thing once more before publishing it.
Even if the first version was terrible, nobody has to see it.
Video felt completely different.
I press record, start talking, forget a word, make an awkward pause or lose the thought halfway through. Then I watch it back and, instead of listening to what I actually said, I end up watching myself.
I noticed almost everything except the point I was trying to make
I would record a video, play it back, and immediately start finding things I did not like.
My first reaction was something like: do I really sound like that? My recorded voice sounded very different from the voice I was used to hearing while I spoke.
I noticed where I stopped, repeated myself, searched too long for a word or started explaining something in a more complicated way than necessary.
I started watching where I looked, how I stood and what I did with my hands. It was very easy to stop paying attention to the actual content of the video.
That is why the first recordings are so easy to redo again and again.
Not necessarily because something is seriously wrong with them. Every time I watch, I can find another small detail I would like to change.
When we speak, we hear our own voice in two ways: through sound travelling through the air and through vibrations conducted through the bones and tissues of the head. A recording mostly captures the air-conducted sound, so it can sound different from what we are used to hearing while we speak.
Scientific American explanationOnce I understood that, I became a little less bothered by my recorded voice. My voice had not changed. I was simply hearing it differently from the way I hear it during a normal conversation.
Knowing the topic and keeping the thought together on camera are two different things
I do not always speak on video without any preparation.
Sometimes I use a teleprompter.
The reason is simple. I can know exactly what I want to talk about and still forget part of the thought once I press record, mix up the order or drift into something else entirely.
Having the text in front of me helps with that.
But then I ran into another problem.
Something that reads perfectly well on a screen does not always sound natural out loud.
I can write a long sentence that looks completely fine in an article. Then I try to say it to the camera and realise I would never speak like that in a normal conversation.
If I cannot say a sentence naturally, it is often better to rewrite it than to force myself to read it beautifully.
So for me, a teleprompter does not replace normal speech. It simply helps me keep hold of the point I wanted to make.
Phrases that look polished on screen can sound completely wrong out loud
In writing, it is sometimes possible to hide a simple idea inside a complicated sentence.
On video, I hear the problem almost immediately.
If I try to use words I would never use in a normal conversation, it sounds unnatural.
If the sentence is too long, I start getting lost in it myself.
If I try too hard to make something sound impressive, I watch the recording afterwards and think: I would never say this to someone sitting next to me.
That has become a useful test for my writing as well as my videos.
would I actually say this out loud, or am I only trying to make it sound polished?
That is one reason I now prefer simpler sentences.
Say what happened. Say what I think. Say what I have tried myself. Say what I am not sure about and what I still want to understand better.
Without pretending to be someone who has an answer to every question.
Not trying to fit everything into one video
I am still learning how to record videos, but I have already figured out a few things that make it easier for me.
If I try to squeeze five different topics into one short video, I start confusing myself. It is much easier to talk about one thing at a time.
If I am worried about losing an important point, I can prepare the wording or use a teleprompter. For me, it is simply a practical tool.
When I watch a recording back, I try to ask first whether I explained the point clearly. Only after that do I look at the smaller things I might want to improve.
That does not mean every video is quick to record now.
I can still lose my place. I can record it again. I can watch the result and decide I want another take.
But the camera no longer feels like something I need months of preparation for before I am allowed to press record.
Text alone is no longer enough for what I am building now
I like writing, and I am not going to stop.
This website is built mainly around articles too.
But there is a real difference between someone reading what you wrote and hearing you explain it in your own voice.
I write about my life, family, Norway, health, the things I try myself and the partner business I am building.
With topics like these, getting the wording right is not the only thing that matters to me.
I also want people to understand who is actually speaking.
How I explain things. How I think. Where I feel confident and where I am still figuring things out myself.
That is why video is not a separate project for me and not an attempt to become a professional blogger.
It is simply another way to talk properly about what I am doing and what is happening in my life.
I would not say it suddenly appeared one day
The title of this article still feels accurate to me.
I did not suddenly become someone who no longer cares how he looks on video.
I did not stop noticing my mistakes.
And I still cannot press record every single time and say everything exactly the way I wanted on the first take.
But after those first attempts, one thing became clear.
Waiting for confidence to arrive before I practised made no sense for me.
There was nowhere for camera experience to come from until I actually started talking to a camera.
So now I look at it much more practically.
Record it. Watch it. Notice what I do not like. Try to do that part better next time.
I have learned plenty of things that way in my life. Video turned out to be much the same.
Not because it is easy now, but because I understand why I need it
My first videos did not prove that I was bad on camera.
They showed me what I still needed to learn.
Sometimes I talk for too long. Sometimes I lose the thought. Sometimes a sentence looks fine on the screen but sounds completely wrong in conversation.
I can only see those things after I have actually recorded something.
So I no longer wait for the day when I finally feel completely ready.
It matters more to me to keep recording, look at the result and gradually get better at speaking in my own words.
If I become more confident along the way, that will be the result of the practice.
This site brings together the things I am actually dealing with in my own life
Our family and life in Norway, health and energy, my experience with FitLine, the changes I started noticing after 40, and the international partner business I am building in my own way, without spam or scripted sales talk.
I do not write as someone who has all the answers. First-hand experience, plain language and specifics matter more to me. If you want to understand who I am, why I created SHCHOKIN.PRO and how these topics connect, start with the About Me page.