Have you ever created a learning material for your student then looked back at it and thought — wow, this is great stuff! What a shame I’ll only use it once and possibly never use it again.

However, when it actually came to sharing your work with the wider tutoring community, you froze. It didn’t make sense to share it on social media. What if someone you know sees it? What will my James from the donut shop think? The cringe effect of this thought alone barred you from sharing your masterpiece with people who might have actually benefited from your contribution.

When creating something with our own hands, we often choose to focus on the negatives and tend to overthink the potential effects of sharing something with our network. It’s natural for us to overthink the consequences — being human, we wish to avoid negative feelings. This is a survival mechanism and we subconsciously believe that we are protecting ourselves from harm when we decide against going forward with something. After all, it’s easier to abstain than to pursue, right?

Many tutors create their own lesson materials but do not feel comfortable sharing them. They come up with a variety of reasons to avoid doing this — negative thoughts overshadow their thinking “the quality of the materials is not good enough, I haven’t tutored for long enough, who’s going to want to use my materials? I don’t use any additional tools for graphics, my materials don’t look nearly as great as other tutors’. There’s so many materials out there already, my materials would not be a valuable addition”. As a result, these negative thoughts prevent tutors from sharing their creations, quite possibly depriving their peers of excellent resources.

Don’t worry — you’re not alone. Creating something new and sharing it with others in your community is never easy at first, especially if you have certain presuppositions associated with sharing. We get you — setting up PrepYourLesson definitely wasn’t easy for us! However, there are a couple things that you can do to overcome this fear.

1. Start with something small and trusty — do you have an English workbook that you created some time ago but are particularly proud of and frequently use with your students? You can start by uploading it to PrepYourLesson. Once you start getting your first downloads you’ll be more confident about building your tutor profile and posting more materials.
2. Learn from others — no, we’re not encouraging plagiarism, silly. If you find that you’re stuck and are feeling unsure about what materials to create your materials, getting a little inspiration from your peers’ work might help you overcome creators’ block. Loved those Thanksgiving-themed worksheets your favorite tutor-influencer posted? Try creating some yourself on the same topic.
3. Upload regularly. Make sharing your work with others a routine — once you get into the habit of sharing your materials, you’ll find that you feel a lot more sure of presenting your work to other tutors. Any doubts you had surrounding the quality of your materials will start to evaporate.
   

Remember, everyone has their ‘first time’. Whatever you decide to upload, it may not be perfect, but it will help you get started on a journey that can ultimately be extremely rewarding. All it takes is a couple clicks to start something new.