Imagine this: Your palms are sweaty. Your heart is beating fast. Your legs feel like jelly, and your stomach is full of butterflies. Whatever you’re about to do, you’re extremely nervous about it.
Actress Maisie Williams — you probably know her from a little show called Game of Thrones — is no stranger to that feeling. You might think, “What? There’s no way she gets anxious! She’s so famous and talented!”
That’s definitely what I thought at first. But it turns out, Maisie deals with nerves just like the rest of us. She recently gave a fantastic TED Talk, but she felt just the way I described earlier the whole time she was on stage.
Despite her massive talent and world-wide acclaim, Maisie Williams experiences fear and anxiety just like anybody else. But she’s developed an awesome perspective on anxiety that helps her own her identity and thrive.
In fact, at different times in her life, Maisie has even experienced really low self-esteem and even self-hatred:
“… sometimes I would be with people and talking, and I would say ‘I hate myself.’ It’s just because thoughts in my head [were] getting overwhelming that I would just say [them] out loud and not realize that I had done that. … I felt very negatively about myself.” – Maisie Williams
In our interview, Maisie and I get real. We talk about where anxiety comes from and the low self-esteem that a lot of young women face. We get into identity and discuss the importance of embracing who you are. And we talk about the power of self-care and the importance of looking into yourself for love and validation instead of finding those things in external sources.
Maise Williams is an incredible inspiration to me, and I know she’s going to inspire you too, so let’s dive in!
Who Is Maisie Williams?
Maisie Williams is one of the most acclaimed actresses of her generation. She earned a major role in HBO’s Game of Thrones when she was just 14 years old, and she’s been acting ever since. She’s been showing us her talent for becoming different characters on screen for over 10 years, so she definitely knows what it’s like to grow up on camera!
Maisie has even won awards for her work on Game of Thrones, including a Primetime Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Series. She’s a real talent and a true inspiration to a young generation.
Besides being a prolific actress, Maisie is passionate about creating great original content. She’s getting ready to launch her own podcast called Thinking Big with Maisie Williams. The podcast will feature up-and-coming creative people and will explore their childhood dreams, present career successes, and future goals. I know I’m looking forward to listening!
And finally, Maisie is also getting ready to launch a very special website. In fact, it’s her very own social media platform called Daisie just for creative people to meet each other and find networking opportunities. I’ll let her explain it:
“People always say, ‘if you want to be in the industry, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.’ And I think when you know nobody that’s kind of a very jarring thing to hear. So, I wanted to create like a social media platform for artists and creative people to be able to discover … other people across industries and collaborate with them on projects … that they want to build.” – Maisie Williams
Maisie is passionate about her work. She loves creating spaces for artists and creators to come together, build new relationships, and make awesome stuff. I’m so excited to see what the future of Daisie will be!
Maisie also just loves helping people. She said it herself in our interview — her superpower is empathy. Maisie has a unique skill for understanding the way humans think and feel, and I want to honor her for sharing that talent with the world today.
Maisie’s insights and wisdom about owning your identity despite anxiety are valuable for all of us, and I’m so excited to get to share them with you today. Let’s go!
Who Are You (Really)?
When you’re an actress, it can be hard to know who you really are. Maisie has been playing characters on TV since she was a kid, and as a result, she’s experienced times of doubt about her identity.
“I think as an actor you spend your life playing like a character … like I’ve been doing for about a decade, and you know there are times when I feel like I am putting all like character and portraying a version of myself, but I think there’s nothing that’s more terrifying than like truly being yourself, and I get very anxious about a lot of things.” – Maisie Williams
But here’s the thing: Maisie doesn’t think this is a problem only professional actors and actresses face. She believes that all of us are pretending to be someone all the time, especially on social media.
“And I think it’s really the act of … creating a character, of pretending. I think … people live their entire lives pretending to be someone they’re not. … People don’t really know who they are, and you do that for so long that you really lose touch with who you are.” – Maisie Williams
So how can you discover who you really are? How can you embrace your true identity? For Maisie, it was essential to come to terms with the thing about herself she was trying to hide the most: her anxiety.
“I am a very anxious person, and I don’t know if there’s a way to fix that about myself. I’ve definitely tried. [I’ve] gone through therapy, and I’ve been medicated, and I’ve tried a lot of different things. But I think the best … medicine I was ever given was really just [trying] to embrace it and stop trying to fight it really and just accepting that’s how I deal with things and not letting it stop me from doing a TED Talk.” – Maisie Williams
Maisie has anxiety, and she knows it. She has moments of major panic. But instead of continuing to try to hide behind a mask of false confidence, she embraces that anxiety is just how she processes things.
She isn’t ashamed of herself! She just focuses on doing what she wants to do — like giving that TED Talk or performing in a play on stage in London — and deals with the anxiety when it comes instead of trying to ignore its existence. Confidence doesn’t mean an absence of self-doubt. It means pushing through in spite of that self-doubt to achieve greatness.
Are you hiding behind a mask? What parts of yourself have you been covering up? Choose to embrace your true identity and enjoy the freedom that comes with loving yourself!
