That moment right before I hit SEND on my email newsletter...

You know the one. It's like a cocktail of doubt and panic.

Will this sound dumb? Is it entertaining enough? Is it too long? Too short? Valuable enough? Did I miss a typo or break a link? What if people unsubscribe?

It's a weirdly vulnerable moment, right?

Here's the thing: that little surge of fear and doubt is completely normal. Most of us feel it — especially if you have perfectionistic tendencies. But pressing SEND despite that fear? That's the win.

When you send your newsletter, a lot of people are going to be genuinely delighted to hear from you — even if it's not perfect. And if someone unsubscribes? They're just not your people. That's not failure; that's just your list getting more accurate.

So how do we move past the fear and SEND with confidence? Here are three tips — with the actual mechanics behind each one:

1. Let someone else check it first.
Send your draft to a trusted friend or writer buddy before it goes out. Let them handle the tedious stuff — checking links, catching typos, flagging anything confusing. To make this sustainable (not a favor you're awkwardly asking every week), consider a standing swap: you check theirs, they check yours, same day each week. A fresh set of eyes is often all you need to feel less anxious — and having a system for it removes the friction of asking each time.

2. Send newsletters regularly, on a set cadence.
The more you send, the less intimidating it feels. No single email will make or break your career. But there's a specific reason regularity works: it lowers the stakes of any one email. If you send monthly, each newsletter carries the weight of "this is my one shot this month." If you send weekly or biweekly, one so-so email just becomes one data point in an ongoing relationship. Pick a cadence you can actually sustain, and let repetition do the confidence-building for you.

3. Give yourself a hard stop.
This is the fix for the "9th test email" problem specifically. Set a rule: two rounds of edits, max. Draft, one revision pass, one friend-check, send. If you don't give yourself a ceiling, perfectionism will happily eat unlimited time — because there's always one more tweak available. A hard stop isn't recklessness; it's what actually lets good-enough work reach your readers instead of dying in your drafts folder.

4. Remember: overcoming the fear is what sets us apart.
Anyone can draft a newsletter. Hitting SEND? That takes courage. And that's what makes you stand out — not perfect prose, but the willingness to show up imperfectly and consistently when most people won't.

So — stop tweaking, skip the 9th test email, and just SEND IT.

You've got this.

What's your biggest hurdle when it comes to sending newsletters? Let me know — I'd love to cheer you on.