Why do we (mostly) post just the positive on social media?
Daryl Woodhouse
I lead teams to safely improve performance through strategy, planning, & culture change with a smile & life-work balance | Award-winning Leader | Executive Coach | Speaker | 187+ testimonials ????
Someone I know mentioned this a few weeks ago, and I've been pondering possible answers since. I'd love to hear your viewpoints in the comments thread below.
There might be different answers for business social media use versus personal use.
One of my theories is that maybe we are ashamed or embarrassed to share some of our problems publicly. Maybe we are fairly private as a person and assume others don't want to hear our 99 problems. After all, on a daily basis we all have stress and challenges to overcome, right?
Possibly we want to be positive and inspiring to others in our social media reach rather than appearing to be negative.
Maybe it's something else?
As a person who aspires to be the best they can in life and work for myself, my family, friends, colleagues and clients, I try daily to do as much as I can for as many people as possible, although I had a rough start to this week. I failed to achieve a 'Post Weekend EPIC' for various reasons occurring in a short time frame, here are just a few of them:
- I was worried about the 15-year-old boy whom I helped into an Ambulance after he suffered a 90-minute seizure from being violently assaulted in front of other families at a public swimming pool by two 16-year olds because he wouldn't give them one of his sweets (WTH!)
- There has been a lot of work to do this month - more than usual, mostly for good reason with our main business going well, whilst we simultaneously plan and launch several new companies to expand our portfolio
- I've been looking after my three children for the weekend and first half of this week. I love every second with them, even if it reduces my available working hours, although as all parents will appreciate; it is hard graft to keep them all healthy, clean and happy!
- My eldest son as a health issue at the moment which involves taking a long time to get him to sleep, which massively reduces my post kids bed time house tidy and business laptop work time
- As we near the end of the school year, this week was parents evening, a school concert and a fundraising event where I volunteer for my youngest son's pre-school
- My clients needed me! Various growth curve challenges and in particular people issues which can be mentally draining with delicate effort required to overcome them in the best way for all involved
With all the above going on this week it's been fun albeit hard work with not enough waking hours in the day, which in turn worsened my sleep volume and quality = grumpy, tired Daryl.
I planned to take this Friday off to celebrate my birthday although having taken on too much in the same week, last night I was particularly stressed and anxious. After a helpful ear and help from my fiancée, we agreed to postpone the surprise birthday plans she had planned for me on Friday.
That gave me a much-needed extra office day back to get on top of everything, and I grabbed a fresh time planning sheet to map out and re-prioritise my to do list, so I felt more in control and organised again. After not making it to the gym for a few days, I then went for a 5km run along the river to further clear my head, followed by a quick gym session to come back buzzing and full of energy again!
As a result, I slept really well last night, went to the gym again early morning and am smashing my re-prioritised to do list to be back on track before the weekend = happy, relaxed Daryl is back and I am more likely to perform my best for everyone around me.
In summary, I've shared a whole load of stresses and worries above, and probably bored many readers. However I hope it is 'real' for you, and that I have hopefully finished with a positive example for the importance of taking time out from the crazy, to re-group. Such always involves being realistic, patient and balanced across exercise, nutrition, accepting help, good sleep, time to not work, quality work over quantity and so on.
So, what do you think? Should we share the negatives too, or should we just stick to sharing the positives on social media? I'd love to hear your views with the why in the comments thread below and wish you an EPIC day!
Daryl Woodhouse. Business Leader, Mentor, Associate Lecturer and Executive Coach
https://www.darylwoodhouse.com/ & https://advantagebusinessltd.com/
Senior Commercial Manager
5 年I made a conscious effort to separate my personal & business social media many years ago. I think they fulfil different functions and meet different needs in my life. I believe that showing a little vulnerability is not such a bad thing as it illustrates authenticity and engenders trust. I think it is important to find the positive in any situation, however unlikely , as this encourages resilience too
CEO @ Hypothesis3 | Fractional CTO | GenAI + Web3
5 年You did it just right - 1) you've shown that as a human being you've got a lot of challenges and problems as we all do 2) but then you demonstrated that with the strong character and positive attitude you can always overcome all of them and get back to the positive. I think we all have ups and downs, but the best of us never accept to stuck in the negatives for a long time, and that is inspirational for those who are not so strong yet. "Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts."
MD at Wildside UK Productions Ltd
5 年Definitely share negatives otherwise we all look super human and nobody is that. We’re mostly just ordinary people trying to do the best we can. Also, without things going wrong, failures, disappointments, how would we ever learn. Sharing those times when things don’t quite go according to plan is also a great way for others to also learn from your mistakes. Actually, helping the boy that was beaten up is hardly a failure, it’s more of a super hero moment.
CEO FLC. Delivering blended learning Advanced Communication Skills Training within the NHS
5 年Hi Daryl. Just read your post and then realised who’s it was. I have been thinking about writing about a workshop I did recently that I felt went horribly. The experience taught me a lot about myself as a trainer, about group dynamics and reminded me to always model what im teaching. I felt I learned a lot and pondered what do I learn when it goes well? Not as much!! I am going to put my experience and my learning on Linkedin as being vulnerable is definitely something else I have learned recently, it help to ground me, helps other to relate to me and makes life feel more rewarding. You have inspired me to do it, so thank you Daryl.
Operations Manager - Fisterra Co
5 年Thank you for the honesty, as a generally quite grumpy, often anxious person it was refreshing to read the reality of your challenges rather than just the "I'm smashing it, look at me go!" type of posts we often see on here.? Humanity....is that you?!? So often I feel like everyone else is just doing it better than I can!??