Social Noise Steals the Fuel to Do Extraordinary Stuff
When I was a kid, I wasn’t looking for my direction. No one said to follow my passion. I was a kid. I was on a quest to be extraordinary.
When I was a kid, I wasn’t bombarded with information from every dimension. My social circle was small. Now I have more social network passwords than the number of connections I had when I was kid.
Everyone seems to doing more than I am. Everything seems to be growing faster than anyone could manage to follow. Conversations bifurcate, trifurcate, and splinter off in bit and pieces. Sorting value from spam isn’t always a case of checking whether it came from a friend.
Ideas get kicked around like a soccer ball on the field where I hang out. I’m following echoes down trap of social media noise and deafening conversation straining to hear what my friends are saying.
In the process, I’m losing my own voice.
And the social noise is unraveling my passion one thread at time.
Sheer exhaustion steals the inspiration and the direction that I had when the day began.
Is Social Noise Unraveling Your Quest?
It’s a challenge to stay calm when the screen is always updating and we’re always chasing the next link or headline that shows up. Curiosity takes fuel to run. And every generous spirit who does a good turn or sends a good wish seems to be calling us to return a good one now then. Do you find that after some time on Twitter or Facebook, your head needs a long, cool transition? It only makes sense that all of that fragmented data makes a brain want some time to sort.
The social interaction can undermine the strongest determination we have to move forward by using it all just to keep up with what’s going on. Is social noise unraveling your quest?
Do you lose track of the kid in you who wants to do extraordinary stuff?
Here’s my recipe for getting past the noise and distraction and back to doing extraordinary stuff.
I turn it off.
In a minute of silence, I remember my quest.
When I look out the window or stand and stretch, it gets easier to tune into my resolve.
Knowing where you’re going is irresistibly attractive.
It also fuels the noble cause.
Passion needs direction, or it gets lost.
How do you keep the social noise from unraveling your quest?
Be irresistible.
–Me “Liz” Strauss
I took a month off of Twitter for just this reason! Cleaned, gardened, spoke with loved ones, visited mom… And didn’t tweet about it. Now, am working to restore the balance between being there for the conversation when it matters and listening to myself when I need me to be there for me. It will be a delicate balancing act that requires me to listen much more closely to my body. When my shoulders are tense, I bite my nails or I just feel scatterbrained, it’s time to weed or wash a few dishes or just stretch and shake it out. Only then I can hear myself, again, and from that centered place, contribute better to this vital, global conversation. 🙂
Love it. Yes, good reminder that to be our best we need disconnect from the noise, social noise included.
To much information consumption or multitasking definitely decreases my focus and creativity; and ability to make fast decisions and move on.
Liz, this post could not have come at a more appropriate time for me. Were you in my head, heart and life today?
I’ve been online for just over a year, and followed all the “guru and expert” advice about engaging, commenting, following, responding to, supporting, sharing, ad infinitum.
You know what I’ve found? I spend more time sharing the voices of those I’ve connected with, to the detriment of my own voice. That will change. Today.
I do “turn it off”, and will continue to do so. But more importantly, I need to re-prioritize. I need to share my own voice more, and if that means less time sharing others’ works, (and potentially losing their “favour”), so be it.
That being said, I’ll be sharing your post extensively:) My direction is clear. I am a writer. I will write more, and concern myself less with chasing, catching up and keeping up online. The kid in me will do extraordinary stuff. Cheers! Kaarina
I totally agree with Kaarina…you’ve voiced what many of us are feeling as usual, Liz!
I’ve adopted a weird new way of “cleansing my palate.” It involves reading fiction again. I picked up the first book of the Game of Thrones series. That’s the fastest way I know to get away from the social media noise!
I’ve taken a kind of sabbatical where I’m still active on social media, just not to the extent I was. I was busy with work but really it was because I couldn’t have the extra layer of distraction from that work. But I miss it and am seeing the need to be more involved again, so now I’m making daily time for some form of exercise, with yoga at the core. It’s helping me maintain perspective as well as calm!
My experience with Social noise overload is a feeling of breathlessness: like I’m running as fast as I can in a maze, where there are doors and corners everywhere that I must explore.
I’m finding that every time something new happens, I rush to make sure I understand it as fast as I can…so I can be ready for the next new thing.
It’s exhausting (but I must admit, a bit exciting, too).
To cope with the overload, this is what I’ve begun trying to do: Friday night around 6pm I start what I call “Internet Shabbot” and for 24 hours, I do not look at any Social Media, open only personal emails (and sometimes not even those), and basically live in “screenless” world. It’s wonderful. I can’t always accomplish it, but when I do, I notice the world outside the Internet…and it’s pretty nice.
That’s how I’m coping!
Great ideas!
I like what Chris Brogan has done–he takes Sunday to send out an email to his newsletter list. It is much more intimate and feels so much warmer than trying to connect during the busy weekdays. I started sending to my list on weekends and then making my weekday mornings more about quietly catching up with my work for the day and working on the fiction book I have been meaning to finish for the past two years.
Yes, Melissa!
I’ve found the same thing works for me … for the same reasons and in the same ways. 🙂