Are you letting others see your authentic YOU? They want to see who you BEEE! They want to see and hear you!
Have you ever wondered why your friends look at your feed? Chances are, they want to see a little bit of you there. Are you showing that to them? Or have you hidden your own voice in the vast clutter of the other things you are sharing? Have you accidentally hidden your authentic self from your friends? How can they hear you if you aren’t there? There’s a simple trick to know if your self is hidden.
Ask yourself this question:
What’s Your Ratio of Original Content to Sharing Another Person’s Voice?
The answer can help you see how hidden you are - and then think more mindfully about what you share - in order to make sure that your true self shows through.
Your Original Voice with Original Posts
An original post is an image or words created out of the trueness of your own soul and your own being. It comes straight out of the goodness of your heart and your life. It might be an image of your pet, or a photo of a drawing you make, something you built - like an outdoor fire pit. It might be music you wrote and performed, or it might be words you personally write based on personal, one-on-one interactions with other people in your real-life world.
When you share original posts with the world - you are showing the world who you really are. What you were born to do, what you like to do - and how you bring your energy to your friends and the rest of the world world.
An original post is based on something you have experienced personally in your life in the physical world using all of your five senses. Here are five types of original posts:
You post a job accomplishment or personal triumph
You post a photo of an art piece that you created
You share your own blog post
You share a video of a performance that you saw
You post a photo of your pet
An original post could reveal anything - as long as you experienced it personally.
A simple way to visualize this is to calculate the ratio of your original posts to shares that you make of other voices. Taking a look at this number occasionally will give you awareness of how authentic you are being - so you can make choices on what you share, when and why.
If you have a beautiful child and you share 98 memes and one picture of your beautiful child, and one post of you making music - the friends that are watching your feed are probably wondering where YOU went. They can’t find your voice in the clutter of all the other voices.
The Ratio
Here’s a simple way to calculate the ratio:
Scroll back in your activity log on your social media site. On LinkedIn - that is Me—>Manage—>Posts and Activities
Go through your last ten posts
Assign a point if you shared a true original
No points for sharing anything like the following
Shared or liked a real world (non digital) friend’s true original post This is an example of amplifying the voice of someone you know personally. It’s not original content.
Shared or liked an original post that no one had shared before This is an example of supporting a small business owner or individual in one of their “original” thoughts. It’s not your original content.
Shared or liked a post where you have no personal knowledge of who created the original post. This is an example of amplifying something whose source you don’t truly know.
If you created 6 original posts out of 10, then your ratio is 60% original posts. You can count more than 10 posts if you want. If out of 57 posts you have 34 that are original content, then the ratio is 23 divided by 57 which is 40%.
What’s a healthy ratio? Approximately 70% should be original posts.
Try It
Play with this and practice being mindful about what you post.
On days that you post all original content - do you “feel” better than days you share non-original content?
Are you happier? Are you more centered?
Give it a try.
#DigitalMentalYoga #Mindfulness #AuthenticSelf #BeYourself #BeAuthentic