Hear Crickets When You Post or Hit Send? See if this helps.
Feb 07, 2024Season 2Episode 2
Natalie Ross
Ever felt that sinking sensation when your latest social media post gets lost in the digital void, or your project doesn't receive the immediate applause you hoped for?
You're not alone.
This episode ventures into the heart of our common struggle, offering a fresh perspective that challenges the relentlessly marketed narrative of 'instant success.'
Ever felt that sinking sensation when your latest social media post gets lost in the digital void, or your project doesn't receive the immediate applause you hoped for?
You're not alone.
This episode ventures into the heart of our common struggle, offering a fresh perspective that challenges the relentlessly marketed narrative of 'instant success.'
I want to reframe the small acts of putting oneself out there for a moment, because I know that I struggle with this and I see so many other people struggling with putting out a podcast episode, sending out a newsletter, putting a post on social media, sending an email to invite someone to collaborate, sending a pitch to be on a podcast all these little actions that we might do to put ourselves out there, and then freaking out about the immediate response, whether that is a lack of response or a influx of response. And I know that in this day and age where social media and email and all these things can give us such seemingly instant feedback, it can feel like if the response isn't what you were hoping for in that exact moment, then the action was a failure or the action was not worth it or it didn't work. I see people struggling with posting to Instagram and then feeling defeated because their post didn't get that many likes or it didn't get anyone clicking on their link to work with them. Or someone posting, publishing a podcast episode and it not getting that many downloads in the first day or a few days or weeks, and freaking out about you know, this episode was so good, why didn't it get more downloads. So something to think about here is that just because we have all of this instant data, it doesn't mean that that's all that matters. I like to think of each of these little actions that we take as tending to the overall connections that we're building, that we're weaving.
Speaker 1:
And if you're a gardener, like I am, you know that when you plant a seed, it doesn't immediately sprout. When you apply fertilizer, it doesn't immediately send the plant to grow a new leaf overnight Not usually. Maybe there's some bamboos or something that you know grow two feet a day and then you can see it happening. But that's very unusual, right? And that's the same way with connection Connection. Connection can have an instant reaction. You can send out an email and get an instant reply and a response and a yes and an invitation. Or you can send out an email and not hear back for weeks or months and then, boom out of the blue, you hear back and there's this. It can be frustrating because it's so validating and motivating to have that instant feedback.
Speaker 1:
But I like to remember the garden. I like to remember about how, if I plant a seed as I've just done with some California poppy seeds here in my front yard. They're not going to sprout five minutes after I planted them. They're not going to sprout even a day or two days. They may not even sprout for a few weeks, depending on the weather, who knows. And when they do sprout, it's going to be a while before they actually bloom. And while I wouldn't recommend fertilizing California poppies, specifically because they can, you know, grow pretty robustly without fertilization, let's just imagine that if they were to sprout and I were to fertilize them, the impact of that fertilizer wouldn't be seen instantly. It wouldn't be like, oh my gosh, it just grew a foot overnight, or we just got 17 more flowers on it, or wow, look at that, how big that new leaf is.
Speaker 1:
These things take time, connection can take time, and connection is so much more than just the one instance of action, the one Post, the one episode, the one email, the one invitation. It's a constantly living, evolving, growing web of life with seen and unseen components, some of which are in our control and some of which are not. And that, I think, is something that helps me remember in those moments when I Hit publish or hit send and I'm like, oh, did I do? Good is a good wise and what I wanted to happen happening. I'm like, oh wait, wait, wait, wait, natalie, take a step back, let's reality check it to use a term my dear friend Naomi love likes to use and see, oh wait, okay, I did that one thing and and it's just Pete a piece of a bigger picture, a bigger garden that I'm tending, and I can't expect it to have that instant result just because the internet, just because the marketing mainstream Strategies told me that that's how it's supposed to work.
Speaker 1:
You know what connection has its own timeline, it has its own pace, and I find that the way that things come to me often happen in alignment with my own capacity, because connection is both exhilarating and can be overwhelming, and so I just want to offer that there's so much more happening. Then the immediate numbers, or response or lack of response. You know that that immediate response or lack of response is data, its information, and it's not the whole picture. Remember the garden, and perhaps, if you are not a gardener, you can think of Some other sort of process that takes time, where you start something and it's not immediately finished. This is the same with connection.
