Focus on Communication vs. Outcome

How often are you sharing content with certain people and reactions in mind?

I’m going to guess every time you hit publish.

We really want to share what our followers care about because we’re hyper-focused on external validation. But how often do we really know what our followers are thinking before we hit publish?

Whether the goal is more followers, exciting reactions, or having people perceive us a certain way, none of these things are truly in our control.

We can be so outcome-driven that we forget how to truly share from a place of authenticity.

Take your personal account for example. Do you ever find yourself searching for a few people’s names every time you share something? Or do you find yourself holding back on something you feel called to share because you’re afraid of the reactions?

Both personal and professional accounts are for sharing from a true, authentic place. If you are aligning fully with what a few followers want, are you still aligning with yourself as a person?

Don’t get me wrong – part of the strategy is absolutely appealing to your followers.  Content is meant to start a conversation. It’s meant to attract specific people and repel others. But attracting and repelling starts with you and your intentions every time.

While your audience is important, you are equally important. Stop putting yourself on the back burner. That self-sacrifice is unavoidable at times, but it becomes a habit the less we notice we’re doing it. This is equally important for life and content creation.

Get out of patterns of putting others’ opinions first and you’ll find more motivation and less resistance to tasks. Let’s get out of this mindset by taking a look at our patterns and becoming more intentional.

Four questions to ask yourself and your content manager:

1. Who is the person I tend to look out for when I share something? Why?
2. Who would I be super excited to see engaging with my post?
3. If I were posting without any outcome in mind, would I make any edits?
4. Does this align with who I am as a person? Can I tweak the language to make it sound more like me?

If someone else writes your copy and/or publishes your social, email, and blog content, ask them these questions as well and see if your answers go well together.

The psychology behind this is absolutely there. Whoever is hitting publish has to feel confident in what they’re posting – otherwise it’s likely to sound wishy-washy or come from a “please let people interact with this” mentality.

If you find yourself holding back, identify the reasons.

A few reasons I’ve held back sharing in the past:

• What if this person sees my post and thinks I’m weird?
• What if they disagree with what I’m posting?
• What if no one likes or comments?

If you take a step back and pay attention to your intentions while sharing, you’ll be surprised thoughts come up. It’s time to challenge some of these thoughts and habits in order to attract the people that will gain the value you’re creating and have our own back in the process. The more authentic you can be, the more your audience will resonate – guaranteed.

Don’t be afraid to repel people. When I’ve asked clients who they want their content to resonate with, the answer has been “everybody.” Of course we want everyone to like us and what we’re doing, but it’s simply not possible. It also doesn’t allow you to get to know who you’re speaking to on a deeper level. It causes you to speak more in generalities and by doing that, it’s hard to build geunine connection and understanding.

The truth is that you have so much value to add to the world. So quit sharing out of fear of opinions and start sharing from your soul.