I recently attended a very useful course with Charlotte at the Palm Tree Club. Charlotte is not only intimidatingly gorgeous, she is insightful and lovely. And also managed to remind me that I need to think about my business as a whole, not just the get-the-work-done, get-the-work-done treadmill.
The two most valuable things I took away, although I’m not sure if this was the intention, is that it’s useful to have short, medium and long term goals and also to sort my social media out. Social media, hmm.
Facebook. I love seeing what my friends and family are up to, as well as keeping up with current business news. My personal use is mainly to keep in touch with friends who now live far away and occasionally share photos of the family that I consider cute. But then the worry begins. That photo is only a millisecond snapshot in time. Take my recent personal Facebook post to the left:
Sweet, eh? I do clarify in the comments that the sweetness lasted about 30 minutes before Dave got feisty, the children brought half their bedrooms outside to make it “more comfy” and the demands for snacks and drinks began.
The further backstory to it is that the blanket was in the garden because the cat, who shall now be referred to as Idiot Dave, had recently brought in a live mouse which had taken up residence in my office. Not only did the mouse avoid all (three) traps over three days, it was removing the bait from them and leaving them unsprung. Argh. My germphobe tendencies were in overdrive. So in what can only be described as a cross between Tom and Jerry and the Benny Hill Show, everything was taken out of the room into the garden to catch the bleeping thing. Me, my parents, my children all trying to catch one extremely speedy, quite small mouse. My parents were helping because my husband was working.
Life isn’t all peachy and glossy with angelic children playing Famous Five style. Don’t get me wrong, it’s pretty darn good and I love it but Facebook and Instagram with their glamour are not always real life. And I want to make sure that not only my children grow up realising that but also anyone out there who might be having a hard day can see that although a photo can look amazing, it’s not really the whole picture.
Now, I’m going to have to try to tie this in to the business somehow. Well, my short-term goal was to clear my working space – now achieved, boom! The cleanest and most disinfected it‘s ever been! And also, the realisation that I don’t have to feel fake in my quest to successfully maintain my business profile via Facebook or LinkedIn – my qualifications, experience and personality make me competent and successful at what I do and as long as my posts reflect this, that is enough.