Published: November 16, 2021 by Sabrina Koumoin
TLDR: Your uniqueness can create a space for you. No one else has experienced YOUR life, the collective sum of YOUR thoughts, YOUR unique outlook on life, and all the distinct traits that make up who you are. So go out there and be yourself. Create the content you want to create and SHINE!
😬 The pressure and overwhelm
Lately there's been a big push for people to work on their personal brands and to create content for their respective industries. While the people who push for this are doing so with all the best intentions, building your personal brand and creating content can become overwhelming... quickly.
I know because I've experienced being on both sides of the equation. Sometimes I'm the one pushing people to share their journey and stories with others, and sometimes I'm the one who feels burnt out and exhausted with the whole personal brand thing and content creation.
It doesn't help that we all feel like we're at the mercy of social media algorithms.
I get you, because most of us are probably oscillating between these two extremes at any given point in time.
😪 PROBLEM: "There's so much content already, why does mine even matter?"
I realize that the reason we often feel so burnt out with sharing our journeys, writing blogs, and creating other forms of content online is because sometimes we're just not sure if it really matters in the grand scheme of things. What's the point of writing a blog post if you don't even know if people will read it? Why create a tutorial if there are already so many tutorials about a certain topic? Hearing about other creators growing exponentially fast can also leave us confused and wondering if what we're doing even matters in the first place.
💡SOLUTION 1: Realize that the person speaking is just as important as what's being said
Because it's so easy to consume information on the internet, it's easy to think that the voice behind the information doesn't matter anymore. This is true especially in technical fields like web development, where most of the time people are looking for specific answers to their questions and don't really seem to care about who's giving it. In the dev world we have websites like W3Schools and Stackoverflow that just give us what we need when we need it, and usually no one really cares about who shared it.
That means that no amount of anonymous information will replace the need for us to hear certain things from the people who matter to us. For example, if your family members say they love you, you will probably cherish their words more than if a stranger on the internet tells you the exact same thing. Another example would be your favorite influencer giving you some advice. Some people's words and opinions carry more weight in your life because you know them and care about what they have to say.
That's why you should never feel like just because someone is talking about the same topics as you, there's no point in sharing your content. People get to choose what resonates best with them, and that could be you. Though information may feel less personal, what's being shared or said is just as important as who's saying it.
🗺️ SOLUTION 2: Realize that distance exists even on the internet
Before the internet, most people could only interact with their local communities. As a result, it was easier to feel valued and to measure the impact that you would be having on people. If someone in Egypt wanted to teach others how to sing for example, they wouldn't think, "Oh well, there's no point in doing this because someone else in Ghana will reach them before I do." There was no notion of comparison on a massive scale because people only had a limited number of people they could interact with.
With the internet, however, we feel close to everyone and far from everyone at the same time.
So it's very easy to fall in the trap of thinking, "Well, there are 1001 relationship coaches on social media, I have no chance" or "Everyone makes reels and Tiktoks for their business, mine would just be drowned in the lot".
But guess what? That's not true.
Understanding what distance looks like on the internet can help us realize that even if 1000 people are doing what you do your input still matters. Distance on the internet refers to how easily a person can find a piece of content without actually seeking it out.
- Most people don't follow everyone on the planet so they can't see all the content being created everywhere
- Everyone still has 24hrs a day which means we can't all possibly know everything about a topic
- People prefer certain forms of content over other forms
- What seems obvious to you is not always obvious to others
- People typically only see what's shared with them, and most don't go out of their way looking too hard
- Think about the tweets you retweet or the posts you bookmark on social media. Are they always new information ? Probably not. This proves that there is value in reminding others of things they already know. Not everything you create has to be novel. By just being at the right place at the right time, you could inspire someone and invite them into your digital space.
There are people right in front of you that you can impact. Digitally speaking, you could be closer to a lot more people than you realize. If you have food to feed people close to you, don't let them go hungry because you assume they will be fed by someone somewhere else. The internet still involves people and wherever people go, communities are formed. Focus on building your community and seeing the people in front of you as who they really are, and not just numbers on a screen.
💡Our uniqueness is the great equalizer
Your uniqueness can create a space for you.
