I might’ve unsubscribed from your blog recently. You might want to think about unsubscribing from mine, too. Here’s why.
First, some context about me {and maybe about you, too}:
- I’m a creative solopreneur {for the purposes of this post, I’ll assume you’re one, too}, one whose business is mostly online and is doing this because despite what the world would tell us, we believe we can do our Thing in this world our way and create a far deeper and greater impact than we could do any other way.
- We consume a lot of information every day/week in the form of blog posts, e-books, e-courses, videos, audios, podcasts, e-newsletters.
- We deeply respect and value the contributions of others and enjoy engaging with multiple points of view, so much so that sometimes others’ voices start to encroach on our own.
- We’re thinkers and highly creative people. We value original creation, inner knowing {also called intuition}, inspiration, and infusions of new sensitivity to our next direction. Our minds spin continuously around the pinwheel of all that is hot for our consideration.
And so, this can mean that our minds can get a bit overcrowded. Our vision can get blurry. Mish-mash-y. Not so brilliantly honed, especially when we don’t protect them from too much incoming. If you identified with most of the bullet points above, I know you know what I’m talking about.
This is where I am lately. I’m always seeking to make keener entrepreneurial moves and I’ve observed that too much input, as radically awesome as that input may be, is not helpful toward that end. In short, reading too much of other people’s stuff hampers the generation of my own. Can you relate?
I’ve decided that to counteract the blur and hum and white noise of so much information consumption, I’ve got to winnow down what I take in.
So I’ve started the wave of unsubscription from many blogs, some of them ones I’ve been reading for quite a while.
A lot of what I’m stopping reading is very good stuff. Stuff I know I could learn from. Stuff from people I adore, or at least like a lot.
I’m even tempted to unsubscribe from ProBlogger right now, except that, you know, it’s ProBlogger.
And yes, I’m mightily concerned that I’m going to miss great stuff from other people, and miss out on participating in some great conversations.
But I’m even more concerned that I’ll miss my own great message. And when all’s said and done, that’s what we entrepreneurial folk are in search of, right?
The point of this post is to say that blog unsubscriptions — whether it’s me who unsubscribed or someone else — is very often not about you at all.
It might not be your content. It might not be your personality. It might not be that your brand jumped the shark. It might not even be that the reader is not your right person.
It might be, after all, just the timing. The reader may be fatigued. The reader may feel jaded. The reader may be personal or business crisis-ing and simply wish to stop all incoming. The reader may be earlobe-deep in a hot project of his own and just not interested in much else right now.
Don’t assume that an unsubscription means your stuff isn’t up to snuff.
Timing, sometimes, is everything.
So what did I keep incoming, you may be wondering? Here’s a short list of the characteristics that are feeding me right now, right where I’m at:
more personal discovery and creative development oriented than business strategy/tactic oriented; strong, compelling voice that I’m somewhat addicted to; blogger has personal, creative, and professional qualities that I aspire to develop in myself; unexpected post topics {not the usual “7 Ways To..” and “How To…” posts we see so many of — and yes, I’ve written some myself!}.
Have you ever been so up-to-your-earlobes-in-incoming that you’ve decided to winnow down? How did you decide which blogs to unsubscribe from and which to keep savoring? Let’s talk about it in the comments.
And by the way, thanks for reading this blog. I know just how precious your time and brain space is.
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Hello, you.