Sorry for the long silence. Over the last few weeks, I’ve been fighting off a nasty case of blogger burnout. I haven’t been writing much, or checking email, Facebook or Twitter. I’m slowly getting back into the swing of things now – thank you to everyone who sent me concerned messages and emails.
I wish I could tell you that this long hiatus was planned and purposeful, but that’s not exactly true. Originally, I planned to take a day or two away from blogging to recharge – but those few days turned into a week, and a week or two after my last blog entry. What do you do when you feel burned out? I have a tendency to retreat into my own head and my own space for long periods of time. I’m not sure whether that’s good or bad.
One of the reasons I’ve been feeling so burnt out was the pressure of living up to the personal brand I’ve worked to build. Every time I sat down to write a new post or respond to an email, I agonized over every word, trying to make it fit this image I’ve constructed of myself
– so shouldn’t I be writing about great and important issues and doing great and important things in my life? But my goals are a work in progress, and often I feel lost and discouraged. Sometimes I make plans and never fulfill them, or give up at the wrong time. Can I write about that stuff on a blog like this?
And what about other topics? Like politics, technology, family, books? Can I write more about those – or should I stay 100% “on message?”
Mentally, I know these are strange questions to ask. It’s my blog; I can write about whatever the hell I want. But sometimes it sure doesn’t feel that way. Yes, I own and run this site, but it’s not mine alone. When you read, comment, question, or criticize, you become part of it too.
It’s also hard to write when you know that friends (both online and off) and family – people you know and who know you – will be reading your words. In some ways, it’s easier to write for strangers. Less pressure.
Maybe part of the problem is this fixation on having a Personal Brand. We’re told that a strong personal brand helps you get job offers and book deals and special access and more Twitter followers, which is all well and good – but sometimes naming something means disconnecting it from ourselves, making it something foreign, faraway, detached. We concoct this separate image of ourselves (one that we think is attractive, insightful, promotable, hireable), put it out there, then work desperately to live up to it. Our personal brands devolve into sets of rules that chafe and bind and weigh us down.
Hold on a second, you might say. A good personal brand should be authentic, not artificial. And you’d be right. But if that’s the case, why talk about a personal brand at all? Wouldn’t it be less misleading to simply talk about sharing you, instead of branding you? A brand is something corporate; a veneer of sorts to tie all the inner workings of a company up in a neat little PR-able package. But we’re people, you and I, not companies. It’s okay that we’re complicated, capricious, and often contradictory. It’s hard to cover all that in a polished little brand. And it’s exhausting as well.
Anyway, the the point(s) of all this:
Sorry I’ve been away for so long – I’m back now.
Thanks for sticking with me through all this.
Personal brands are tricky. Better to share yourself than brand yourself.
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