What I Learned From Writing Online: It DOES make a difference

Preface: This is an entry for Robert Hzurek’s September writing project, hosted by Middle Zone Musings. I have showcased Robert’s monthly efforts here before, and will likely continue to do so, for he has our magic, magnetic word in them – learning!

There seems to be a kind of convergence brewing in our blogging communities: Here at JJL we have focused our September Forum on Making A Difference. Over on Great Circle, Pete Aldin and company are going to War. Many bloggers are gearing up for Blog Action Day on October 15th. Then last week, this came from Robert Hzurek: Don’t Just Sit There, Change Something!

“So, your challenge, should you decide to accept it, is to a) make a change (big or small, no matter - as long it gets you out of a comfort zone), then b) write about your experience (sure, maybe you just started, but so what?) So, just tell me about what you did, why you did it, and what happened; you know, that sort of thing.”

What does it all mean?

This convergence I refer to seems to be a restlessness, a need for all this reading and writing we do to mean something – a difference, a call for change, for real and tangible action as opposed to just gathering ideas, writing posts or essays about them, and then … nothing beyond yet another round of essays for another month ... another theme ... another march of days spent writing about more ideas unfulfilled.

Well, this is what I have learned: Stuff does happen offline, and in the “real world” because of triggers that were written online, catapulting someone to action. Real stuff, meaningful to someone. Just because you don’t always hear back about it doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.

You have to write for the possibility.

When you write something online, whether in a guest posting, or within a comment, bravely willing to share, and give voice to your ideas, stuff happens.

How do I know? Two ways;

1) It happens to me.

I make dozens of small incremental changes every week because of something I read online. Things resonate and I just do them. At the time they may not seem particularly profound, but eventually I realize they have become transformational for me in a bit by bit kind of way.  However the moment has long passed for me to connect it back to a particular idea, post, or author. The author will never know because I will never comment, not because I am shy in doing so, but because I needed the time delay for the connection to happen, and the moment has simply passed us both by.

However, if that author had not written what they did, and if I had not read it, and allowed it to sink into my consciousness, my personal actions may never have happened. I am very grateful that they took the time to write, trusting that their words possibly may matter, for they did.

2) I have gotten better in connecting the dots.

People will send me an email, or walk up to me after a speech or class and say “when you said …” and it slowly dawns on me that the thing I “said” wasn’t just said at that event – it was actually in one of my newsletters or within one of my articles.

People don’t always reference their point of views in conversations; they just jump into them – we’ve all had those situations where we walk away from speaking with someone, and we’re thinking to ourselves, gee, I wonder where that came from?

What I’ve learned from writing online, is that halleluiah! —it actually may have come from me! Finishing the “conversation” I started with someone has just happened on their timetable and not mine. I’ve gotten better in connecting these dots because I’ve started to ask myself another question; gee, I wonder why they chose to share that with me?

Don’t Just Sit There, Change Something!

So getting back to Robert’s question, this is how I have made a change, just doing so this past month, starting on August 1st. I previously mentioned it here within my Rapid Fire Learning for August:

I unlearned Talking Story this month, by creating a brand new site I have called Managing with Aloha Coaching. All month long I have been unlearning three years worth of blogging habits, and creating some new online writing ones. … What Talking Story helped me learn was exactly who I was writing for online, or to be more accurate, who would eventually narrow down all their web-surfing choices and keep reading me. I now believe that I have two different audiences, with a few people reading both MWAC and JJL, but for the large part I now write differently there and here and have tried to stop blending as I used to, in my desire to be "more true" to one audience or the other, and seeking to write better for both.

For both MWAC and JJL (though particularly so at MWA Coaching) I have started to write expecting that people take action; with or without me doesn’t matter, the action itself is what matters. I have learned to trust more, trusting in decision-making that may happen after the fact and completely without me. I have learned to be happy – to be joyful and jubilant even – in being a trigger for someone and perhaps nothing more. I have learned that I can make a difference, and that if I keep writing I will, even if no one ever gives me the satisfaction of knowing I did. I will know.

To Change the World, you have to Know you can.

Don’t get me wrong; I still love comments and welcome them (Joanna Young just shared some wonderful encouragement here: Learn the power of we), but I no longer get bummed out about not getting them. I’ve also gotten less selfish; it no longer has to be about me, and fulfilling my own need to be a coach, or to have feedback. I’ve learned to feel better about being a trigger and then backing away to give people their private action spaces. What I am trying to learn now, is how to be a better trigger.

Comfort Zones and Triggers

I think the key words in Robert’s challenge to us are these: “as long it gets you out of a comfort zone.” That is how change happens, for as the saying goes, if you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’re going to get what you’ve always gotten.

When you write to trigger, you push people to the edges of their comfort zones, and in writing online, you have to learn to be okay with looking away for a moment, and afford readers some self-reflective time, and some privacy.

People may have gotten out of their comfort zone, but in the beginning, and up until they log some small, incremental successes they can talk about, they’ll do so privately. They are not going to trumpet that they’ve done so, and get on your radar, unless they are extremely secure about dealing with any chance of failure. “Fail forward,” “Learn from your mistakes,” ... however you couch it, at the time you try them, your struggling through new ideas can get uncomfortable, and you don’t want others to witness your embarrassment. That’s so understandably human; we all can empathize.

Being a “better trigger” is writing enough for them to go on, and being more responsible about what you might present as fact versus conjecture.

It’s also about learning to go the distance. This was not a quick change for me; it took me three years of writing at Talking Story to realize it was time to let it go, and to change; there was to be no more “talking story” … at least not there. And honestly, I prefer having faith in the offline action, messy mistakes and all. Learning to trust in that happening is much more satisfying than talking about it.

I suppose it’s about forging ahead with leadership. It’s about being a leader who demonstrates persistence when they know their ideas can make a difference, and that somewhere, sometime, they really and truly will.

Change Something. Make A Difference.

Share your voice in our September forum, or in Robert’s. The more the merrier. You can learn to make a difference by writing online too.

You have an idea just begging to be heard. I know it. Now do something about it.
~ Rosa Say

Comments

[Joanna Young]

Rosa, it's late and I don't have time to respond properly but I just wanted to stop and say "yes".

Absolutely.

Our writing can and does change things.

Your writing, your coaching on-line does change things (it has in this neck of the woods anyway...)

This for me is the crux of it:

"You have to write for the possibility."

And when you do - your writing changes, your writing changes you, and your writing changes... well, who knows just what changes it might bring.

Joanna

[Rosa Say]

Thank you Joanna! I so appreciate the encouragement you continue to give so generously. As much as I have come to believe every word I wrote here, getting the feedback more immediately like this, when someone takes the time to comment, is so sweet!

[dave]

While there are many points here that stand out Rosa,

"You have to write for the possibility."

...just leaps from the page at me!

So inspiring. Good call Joanna!

[Robert Hruzek]

Rosa, I just love this statement: "You have to write for the possibility." There are so many meanings just waiting to be born from that one!

You're right about the convergence, too - it's something you and Joanna and I felt, along with a few others too, like Pete Aldin, Phil Gerbyshak... There's something in the air this month, that's all I can tell.

I can't wait to see how the month plays out, can you? :-)