How I Solved My Facebook Pollution Problem (Turns Out It Wasn’t Facebook That Was Polluted…)

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Maybe my view is totally off but here’s how I see the two environments of Twitter and Facebook…

I like Twitter for the large numbers of diverse connections and for the randomness of the conversation.  It’s like hanging out in line at Starbucks.  Sometimes you bump into a friend… sometimes you make a new one… sometimes the guy in line next to you is incredibly annoying but you know you won’t be in line for long.  And if he’s really annoying, you can “unfollow” on Twitter and *poof* he’s gone.  It’s not a big deal to unfollow because you probably didn’t really know him to begin with.

I like my Facebook experience to be more personal.  My family is there, old friends and classmates are there, and many from my various tribes are there.  And I am “friends” with a few people that I may never meet in person but I admire them and am curious to view what they share.  Many authors are particularly generous on Facebook.  I only send friend requests to people in whom I have a genuine interest.

In my research an article from Chris Brogan was one of the most helpful to me;  he uses the picnic analogy and has some great tips on using social media throughout his blog.  I love smart people who share.

All good, right?  Uh, no.  Here’s my confession.  I wasn’t having fun. I was learning a lot but I was getting very, well, rigid about my ideas for using social media.  In fact I was getting really torqued at people who didn’t share my view of these systems, specifically people who sent their prolific and terse Twitter tweets as Facebook updates.  As my grandmother would say, I was getting “pretty het up about it.”  I thought they were lazy.  I thought they were inconsiderate.  They were making me waste my time scrolling through all their inscrutable codes to get to “real” updates and find out what happened during a friend’s vacation or to read an update on someone’s illness.  I thought they were wrecking THEIR business by not understanding the subtleties of social media.  Why couldn’t they figure it out as clearly as people like Rhett Smith had?

I thought they were polluting my Facebook stream.  Pooping in the pool!

I certainly had a lot of opinions about their business, didn’t I???

My painful belief had become “They shouldn’t make me read their tweets.” By now you’ve probably already thought the obvious, “Laurie, why didn’t you just unfriend them or filter them out?”  I could; I might.  But I was paralytically stuck on “they shouldn’t.”  It was classic polluted thinking even if it was about something relatively trivial.  I thought I knew a better way and they should too!

Learning how to coach one’s self is a huge part of being an effective coach.  And it’s one of my favorite things to offer clients – the quickest way to work myself out of a job, in fact!  But if I’m stuck in my rigid thoughts, I can’t move ahead and I’m much less likely to be a strong resource for my clients – or myself.

I am happy to report that I took my own medicine. Here’s how I self-coached myself out of my Facebook Pollution dilemma.  This approach is a variation of “The Work” by Byron Katie that I learned from Martha Beck.

Step One:
Recognize the painful thought. Mine was “They shouldn’t make me read their tweets.“

Step Two:
Question the thought. Is it true that they shouldn’t make me read their tweets?  Absolutely! See above!

Is it always true?  Wellllll, sometimes they tweet something that is kind of interesting…  but it’s rare!  They should filter their tweets! Snap-back thoughts are usually proof to me that I’ve struck a rich vein.

Step Three:
How do I react when I think “They should make me read their tweets”?  I clench my jaw. I dread opening Facebook because I just know the offenders will be hogging the update feed.  I might even make snarky comments on Facebook.  My gut burns. (Did I mention that sharing this work with you feels embarrassing?  It does but I know from experience that the discomfort is well worth looking into the shadows.)

Step Four:
If I could never think the painful thought again, how would I react? I would enjoy Facebook more.  I wouldn’t feel judgmental.   I would enjoy being out of other people’s business.  This is starting to sound like something I might like!

Step Five:  (And this is where it gets really good…)
Look for “turn-arounds” of the original thought that could feel as true or truer than the original thought. So what are some “turn-arounds” for the original thought, “They shouldn’t make me read their tweets”?  Hmmm, “they SHOULD make me read their tweets.”  No, not better yet.  “They shouldn’t make ANYONE read their tweets.”  Yikes, worse than the original thought!  “I shouldn’t make me read their tweets.”  Oh my.  That’s what has really been happening.  And now I see that reality.  Aaaaah, relief.  A shiny gold thought if I ever had one. I shouldn’t make me read their tweets. Unfriend, filter, quit Facebook altogether.  I have lots of choices.  And after the self-coaching, I can actually implement a choice AND lose the pain.

Yes, I could have just taken the action before the self-coaching but I wouldn’t have lost the pain.  Yes, I could lose the pain and not take an action – but I know I’ll keep coaching myself into the right action for the moment.

What is an area where your polluted thinking is keeping you from taking an action?  Maybe it’s something trivial but you might be surprised at how much relief comes from even working on the trivial ones.

Peel a few away.  I’m always pleasantly surprised by what hatches.

Action Report: I learned how to create filter lists on Facebook.  Here’s how: In the upper left hand corner of Facebook, there is a list of options like “News Feed,” “Photos,” “Links,” etc.  There is also a tiny “Create” button under that.  When you click the Create button, it opens a window that will let you create a list and add friends to that list.  It’s a little time consuming when you create your first long list of all the people whose updates you DO want to see.   When you save the new list, it will appear in your buttons near News Feed.  I created a “View” list for everyone EXCEPT the people who like to include their tweets in their updates and I created a “No View” list for the people who ARE tweeting to FB.  This way, I don’t “make myself view their tweets” but I don’t have to unfriend them either.  I can occasionally check the No View list to see if they’ve changed their approach and then move them back to my View list.  Aaahhhh!  No pain and constructive, positive action!

Synchronicity Report: IMMEDIATELY after I finished writing this article but before I had posted it, I noticed that an interesting friend on Facebook had just disconnected her tweets from FB.  I’m so grateful because I look forward to enjoying her updates now and, hopefully, building a stronger relationship in the future, too.  Somehow, days and weeks of being annoyed didn’t create nearly the levels of change that clearing my polluted thoughts did.

This kind of synchronicity is the real reason I hope you’ll share something in the comments.  What will happen?

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By Laurie Foley

I'm Laurie Foley and I help solo professionals like you discover your natural brand so that you can get clear, get noticed and get clients. Please request your free copy of The Inner Brandifesto, my popular guidebook full of brand-building exercises.