Perhaps you stepped on the scale and saw a number that made you want to cry. Maybe your bank account can’t support a food habit, your three best clients quit you, your significant other left you, or some other heart-rending, life-changing event has occurred. Or, maybe NOTHING has happened and that is the problem.

Whatever is making you feel like a crumpled paper towel left at the bottom of the trash can, it’s not a fun way to feel, and once you find yourself in a downward spiral it can be extremely difficult to make necessary changes and get yourself rotating in the right direction. Even thinking about that word, “changes,” can increase the speed of your descent. It’s just so overwhelming.

I’ve found myself in that unhappy spiral, rapidly spinning toward some unseen, terrifying “bottom” more than once. In fact, since I have a pretty active and detail-oriented imagination, it happens almost weekly. I imagine

One drop of water can turn into something powerful!

tripping, stubbing my toe, developing gangrene, having my leg amputated, not being able to exercise, gaining a hundred pounds, developing diabetes and heart disease, not having health insurance, declaring bankruptcy, losing my house and car, and living on the streets until I die in a ditch of a heart attack. Or something like that.

When these scenarios start playing in my mind, they multiply like cobwebs on the ceiling, getting thicker and nastier by the minute. Obviously, since I continue to get out of bed and go on living most days, I’ve figured out how to stop the madness and carry on. Okay, it would be more accurate to say I’ve figured out how to muffle the madness. It never really stops. I won’t lie to you and say that it does.

The first step is to take a shower and put on real clothes. It’s certainly acceptable, maybe even advisable, to spend a day here and there, now and then, just wearing your jammies and laying around. When you grumble because you are being forced to put on pants more than once a week or so, you should probably start forcing yourself to get dressed daily for a while. And if someone mentions that they are a little worried about you because you seem to have stopped brushing your hair, it might be a good idea to take a look in a mirror.

Once you are clean, and dressed, the rest is easy. Just do one tiny thing to improve your situation. When my house is a mess, I sweep the floor. It’s amazing how much difference a swept floor makes. When I feel like my business is failing, I write one blog post, send one email, or make one phone call. Just do one little thing.

Doing one small thing might not fix whatever your problem is, and you might feel like all you are doing is throwing a teaspoon of water on a raging fire, but then again, doing that one thing could make you feel better. When you get right down to it, that’s what you need as you imagine yourself tumbling toward failure – you need to feel better.

Once you feel a tiny bit better, you can go on to choosing a second tiny thing to do, but when you feel crushed by the weight of all those tasks waiting for you, don’t think about them. Just choose one and take care of it. If you can’t do anything else, that’s okay, you can choose another small thing for later, or even for tomorrow. But eventually, you are going to want to do a second small thing, and then – surprise! – you are spinning in the right direction again.

I haven’t posted here since April 12. That’s almost a full month. If I were my own client I would advise posting “at least every other week, minimum, and once a week would be much better.” But, if you suffer from blogger angst, you know that it’s a vicious cycle – the longer between posts, the more you worry about NOT posting and the harder it becomes to sit down and write something. Well, it’s easy to write something, but it’s hard to write

Don't worry. It'll be okay.

something you think is worth publishing.

Then, you check your calendar and it’s been a month! Yikes! The pressure is on! You must publish a post!

I’m a believer in the benefits of procrastination. Sometimes we really do just need to slow down and give our mental processes time to do their thing. However, it can go too far. Like when you wait a month between posting on your blog.

Since I am pretty much an expert at identifying when I have crossed the line between “taking a mental break” and “becoming a total slacker” I feel comfortable offering some tips:

Take advantage of the times your mind is fertile. There are days when I think of about 15 blog post topics. If I can capture a few notes about each one, I have a start on some posts. Better yet, if I can sit still and write them out fully, I’ll have stockpile. Days like that can’t be scheduled in, but there are some things you can do to increase the likelihood of them occurring.

Boost your creativity. The easiest way to do this is to give yourself little challenges. No matter what you are doing, try to think of some way that it could connect to the theme of your blog. How is a road trip like what you write about? Are your kids’ activities in any way like what you write about? Is there a current trend in your city that you can relate to what you write about? The more you stretch to make these connections, the easier finding them will become. Of course, you won’t always end up with a post you can use doing these kinds of mental challenges, but sometimes you will.

Write at least a little, even when you don’t want to. This is just another way to say “keep showing up.” You don’t have to publish what you write, but you really should write on the days you think you are supposed to be writing. You can’t write just whatever for this one to work. Writing just a sentence or two of a post or editing an old post or making some notes for a future post is fine, but journaling about something totally unrelated to your blog will not help you overcome blogger angst.

Publish it anyway. Don’t let excuses stop you. It doesn’t matter if you can’t find a suitable photo to illustrate what you’ve written, or if you aren’t quite satisfied with it. Sometimes, you have to just let it go and publish it anyway to avoid being stuck forever. If most of your posts have all of the elements that are important to you, that’s what’s important. You may even find that a not-quite-finished thought resonates with your readers, or that a good photo is extraneous to what you are doing.

How do you overcome blogger angst? What makes it worse? Please share, because, to be honest, I’m still feeling a little angst-ey.

Let me first get a couple of things out of the way:

1. This post is for people who own very small businesses. It is not about brands, corporations, or conglomerates.

2. If you have a Facebook profile (where you must send and accept friend requests) with a name like “Sister Sue’s Cafe” you are doing it wrong and you need to hire someone to help you build a Page for your business ASAP. Call me. I’ll refer you to someone good.

3. This is my opinion and reflects my experience. I have done no studies, have no scientific or statistical evidence to back anything I say, and am offering advice from my own perspective.

Whew. Now that’s all out there, we can get on with things. I have a page for Smiling Tree Writing on Facebook. I mostly publish links to posts from this

The face of a true friend!

blog there, but sometimes offer writing tips or let loose with rants about poor grammar. I also have a personal Facebook profile, which is for family,  friends, spying on my kids, keeping up with people I barely remember from school, and even for playing Words with Friends now and then.

For a while, I worried every time someone I know through my work as a writer sent me a friend request on Facebook. I don’t have lists set up, so pretty much everything I post is visible to all of my connections. Sometimes, in status updates, I curse. Sometimes I post links to political articles. Sometimes I make jokes that only certain people get. I even torture my Facebook friends with poetry once in awhile. How would a prospective client feel about that stuff?

So, I tried to direct people to my business page rather than my personal profile. But it really didn’t work. Past clients sent me referrals – to my personal page. People I met at networking events sent me friend requests. Past colleagues did, too.

Finally, I came to a decision: Accept their requests, and let them see the “real” dava – honest opinions, bad photos, silly poems and all. I still suggest that people “like” my professional page, but I don’t turn them away from my personal profile.

I’m not great at “sales” in the sort of stereotypical sense of the word. I am good at building relationships, though, and that ability helps me find and keep clients. As it turns out, one of the most important parts of building relationships is allowing people to get to know you. Allowing clients, prospects, and others from my professional life see a bit of my personal life through Facebook is a pretty simple way to let them know me.

This probably goes against every bit of expert advice you have ever read or heard. You’re probably remembering how many times people you respect have exhorted you to use the privacy settings on Facebook, to use business pages for business and to keep personal stuff personal. There are a few reasons ignoring all of that has worked for me:

1. I own my own business. I do not have a boss who will read something on my Facebook profile and be offended. I cannot injure the reputation of any company except my own.

2. Similarly, I get to decide with whom I do business. If a client says ugly things about one of my poems, I can fire them. I probably wouldn’t, but the knowledge that I could makes me feel better about the situation.

3. Part of the reason I love what I do is that I get to be me – fully and totally dava. I spent years trying to suppress parts of my personality, or trying to be more like others in order to fit into various work cultures, and it never worked for me.

4. While I post relatively frequently on Facebook, I do think about each post. I have never (and hopefully will never) posted a personal tirade in the heat of the moment. I may have taken part in a few online debates, but you can be sure I considered every word carefully. While I am open about my opinions and thoughts and to some extent, my emotions, on Facebook, I am also a little cautious.

It works for me. I am Facebook friends with at least 5 or 6 clients. If any of them are offended by my opinions or they don’t like what they have learned about my personal life, it hasn’t stopped any of them from continuing to send me work.

Do you mix personal and professional on Facebook? Do you have barriers in place so that your professional contacts only see some things you post? Do you  have any Facebook/work horror stories?

You know those people who never quit smiling? Who sugar coat even the worst news and serve it up with a vacant mask of a smile? Those people are just icky. Equally intolerable, though, are the ones who  always expect the worse, can’t stand kids or puppies, have innumerable health problems that they don’t mind talking about, hate their jobs and their spouses – should they be so lucky – and whine about how they just don’t have any good luck, ever.

Most of us fall in the middle of the miserable to happy spectrum and tend to lean to one side more one day than the next. In my life, I’ve been lucky to know two people who were able to gently remind everyone around them to look on the bright side. One was my mom and the other my aunt Betty. They were sisters-in-law, and passed away years apart, but both of them had amazingly wonderful attitudes without being falsely cheerful.

The world is a less shiny place without the two of them in it, but they did leave some lasting reminders to pay attention to the good stuff. People share their favorite stories about those who are gone and a couple that I’ve been told about these two cross my mind regularly. Stories about Mary Ann and Betty almost always bring smiles, just like the two of them did in actuality.

My mom and one of her friends, Nancy, had been shopping one afternoon and were on their way home.  Nancy said that as they were riding

Mary Ann

along, she was complaining about all the stuff everyone always complains about – kids, bills, work, all the things that make life hard. It was right at sunset and my mom interrupted her to say, “Would you just look at that sunset? Have you ever seen anything so pretty? Wow. Just look at that!” We lived on a mountain, so no doubt, the view of the sunset really was stunning. Nancy told me that now, every time she catches herself complaining, she thinks about that day and remembers to look up and see what kind of amazing beauty she is missing.

Betty

Just yesterday, someone told me that Betty gave her a similar reminder. Our entire family, probably 60 or more people, took a camping trip to Dauphin Island one year on Easter weekend. A trip like that is rare for us – in fact, it’s the only one I remember – so it was really special. Nellie, another aunt, said that she got up on Saturday morning, and walked to the bathhouse with Betty, complaining about how her tooth brush got flattened in her bag, how a pine cone poked her through the tent floor all night, how yukky showering in a bathhouse is, and on and on. Betty looked at her and laughed and said, “Well, Nellie, you’re just not a happy camper today, are you?” Nellie said just that simple question reminded her of how nice it was to be with her family, at the beach, camping with a bathhouse and everything else that was good about that moment.

Right now is an easy time to be angry. Most of us have something to legitimately complain about. The ridiculousness of the United States congress, the insanity of the stock market, the fear of a “double dip” recession, and so many more events happening all over the world have many of us on edge. If your business is down, your income is down, and it’s possible that your attitude is down, too – with good reason.

While I don’t suggest that you slap a fake smile on or pretend to feel something you do not, I do firmly believe that your business will benefit if you take some time everyday to appreciate the good stuff. When you do your work fully cognizant of the beauty all around you, every person you interact with notices. It is seriously doubtful that either Mary Ann or Betty was aware of the lasting lessons they taught us just by being themselves.

Small talk is inevitable. What does yours say about you? Are you fearful or angry? Do you have a positive outlook that your customers or prospects can pick up on and feel good about? No matter how tough things are there are still sunsets to appreciate.

Yesterday I was pleased to attend an event hosted by the Social Media Club of Chattanooga.  It was at my favorite coffee house and lots of friends were there, so it would’ve been fun regardless of presenters or speakers or whatever. However, it would be hard to describe watching a “live” (by Skype) interview with someone like Guy Kawasaki as a bonus.

The interviewer was John Martin of the Small Business Round Table, and he conducted the interview for his Internet radio show SBR with John Martin. Each week, John interviews small business owners, successful entrepreneurs and others who have wisdom to share with those of us working to build profitable businesses. John asked Guy questions about failure, venture capital and much more as we all looked on, listened and learned.

Guy Kawasaki is successful and excellent at what he does. He also seems to be a genuinely nice person who is interested in helping people, sharing his knowledge and teaching others how to be…enchanting. I think, though, that some of the things he said during the interview should be put into perspective.

For example, John asked about the way that Guy uses Twitter. Now, Guy has been scolded many times for posting too often, using a team to post under his name and other practices that some people view as “bad” or “wrong.” The thing is, it’s working. For Guy.

Guy has two accounts on Twitter, and if you follow both of them, you are probably seeing his name pop up quite frequently in your stream. He says that he posts each link that he wants to share four times a day – twice on each account. Now, if I re-posted things four times a day, people would get irritated really quickly. But Guy has something like 400,000 followers between his two accounts, and they are all online at different times. Some might check things in the mornings, others in the evenings – and that’s not to mention time zones. So, if you have 400,000 followers it makes good sense to share the same thing four times a day.

But if you don’t have that many followers? If you only have a measly couple of thousand? You are probably alienating people by repeating yourself so frequently, particularly if you are posting links to your own stuff (Guy doesn’t do that, by the way). Most of us can get by with posting something twice, but that’s about it.

Guy does something else that probably wouldn’t work for the rest of us: he uses social media like a billboard. He broadcasts on Twitter, which is why he wants tons of followers. For him, a follower is a set of eyeballs that might click on a link and look at an ad – and might even click on the ad.

He almost never retweets anything, mostly because he says he pays no attention to his stream. He is not using Twitter to engage in conversations. This works for a man who is hanging out on the NY Times Best Seller List, owns a couple of companies and is a respected authority in his field.

It probably wouldn’t work for you, and it definitely wouldn’t work for me.

Small business owners need to be having conversations on Twitter and Facebook. We need to be talking to people, and participating in useful discussions. You know, being authentically ourselves and stuff. For the business owner with a small reach and even smaller budget, real conversations with real people who spend real money are the power of social media. We can talk to people, make them love us, find out exactly what they need then sell it to them.

I would never presume to say that someone like Guy Kawasaki is doing it wrong. I will say that most of us cannot hope to do it the way he is and be successful. Do you follow Guy on Twitter or like him on Facebook? How do you feel about his tactics? Would you ever try to replicate his success using his tactics?