Someone I know mentioned this a few weeks ago, and I’ve been pondering possible answers since. I’d love to hear your viewpoints in the comments thread below.

There might be different answers for business social media use versus personal use.

One of my theories is that maybe we are ashamed or embarrassed to share some of our problems publicly. Maybe we are fairly private as a person and assume others don’t want to hear our 99 problems. After all, on a daily basis we all have stress and challenges to overcome, right?

Possibly we want to be positive and inspiring to others in our social media reach rather than appearing to be negative.

Maybe it’s something else?

As a person who aspires to be the best they can in life and work for myself, my family, friends, colleagues and clients, I try daily to do as much as I can for as many people as possible, although I had a rough start to this week. I failed to achieve a ‘Post Weekend EPIC’ for various reasons occurring in a short time frame, here are just a few of them:

  • I was worried about the 15-year-old boy whom I helped into an Ambulance after he suffered a 90-minute seizure from being violently assaulted in front of other families at a public swimming pool by two 16-year olds because he wouldn’t give them one of his sweets (WTH!)
  • There has been a lot of work to do this month – more than usual, mostly for good reason with our main business going well, whilst we simultaneously plan and launch several new companies to expand our portfolio
  • I’ve been looking after my three children for the weekend and first half of this week. I love every second with them, even if it reduces my available working hours, although as all parents will appreciate; it is hard graft to keep them all healthy, clean and happy!
  • My eldest son as a health issue at the moment which involves taking a long time to get him to sleep, which massively reduces my post kids bed time house tidy and business laptop work time
  • As we near the end of the school year, this week was parents evening, a school concert and a fundraising event where I volunteer for my youngest son’s pre-school
  • My clients needed me! Various growth curve challenges and in particular people issues which can be mentally draining with delicate effort required to overcome them in the best way for all involved
  • With all the above going on this week it’s been fun albeit hard work with not enough waking hours in the day, which in turn worsened my sleep volume and quality = grumpy, tired Daryl.

I planned to take this Friday off to celebrate my birthday although having taken on too much in the same week, last night I was particularly stressed and anxious. After a helpful ear and help from my fiancée, we agreed to postpone the surprise birthday plans she had planned for me on Friday.

That gave me a much-needed extra office day back to get on top of everything, and I grabbed a fresh time planning sheet to map out and re-prioritise my to do list, so I felt more in control and organised again. After not making it to the gym for a few days, I then went for a 5km run along the river to further clear my head, followed by a quick gym session to come back buzzing and full of energy again!

As a result, I slept really well last night, went to the gym again early morning and am smashing my re-prioritised to do list to be back on track before the weekend = happy, relaxed Daryl is back and I am more likely to perform my best for everyone around me.

In summary, I’ve shared a whole load of stresses and worries above, and probably bored many readers. However I hope it is ‘real’ for you, and that I have hopefully finished with a positive example for the importance of taking time out from the crazy, to re-group. Such always involves being realistic, patient and balanced across exercise, nutrition, accepting help, good sleep, time to not work, quality work over quantity and so on.

So, what do you think? Should we share the negatives too, or should we just stick to sharing the positives on social media?