Please stop telling me what to do. Eat kale chips to lose weight. Eliminate these words to become a better writer. I get turned off by headlines dictating what I am supposed to do to improve my life. No one else walks in my shoes.
Self-help articles are all the rage right now. Some draw me in, and I absorb every word. Others push me away.
I am magnetically attracted to articles when authors share from their own experiences. Direct advice repels me. No one wants to be told what to do.
Authors inspire, motivate, and transform readers by sharing their stories and challenges. Readers search for value, not for advice. We want to learn from others but not be bossed around. Direct advice may be helpful for some but may alienate and antagonize others.
No one knows what it is like to walk in someone else’s shoes.
Advice articles activate our defense mechanisms. Instruction is uni-directional, forcing readers to determine whether or not the guidance applies to them. This or that. My way or the highway.
Will the reader accept or reject the advice?
This bifurcation places instructional writing in treacherous waters. Writers do not know the reader, the person on the other side of the screen. Without knowing their backstory, life experience, or what they bring to their table, it is impossible to predict the reader’s response.
Everyone carries baggage, and every person sees the world from a unique perspective. Advice eliminates the opportunity for a meaningful, authentic, and shared experience with the author.
Experiencing sharing is an effective alternative to advice
Experience sharing triggers empathy in readers. Typically, the writer opens up and displays vulnerability. Vulnerability is a strength creating the trust which permits us to join the story. We see where the author started, how they overcame obstacles, and what they learned along the way.
In this article, I discuss three examples of my failure to recognize postpartum depression. Sharing my own experience, I illustrate two issues: the need for physicians to improve mental health screening and empowering the one in seven women suffering from postpartum depression to feel safe speaking up.
By painting a verbal picture, my intent is to bring readers inside of the journey. By sharing from my own experience, both success and failures, readers get a glimpse at the man behind the surgical mask.
I could have written the same story by describing postpartum depression and then advising doctors on more effective screening protocols and instructing patients to speak up. The article would have been at best, boring and less effective, and at worst condescending and alienating.
Writers from any background can pull from the profound and the mundane moments in their life to generate meaningful, impactful stories for others.
A common advice article approach is to list a problem and then offer a solution. But the magic is in the middle. The most impactful stories focus on what happened along the road from problem to solution. We find elements of ourselves inside the story and discover meaningful and applications for our own life.
Saving lives through my writing is one of my goals during the COVID-19 crisis. But the pandemic has taken its toll on healthcare workers around the world. I am worried about all of us…and our families. In this story, I share my experience shopping at Walmart.
The article had three specific goals. First, I wanted to put readers inside the mind of healthcare workers forcing them to feel the pain and anguish. The second goal was to trigger the reader’s self-reflection on the value of face coverings. The third goal was to illustrate hope, demonstrating the best of humanity is always around the corner.
I want to say “thank you” to all of the great writers who use their words to evoke critical thinking and self-reflection. You are helping all of us navigate these turbulent times. We get the chance to enjoy a shared experience as we analyze our lives in the context of your stories.
If we are lucky, we are transformed and inspired to become better versions of ourselves.
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This post was previously published on ILLUMINATION and is republished here with permission from the author.
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Photo credit: Unsplash