Got a short attention span? Yeah, me too. Here’s why you should see it as a win.
Remember report cards? Those stiff pieces of card-stock somewhere between orange and gold, with a teacher’s gorgeous blue penmanship scrawled across neat lines. The front held grades, while the back gave access to longer thought pieces on your general behavior in school. There was no email, so this was one of just a few opportunities for your teacher to let your partners know if you were screwing it all up or not. The nicest compliments I received said things like “social butterfly,” or “inclusive of everyone, never leaves anyone out.” But there was one title bestowed upon me year after year, and it was Queen of the short attention span.
To be fair, I could pay attention during reading time. And I had undiagnosed ADD in elementary school, so there’s that. Basically if it lit me up inside, such as discussing our journals, or the theme of good vs. evil in the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, my brain zipped and glowed like a thousand fireflies inside a mason jar on a summer night.
This label followed me through college, in conversations with boyfriends, and through the first few jobs I had out of college. I allowed it to become part of me, like my half-Jewish upbringing, or the freckles across the bridge of my nose.
At the age of 40, having found success as a social media writer in the financial services industry, having a short attention span has served me well. It’s made me good at stating complicated ideas simply, and clearly. I can craft a Tweet that will get people talking, or conceptualize with my team a super fun Instagram story that makes us all smile. Social media came along after my 1980’s report cards, but the medium was made for me. It turns out people don’t like to read boring shit-and having a short attention span can be a positive attribute that puts clothes on my children’s backs, dinner on the table. So, if you’re still holding onto some words or a phrase somebody said about you when you were younger, decide if it serves you still or if you’d like to attach it to a bunch of balloons and watch them float into the sky.
For me, I feel like I turned what could have been a negative into a positive. When I craft a message that resonates, even if it’s only 5–10 words, my whole body zings with pleasure. Start thinking about what makes you hum, and whether a story you’ve been telling yourself of something you’re “bad at” all these years could in fact, become something you’re fabulous at.
