A trick to turn moving houses into an act of creative expression
At first glance, moving homes doesn’t seem like a catalyst for creation. Heck, move a dozen times in your life and you are likely to have a dozen equally tedious experiences. And it’s not just moving day. If you own the place, there is the costly and exhausting task of enticing a buyer while finding a new place for your family. Anyone who has tried to moving homes without having to pay double mortgages or being forced to short term rent knows the difficulty of the task.
Moving is stressful. As if we needed another source of anxiety, right? Unless you are the very rare species that enjoys neverending to-do lists in a constantly shifting environment, moving homes can be a struggle. For the best of us, we can endure and move-on quickly. We know that we’ll get back to our regularly scheduled lives soon enough, and there is always something to enjoy about your new place. For the those among us who enjoy moving the least, it’s a process that can lead to anxious, sleepless nights and potentially even bring on bouts of depression.
You know the saying “Misery loves company?” It’s not just a great Soul Asylum song. It’s an age-old idiom that rings true in today’s world more than ever before. It is a big part of why we share. Sure, many people curate the best of their lives and display only that false veneer, but for those who truly use social media for all of its good, there is a lot to be found in the informal support groups of Facebook or through the simple act of sharing our stresses.
We are going to make moving more fun by turning the process into a story. When you take the tasks and trudgeries of switching apartments or selling and buying a home and turn them into a story for your friends, followers, and family, you accomplish two important things:
One: You get perspective on the move by depersonalizing it
Two: You help others who are going through their own struggles
We’ll get to How and Where to share your moving stories at the end of this post. For now, let’s look into Why we want to inject our seemingly dull move into everyone else’s newsfeed. For starters, you will feel better. Good and bad things happen. When you are moving homes, frustrating, sad, and exciting things happen each day. Will we get an offer? Will the landlord pick our application? Do you remember where we put our important files? Oh my god! They accepted our offer!
When you take the time to photograph, video, or write about what you are going through, you will find the headspace necessary to create some much needed distance from the emotional realities of moving –– you will gain perspective. Your friends and family will not only know about the good and the bad happening in your moving story, they will also share their stories. It creates a sense of belonging and it helps to foster the valuable sensation that you are not alone. We all go through things like this.
It’s the attitude of being in this together that can unleash the most powerful effects of sharing your story. You will connect with people going through similar or even vastly different things, and their experience of your joys and sadnesses will help them to understand and handle their own dilemas. Imagine you’ve been fired recently, and now you have to move homes for your new job. Wouldn’t you want to be able to share in the experiences of someone else who has gone through this or is going through it? Sometimes you can improve a follower’s bad day simply by sharing how good or bad your day was. We are all in this together.
How to Storify
Don’t get too fancy. You have a lot of stress. The whole point here is to share and be shared with. The easiest ways today, thanks to smartphones, are through photos and video. Capture natural moments by videoing an introduction. Let’s say you’re heading into a meeting to close on your new house. Video your thoughts, emotions, and expectations. Then turn off the film. There is enough confidential and potentially difficult stuff happening. Instead, photograph some key images of the signing and closing experiences. Always ask before photographing any people. Afterward, pull the video back out and capture your afterthoughts.
You now have a small chapter of your larger story. It doesn’t have to be flashy. People genuinely enjoy seeing how others handle their days. Try to create a beginning, middle, and end for each of your little pieces of story. Don’t worry about injecting drama. Life is interesting enough.
Where to Storify
If you’ve got video and photos, you have options. You can edit things together and share the story on YouTube. Or maybe that sounds archaic to you, and you would rather just tell a quick Instagram story. Whatever it is, consider the medium you are using and retool your content. On Facebook or LinkedIn, you might tell a story in a blog or article format with photos and video included, while on Instagram, you’re going to tell the story in small, loosely connected pieces that are more temporary and fleeting. The easiest answer though, is that Where you tell your story doesn’t matter nearly as much as that you took the time to share it at all.
Follow Up
Don’t just post it and forget it. Three weeks or six months later, we would love to hear about how your new place is treating you. We would like to know the conclusions or results to little questions you raised throughout the story.
Before and after photos or video are a great way to embrace the nostalgia of before and to see the hope of tomorrow. Give them a try as a final chapter in your moving story. Or consider a blooper reel of funny things along the way. Whatever it is, just wrap it up and put a bow on it for your followers.
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