The Art of Spin or Making Things Sound Better

Recently I was reading a friends Facebook page where she listed her life experiences.

I couldn’t help but notice her spin on events, making some of them sound far better than they were in reality.

This got me thinking.

What’s it called when we put a spin on things? What’s it called when we make things sound much better than they really are?

I’m sure we all do this to some degree, whether it’s talking about our latest overseas adventure, writing our resume or trying to impress new people.

The questions remains.

When we put a spin on things – are we lying, exaggerating, being positive, putting forward our version of events or simply telling a good story?

Or are we telling people what they want to hear?

Let’s face it; people prefer to hear the positive stuff. ‘I won’ sounds a lot better than ‘It was a tie’.

Was my friend simply being a good salesperson and perfecting her pitch, so to speak?

However you choose to define it, I can’t help but wonder, it is a good or bad thing? Or perhaps it falls under neither of these labels? Perhaps it depends on the circumstances.

If you can give events a bit of a lift, then why not?

Is being able to spin a good story going to win you more friends or help you in your career? Or should we be telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? (I have doubts about how well this last option would work out).

Is in fact, spinning a good story something we should all be working on – something we should be trying to get better at? Surely this can help us in the area of self promotion.

I started this post by mentioning she made a comment on Facebook.

Social media is a hotbed of making things look better than they really are and the reason you should never compare your life to what you see on social media!

It seems we are more likely to spin a good yarn on Facebook and Instagram than we are during face to face conversations?  If dating sites are any indication to go by, we seem to be more at ease making ourselves sound better over the Internet.

However as we are all aware, the Internet has its fair share of people who flat-out lie and deceive.

In the end, I think it all comes down to how comfortable we feel with the stories we tell about ourselves, our careers and our lives.

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