Hey YOU, yes you staring at your screen.
I know you’ve been doing this even if you won’t admit it, and I just wanted to drag it out into the open so that you can start packing it up in a box.
When you’re scrolling through your facebook feed and seeing instagram photos, you’re being told a curated narrative. Chances are, you are sharing your OWN curated narrative of your own life.
In this day and age, it’s hard to have a single moment without having the urge to check your phone or your computer. It’s addicting on purpose, and these social media platforms want us to stay on them as much as possible so that they can sell to us more. These companies know the power of the like button.
Stop getting your self worth from social media likes.
We all want to be liked, and social media has literally created a “LIKE” button that gives us that feeling of accomplishment and praise whenever we post something.
Have you ever shared something, and then just sat and refreshed to watch the likes go up?
That’s you longing for that acceptance in virtual form.
I want to tell you these truths, as someone who works with hundreds of people who work as an internet personality.
Everyone has insecurities, everyone has unflattering angles, and no one has an as “perfect” life as it seems on social media.
Here are the kinds of people I’ve worked with:
All of these people are just like anyone else I get to work with. Sometimes they have bad days, or problems they don’t want to share. Sometimes they are nervous on camera and angles they don’t want photographed. Sometimes their dreamy looking trip came with drama or was a struggle. Sometimes they are lonely. I’m NOT trying to put anyone of these people down. Because these things are just what make us all human.
TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR INTAKE: Here’s the first thing I want you to do.
We have heard these pep talks about body image, but not near as much about how as artists and business owners we do the same exact thing, except with other businesses.
It is SO EASY to think things like “I could never have come up with that”, or WORSE with jealousy, “I could have done that”.
Try and just focus on you and what you’re doing. Seeing so much of what everyone else doing can actually make creativity harder and make it so you want to do those same things. Only when we find our creativity elsewhere can we start to break out of that box.
This is why I think we see so many of the same trends. The colors that are trendy one year are used by everyone because that’s whats on pinterest. The editing style that’s popular seems like the best choice because everyone will want that.
Let’s look for inspiration in all kinds of places, not just on instagram.
Look at this incredibly skilled graph (erm) I made to illustrate my next point. You cannot compare where you are in your journey to where someone else is in their journey.
Besides years, life experiences, access to resources, mentors and so much more determine where someone is and where they need to go to make it to the next step.
I’m gonna be real, it wasn’t pretty having to find photos to share for when I was JUST starting out. It’s definitely embarrassing but even though I probably should be, I’m not ashamed of them at all.
Why? Because these are exactly why I have all the skills that I do today!
I also do things in a way many photographers don’t, because I didn’t learn from someone else and have a unique style. Was it longer? YES! But it paid off and I’m so glad I was able to take that road.
I’m just gonna give you this free advice, selective coloring is not it
I learned how to add subjects into different backgrounds, and I wish I could ask teenage self WHY like this?
The beginning of my love for dressing my subjects up into costumes, which has transformed into my angel and mermaid sessions as well as many of my creative projects!
Here are some of my images this past year. Please don’t judge your own journey by comparing yourself to others. Your only goal is to be better than YOU were the day before.
You can see your own path when you look behind you, it’s much harder to see someone else’s. So pat yourself on the back today and tell yourself that you’re proud of where you’ve come from. And let’s keep building ourselves up from there!
Remember, there is no quick way to success (except I guess if you’re born a Kardashian)
Truly, long term success takes a lot of work. The hours I put into getting to where I am now are insurmountable, but now I can proudly see where they led me to.
So I hope this is a little encouragement today that as long as you are working on being better today than tomorrow, take a break from all that annoying comparison and celebrate how far you’ve already come!
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