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When you’re on the long, winding road to personal development, you might at times feel ready to give up. During these bouts of disinterest, it’s always best to go out and look for inspiration- something that’ll help you pick yourself up by the bootstraps and get back to work.
There are plenty of places you can look for this, like self-help books and other people’s stories. But what you might have not expected is you can actually find it on social media sites- like Instagram! Confused?
Don’t be, here’s an explanation of what Instagram can teach you about personal development:
1.) It takes time – Think about all of the people on Instagram who have gotten famous using the social media application. They didn’t start from anything! Scroll down to their very earliest posts and you’ll see that they have very minimal likes and comments, sometimes even none! This is because, on any journey, you have to build yourself up from the ground. You have to set up your foundation all by yourself because nobody is going to be around to help you do so. You start from the bottom, and then slowly work your way up.
2.) Not everyone is a supporter – If you check the feed of your favorite Instagram users, you might notice that some of their posts are absolutely littered with hate comments and vicious insults from internet strangers. This is because of a painful fact: No matter how confident you are in yourself, no matter how good you are at what you do, there will always be people who won’t support you, who will hate you, and who will try to bring you down because they don’t want you to be better than them. There’s nothing you can do about this but just simply shrug it off, and develop hard skin. They’ll go away eventually.
3.) You will feel discouraged – Have you ever gone on your Instagram and felt sad that one of the favorite people you follow hasn’t posted anything in a long while? This is most likely because they’re taking a break. This is something you should also do on your road to personal development. There will be times that you are discouraged and burnt out. When this happens, always remember that it’s perfectly fine to want to take a break. Even the most famous individuals on Instagram do so.
4.) You will become too reliant on what others think – A few times, you might have thought about posting something but then decided not to for fear of what others might think. And when you do post, you might find yourself actively waiting for likes and comments. This is because you want to hear feedback, hear that you’re doing well. There’s nothing wrong with this, but always remember the reason you’re on this journey in the first place: for yourself.
5.) You will learn to do it for yourself – With experience, you will learn to let go of all the criticisms and cravings for fame and just learn to enjoy- to post for yourself! The same thing goes for personal development.
Take it to heart, and use it to help you further along your journey.
