Personal Branding and Losing Your Mind
How to remain sane and impactful
“We try so hard to hide everything we’re really feeling from those who probably need to know our true feelings the most. People try to bottle up their emotions, as if it’s somehow wrong to have natural reactions to life.”
― Colleen Hoover, Maybe Someday
Few years ago I decided to take a break from Instagram. This was because I couldn’t keep up with the aesthetics and each time I finally made a post I would find myself impulsively refreshing my notifications to check for a new like or comment.
Anytime a post didn’t get as much attention as I wanted or one that fit the amount of work I put into it, I just wanted to delete the entire post. It was very exhausting.
As a writer, I was frustrated and was really beginning to doubt the relevance and quality of my work. As a content creator, I wanted to not call myself that.
So, yeah, I left. I uninstalled the app because I didn’t have the discipline (I still don’t) to have a social media app on my phone without signing in.
It was supposed to be for a few weeks but lasted for months. When I eventually got back it didn’t feel the same. I was afraid of falling back on the cycle or losing the minute audience I had.
When someone reached out to me on my prolonged silence, I explained to her how I needed to clear my head, and her reply blew me away. ‘Take your time. The world will wait’ Boy did the world have to wait for a long time and like social media management works, when I made a new post after being away for so long, nobody cared!
This event made me realize how invasive building a personal brand can be. There’s this unspoken pressure to keep a pace. The unsaid rule of constant projection of every activity in your life in a way tailored towards the desired impression you want to leave.
Get a good picture and a long caption that starts with ‘I was privileged to’ or ‘Nelson Mandela Once said’. And to be honest, these things are really inspiring and can be intimidating to someone who has nothing going on in their life but again, deeply inspiring.
However, we don’t talk about how possessive this routine of projection can become. How it is easy to fall into the trap of living for the likes, comments and reposts. It is very addictive and I believe we need to acknowledge that.
In my bid to gain some form of clarity and balance in this algorithm filled world I had a mental reconstruction I am going to share from
1.Passion and relevance not mutually exclusive
One way of creating relevance is being an advocate for social change.
Social change refers to any significant alteration over time in behavior patterns and cultural values and norms. By “significant” alteration, sociologists mean changes yielding profound social consequences. Source
Social movements for centuries have restructured and are still restructuring the world we presently live in.
One where discrimination is losing all forms of fashion. One where gender, race, sexuality and origin is losing significance in contributing to injustice. It is such a beautiful thing to see.
You can contribute to social change through various means; writing, speaking, holding conferences, boot camps, visiting schools, holding conversations and even music in all forms. Any medium that conveys a narrative to the mind of people is a worthy instrument.
So, yeah, that thread on why you think we should do better with how we treat people with disabilities matters. For someone who is a perpetrator, they were triggered and it might not change their perspective instantly but your surface digging has made it easier for the next person with a thread. And if you get enough retweets, you might just reach 10 perpetrators and boom you are world changer.
Now here is a clause, chasing clout with a social change strapped to your chest. In real life you don’t give a hoot about this cause but because it’s fashionable you put up sdg x on your twitter profile and drop off a few quotes you don’t believe in or feel so pressured that you create a profile off something you are not passionate about.
You owe it to yourself and maybe the world but most importantly, yourself to have your heart overflowing with passion for any cause you stand for.
I believe your passion for anything should drive you to push out content and not your drive to push out content pushing you to create a false identity. Do you!
“Working hard for something we do not care about is called stress, working hard for something we love is called passion.”
― Simon Sinek, Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action
2.You can never win this race with time, so stop running
‘Time waits for no man’
First, time cannot wait because it is freaking TIME! Second, who sold us the lie that time needs to wait.
I’m not going to pretend like the pressure doesn’t exist and that it doesn’t have the capacity to fill your lungs till you feel your life has no meaning. Everybody is getting acceptance mails and you have no idea how to apply to anything. You don’t even know what to apply to.
This entire cycle of thoughts is draining and never leads to motivation but an intimidation that births contempt and self sabotage. Which will ultimately lead to you being mentally fatigued and eventually unable to do anything productive because who thinks clearly when mentally incapacitated?
Take your time to find what you truly love at your own pace. Find a niche that has you talking with so much passion for minutes without caring what speed time is moving at. Find your voice . Constantly trying to sound like everyone will make you forget what you sound like.
“The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.” — Michael Altshuler
3.Take Breaks
This is a personal campaign for me. After experiencing the bliss of being distant from social media for over a month this year I actually considered leaving social media forever, just disappearing and never returning. Communicate through Emails and slack.
Yes, very extreme but you have no idea how much toxicity comes in with the well of positive impact we drink from on social media. So, please for your sanity and regular detoxification, step back for a while and breathe in fresh-free-of-algorithm-air.
4.The audience of one mindset
We can’t ignore the rush of disappointment when the very post we put so much effort in doesn’t get as much engagement as we expected. A few likes and one comment from your mum saying ‘Well Done my child. Keep it up!’.
It is very painful which is why whenever I create any form of content, I have just one person sitting in the pew in my mind. That one person that needs to read what I’m writing.
Does that magically make me immune to disappointment? Do I even successfully stick to this without hiding a few people under the chairs? Definitely not! But this helps me write more freely without constantly getting worried if everyone will understand or even care about what I’m writing.I am not writing for everyone because I just can’t, Nobody can and that’s okay.
5.Reinvention is never too late
Just in case you are already in this rabbit hole of the never ending search for validation from how you are perceived on the internet, this is not the end!
As corny as that sounds its true. You just need to step back and start with why. Have a very honest conversation with yourself.
‘Do I really love this?’
‘Am I sincerely passionate about this’
‘Am I really growing as a person or is all of this just a big mess’
‘Am I a better person?’
‘Does this really change anything?’
Answers to these will guide you on what step to take next. Just remember rock bottom is always a good place to start rebuilding (A quote from one of my favorite poet, Titilope Sonuga)
Nothing in this entire world deserves a sacrifice of your mental health.You need this balance because mental stability produces productivity and actual contentment.
Remain Sane and relevant!
