I Want To Start A Business So That I Can Look Good On Instagram
Reading time: 3 and a half minutes
It’s week 4 of quarantine - have you built your business yet?? I’m only asking you because the internet has been asking me lately. People’s tweets have been reminding me (not that I asked) that this time of self-isolation is one of the most unique seasons we'll ever have in our lives. And I agree with them, so much time has been stretched out before us. For me, life has slowwwwwed right down, in a good way.
I’ve enjoyed making more time for family and myself but I am also one of those people who would one day like to start a business. You can roll your eyes at me in that ‘ugh another one’ way if you like, I’m not offended because its true.
Every so often, even before quarantine livin', panic would grab me as I remember that I'm not really chasing my dream, (I've been giving it more of a low energy jog) and I haven't built a business yet! I have things that I say I'm interested in but if I'm honest I engage with them very half-heartedly most of the time.
So to motivate myself, I try and think about my 'why' as businesspeople always advise.
So there I am, after my most reason panic, sitting on my bed one evening struggling to find my 'why' and then it hits me: it’s hiding because my dreams of starting a business have become about people seeing that I'm young and have a business.
When I imagine my business, Instagram is often the first thing that comes to mind. Not the product, although that's the second thing I imagine, not the people I'd work with, not imagining myself actually doing the work, but seeing its Instagram page.
This made me realise two things about myself: I want to be super and I want to be known.
What do I mean by Super?
The kind of girls I see on instagram who seem to have it all. They have creative thriving businesses and maybe they work a full-time job or are getting a degree alongside it because they're the ultimate masters of time management. They get to meet/make friends with celebrities, often travel to incredible places, attend amazing events, people really respect them - oh and they're really beautiful. They also get to tell a lot of people about how hard they work, and a lot of people agree. They appear to have this superpower called 'balancing it all'. and so they get to have it all.
I'd be telling you a big fat lie if I said I didn't want that ladies and gents. I would love that to be my life.
So yeah, when I get that fear of omg I haven't started a business yet I'm wasting time, it's fuelled by two things: an awareness of the time that I've been wasting and an impatience because I want to join these Super Girls now! The longer I wait the longer it's going to take me and that's bad because part of being a Super Girl is that you have it all while you're young. You've changed your world and gained the respect of many before you've even hit 30.
Can you tell I love validation and attention yet?
The Ted Talk
And then I watched this ted talk that hit me upside my sometimes-silly head. It's about getting attention vs paying attention - you can watch it here. It taught me that while, yes careers and businesses can be formed out of a passion, a healthier reason for pursuing a 'passion' (I'm getting so bored of this word, to be honest) is for the love of or interest in it. Pursuing to pay attention to it, rather than get attention from it, is apparently psychologically proven to make you a lot happier.
Not everything good has to end in a business but if I want it to, I should to do it for the right reasons. And if there are some hobbies that I never try to commercialise, that’s okay too.
P.S Joseph Gordon Levitt gives a good Ted Talk.
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