Instagram is About Relationships

I'm a big believer in the power of your mindset because your core beliefs influence everything you do, think, and say. The great thing about mindset is that you can CHANGE it just by choosing to believe something different.

I believe that Instagram should be about more than liking perfectly edited photos. It should be about more than scrolling through filtered perspectives and well crafted captions. It should be about more than saving ideas for later and dreaming of being like someone else. It should be about more than emojis and giphys and stickers and follows and likes and shares. Instagram should be about the relationships you make with other people.

Social media is all about relationships. That's the social part of it. We tend to think about the curated feeds and the filtered images so much that we forget about the PEOPLE, the human beings behind the accounts. Sometimes this means that we start to forget about our own human life, too. No one's life is as perfect as they make it look on Instagram. Yours isn't ever going to be that perfect, either. When you let go of the urge to compare yourself to people to people on the internet, and you start to focus on getting to know the humans behind the screen, your experience changes.

We need all kinds of people in the world. We need all kinds of teachers, too. And the #teacherinstagram community on Instagram definitely needs more kinds of teacher Instagram accounts - we need someone like YOU. We need each unique perspective because we learn and grow personally and professionally as we start to see new points of view and as we pay attention to different opinions.

I follow people on Instagram for a variety of reasons. Some accounts entertain me. Some accounts teach me. Some accounts are people who have become my friends. Some accounts are people who I have a lot in common with. Some accounts are people who help me see new perspectives and opinions. Some accounts inspire me. Some accounts challenge me. Some accounts motivate me. I need all of those people.

I could never possibly list all of the teachers on Instagram who I love to follow, and that's really not the point. These are my people. You need to find your people. Intentionally choose to follow people who inspire you, teach you, motivate you, entertain you, etc. but also choose to follow people who have a different view of the world than you do.

We need all kinds of teachers on Instagram. We especially need teachers who share open and honest perspectives and who are interested in growing and learning best practices together. Don't hide your reality in your stress over taking perfect photos full of stuff and Target that look like what you think everyone else is doing. We need what YOU have to offer, too.