Social media is a funny one. Like everything it has it’s pros and cons but seems to dominate our lives more than anything else. Before I had Autumn, or before I was even pregnant, I spent A LOT of time on various platforms, making connections and turning my hobby into a tiny side hustle. Motherhood took over and I found I had less time to create but I didn’t mind that. I didn’t feel the pressure to post.
However, when I returned to work when Autumn was 5 months old, I felt like I was lagging behind. I kept seeing such beautiful posts and I just didn’t have the time to create them – or the energy quite frankly. Autumn was and always will be my priority. Everything fits in around her and that will never change. But I missed creating content whether it was a recipe, flatlay or some quirky insta stories.
When autumn came around, I got my mojo back. I felt like there was loads to photograph and props to mess around with – I loved my autumnal grid and it was the first time in months I posted regular content and the posts weren’t dominated by my baby! Not that there’s anything wrong with that as I take roughly 29856 photos of Autumn each day. But I always said that my feed wouldn’t change. Which was incredibly naive of me to say. Of course it was going to change. I’VE BECOME A MOTHER. Why wouldn’t I want to document our days and journey together?
Then I realised that I was hesitant to post things because I wasn’t happy with my relationship with social media. It had become all about numbers and saves. I hated it. Every time I thought about posting (I’m talking primarily about instagram), I would get huge bouts of anxiety thinking that no one wanted to see another post about my bubba, or who would even care about the thing I cooked for dinner? So I wouldn’t post it. Over December, I only posted 6 times. And I bloody love Christmas. I have so many posts I created and just didn’t use. I’m now totally gutted as there were so many cute ones of Autumn and I’m so annoyed I let a few numbers stop me from doing it.
It seems like our lives are completely dominated by numbers. The amount of followers we have, how many likes we get, how much we weigh, how much we earn. It’s exhausting and something has to give. As the new year approached, I knew I wanted to get back to posting more consistently. I know I’ll never have the time to go back to posting daily and that’s fine. I can’t be arsed with that! But, I did promise myself I was going to start creating content that I love.
What I need to remember is that creating recipes, flatlays etc is my passion. Any work that comes my way through it is fab, but it’s not the reason I post. I have met so many lovely people through that app (physically and virtually) and they’re the ones I take inspiration from. Since the start of the year I have slowly been going through the people I follow and unfollowing the ones that basically don’t inspire me. I know I will lose loads of followers but I’m ok with that. I honestly want to go back to making genuine connections and finding a little bit of myself again. I have always thought of myself as being honest (sometimes brutally so), thoughtful and have integrity. But I was starting to become so generic, trying to engage with accounts that do nothing for me just for the sake of it. I’m going back to basics and I hope you stick around to see what I will be creating!
Gemma and Life 