Sometimes I catch myself fantasizing about being an Instagram influencer.
My feed will feature beautiful pictures of my pristine white desk and what I’m working on; me out at the cafe or Hera Hub at work; pictures of plants and flowers and how they relate to my work; products I love; you get the idea.
It would be so cool to be an Instagram influencer. Imagine showing up in so many people’s feeds! Think about the impact I could have! The relationships! Opportunities! Conversations!
There are 99 problems with this fantasy:
- I don’t enjoy using Instagram
- Spending time on Instagram makes me feel bad
- I don’t enjoy taking pictures, they make me self-conscious
- I’d have to spend LOTS of time responding to comments and messages while staring at my phone’s tiny screen
- I’m not convinced by ideal client is hanging out on Instagram to find me
- I’d have to learn how to edit photos
- I’d have to learn how to take photos
- I would have to invest time into Instagram everyday, actively reaching out to folks and building relationships and following hashtags
In other words: I don’t want to do the work.
Do you have fantasies like this? Do you daydream about offering a course that generates multiple six figures, writing a novel that makes you famous, being a highly paid speaker, an influencer, whatever?
Daydreaming is great. It’s exhilarating to imagine what you could do, and imagining it is the crucial first step to doing it.
But I have to check myself. There is a difference between amusing, entertaining daydreams and the daydreams of what I want.
The difference is my willingness to do the work.
I am not willing to do the work to become an Instagram influencer.
Is it a “bad” to imagine it? Maybe. Sometimes the daydreams make me think I should want to do the work. There is plenty of cultural hooey about how you have to force yourself to do things you hate in order to be successful, so it’s easy to fall prey to that kind of thinking.
But when I think deeper, I realize I don’t buy that nonsense about suffering for success. And I don’t actually believe that being an Instagram influencer would make my life or work better.
The way I can tell the difference between an amusing fantasy and a real one is whether I want the outcome or I want to do the work. Outcomes are sexy. Work is challenging.
