The “Successful” Creators You Follow…
Take a look at your social media – which “successful” creators do you follow?
Whomever we give our attention to will gradually shift our perspective of what we consider a successful person. The more we consume someone’s content, the more we take on their values and priorities.
For example, the creators who are often on vacation (it seems) or living glamorous lifestyles – the more we watch, the more it shifts our subconscious view of “success”.
Many influencers don’t reveal that they purposely stage photos or videos, sometimes going into debt. Here’s an interesting documentary: Fake Famous.
Even if it is their real life, those influencers are suggesting that you shouldn’t settle, until you have what they have… which is often tied to buying one of their courses or programs.
We then join that business guru’s event or community. In their programs, they’ve infected everyone with those materialist values. When everyone around you has those ambitions, it’s easy to also want those things.
With ambition comes actions that might compromise our values, in our attempt to make more money or emulate a certain lifestyle.
In short, we sell our soul.
Yet, I’ve known people who have spent time with some of the poorest people in the world. They come back with this realization:
Some of the poorest can also be some of the happiest.
What makes them happy is not having ambitions for a lifestyle beyond their means. They live their life now, and enjoy what they can afford.
“People are exposed to many messages that encourage them to believe that a change of weight, scent, hair, car, clothes, or many other aspects will produce a marked improvement in their happiness. Our research suggests a moral, and a warning: Nothing that you focus on will make as much difference as you think.” — Daniel Kahneman, behavioral economist
The media you consume, the heroes you follow, all affect and infect your priorities and values.
Desires aren’t “bad”... until they become requirements to happiness. That’s when suffering begins.
Take a look at your credit card or bank statement. It’s filled with products and services that previously, before you knew they existed, used to be optional luxuries. Now, some of those expenditures have become “requirements”.
We need to be careful about the Hedonic Treadmill. Being influenced by social media, watching influencers on Instagram, it’s easy for all of us to keep wanting more to “achieve” happiness.
Instead, perhaps what we need the most is to keep returning, day after day, to an awareness of what brings the most lasting happiness.
It’s not the stuff and experiences and “freedom” that they are selling us.
Without having to change your external circumstances, the possibility of happiness is whispering to you from within, in every moment.
Deep breath. Take a moment to reconnect with whatever is your source of the grandest, most reliable abundance, calling to you now and forever.
And be watchful everyday of who you’re watching, and what definitions of success they are subtly suggesting through their imagery.
It’s often said that we become the average of the 5 people we are around. I think these days, the top 5 creators & influencers you follow will shape your values, ambitions, and definitions of success.
They either strengthen or erode your capacity to be happy.
This is what I wish for all of us: Happiness now. Every day. Whatever your bank balance happens to be. However many social media followers you have or don’t have.
May your happiness arise from the limitless well of creativity and love within you. May it overflow, and bless others around you.
May you therefore serve so meaningfully and lovingly in your work, that others will naturally reciprocate, gratefully, back to you.
With their reciprocity, you’ll then be able to have more things and experiences… but then again, you might discover that you never really needed them.
